David Apel: The “Cave Painter” Who Draws Fragrance in Broad Strokes

“The most interesting things happen when you discover something no one has done before. To do that, you have to step outside the rules.”

David Apel

From New Jersey, United States.

A part-time job to support his studies in environmental chemistry led to a career creating perfume. David Apel was neither born into a family of perfumers nor intent from the outset on attending perfumery school. Drawn to the materials he encountered in an analytical laboratory, he found his own path from there.

Although he has created widely known fragrances such as Sunflowers and Black Orchid, he likens himself to a “cave painter.” Rather than embellish the details, he wants to convey an impression with a few broad strokes. These candid words reveal much about Apel’s view of perfume.

A Life in Perfumery

Joining a Fragrance Company to Pay for His Studies

Apel grew up in New Jersey and was a boy who enjoyed spending time in nature. Forests and coastlines would recur in his later work. He also describes the rugged New England coast as an important childhood memory. New Jersey and New England are different regions, but memories of both appear in his profiles.

After leaving school, he studied environmental chemistry in evening classes. In 1980, he applied for an entry-level position at Givaudan to help pay his tuition. In an interview with A.N. Other, he explained how he entered the field.

“I was an American kid raised in New Jersey who knew almost nothing, or rather nothing at all, about the world of perfume. While attending evening classes in environmental chemistry, I took a job at a fragrance company to pay for my studies.”

David Apel, from an interview with A.N. Other

His first experience involved handling raw materials and conducting gas-chromatographic analyses. By examining the ingredients of perfumes on the market, he learned how combinations of materials produced complex scents.

But it was not only the numbers in the analytical results that attracted him.

“I fell in love with the raw materials. Exotic, strange gums and resins had astonishingly mysterious names. I was completely drawn in. Somehow they felt familiar, and I could connect them to my own sensations.”

David Apel, from an interview with A.N. Other

Unfamiliar materials, yet somehow known: it was a moment of realizing that he could work professionally with the connections between scent and memory. Learning within the company and receiving guidance from perfumers who took an interest in him, he gradually became a fully fledged perfumer.

Learning through Practice and Heading to Paris

In 1990, he joined the American Society of Perfumers’ apprenticeship program. He systematically revisited the knowledge he had gained on the job, and the following year, in 1991, received the society’s Young Perfumer Award.

His early signature works include Calvin Klein’s Escape for Men (1993) and Elizabeth Arden’s Sunflowers (1993). The former was co-created with Steve DeMercado. These fragrances, suggesting nature’s brightness and expansiveness, helped establish Apel’s name.

From 1993 to 1997, he worked on fine fragrances in Paris. During this period, he joined Fragrance Resources, and after returning to the United States, established the company’s New York creative center.

Someone who had learned through practical work in America was now working with French perfumers. Rather than treating his position as a weakness, he embraced the outsider’s freedom, an attitude that would inform his later work.

“If there is a difference between me and other people, perhaps it is that I still have, now that I am older, the innocence I had as a young perfumer.”

David Apel, from remarks published by What We Do Is Secret

This also expresses a refusal to regard his method as complete. As long as something remains unknown, there is still something to try. Apel has valued that room for exploration.

Returning to Givaudan and Working at Symrise

In 2001, Apel returned to Givaudan as an Executive Perfumer in fine fragrance. His work with Tom Ford, Bond No. 9, Ralph Lauren, Sean John, and others demonstrates the breadth of this period.

He moved to Symrise in 2007. A profile by The Fragrance Foundation UK describes him as Vice President and Senior Perfumer. Based in New York, he has created fragrances for both emerging houses and major commercial brands.

His career, which began in 1980, spans at least 40 years. In 2025, he introduced Kingside for Mind Games. Even as his experience grows, he continues to imagine new fragrances whenever materials or the conditions of creation change.

Drawing Broad Strokes Like a Cave Painter

Apel uses the comparison of a cave painter to explain his creativity. His own words in a profile by What We Do Is Secret clearly express his approach.

“I think of myself as something like a cave painter. I look for broad outlines. Rather than get caught up in detail, I want to speak with two or three big, bold strokes. It is a little naïve, but that is how I like to make perfume.”

David Apel, from remarks published by What We Do Is Secret

He does not simplify because he lacks knowledge of complex materials. Despite years spent examining ingredients in analytical laboratories, he ultimately chooses what he wants to make people feel strongly. He likens that judgment to the brushstrokes of a painting.

The same profile also presents perfume as something that is always a work in progress. Even after a fragrance has been released, thinking about its combinations of materials does not necessarily reach a definitive end.

Sunflowers: Seeing Further Possibilities Even after Success

Sunflowers is an early signature fragrance that combines juicy fruit with bright florals. Impressions of melon, peach, and citrus lead into cyclamen, rose, and jasmine, leaving musk and the warmth of woods behind.

At the time, Apel was strongly drawn to transparent scents evoking the sea and air. Calone, a perfumery material with watery and melon-like qualities, symbolized this interest. Yet after feeling satisfied with his own composition, another perfumer’s fragrance had a profound impact on him.

“When I finished Sunflowers, I was satisfied. But then I smelled L’Eau d’Issey and actually said, ‘Damn, this is what I should have done.’”

David Apel, from remarks published by What We Do Is Secret

His comparison was with Issey Miyake’s L’Eau d’Issey (1992). Rather than denying his own fragrance’s value, he may have found in another person’s work a possibility for the expression he had been pursuing. His refusal to hide frustration even while discussing a success is characteristic of Apel’s candor.

Black Orchid: Outlines of Darkness and Richness

Black Orchid (2006) was the first perfume Tom Ford released under his own brand. Co-created with Pierre Negrin, it became one of the defining fragrances of Apel’s career.

A fantastical image of a black orchid is built with truffle, ylang-ylang, dark fruits, patchouli, vanilla, and other notes. There are facets suggesting earth and dampness within the floral splendor, creating a richness that does not end in sweetness alone.

There is no need to describe every material in the fragrance as an unprecedented invention. Rather, Apel’s sense for broad outlines emerges in the way he establishes a large, dark flower as a complete composition.

In 2022, it entered the US Fragrance Foundation’s Fragrance Hall of Fame. It was recognized not simply for the attention it attracted at launch, but as a fragrance people had worn and loved over many years.

Unforgivable: A Fragrance Created by Four

Sean John’s Unforgivable (2006) is recorded as a collaboration between Apel, Negrin, Aurélien Guichard, and Caroline Sabas.

Its composition moves from citrus and herbs toward calm woody notes. Introductions and reviews appeared in late 2005, and both 2005 and 2006 are recorded as release years, although it is generally treated as a 2006 fragrance. In 2007, it won the Men’s Luxury category at the FiFi Awards.

His ability to create a bright, well-ordered scent so different from Black Orchid is another aspect of Apel’s range. A perfumer’s style is not determined solely by impressions such as rich or light; it changes shape through the brief and conversations with collaborators.

OR/18: Even Work without Restrictions Has Challenges

For A.N. Other’s OR/18 (2018), the starting point was the absence of detailed creative conditions. Apel says that freedom from the raw-material cost limits he would usually have to consider gave him an opportunity to express his own memories and preferences directly.

“I call this fragrance ‘Cannabis Cupcake.’ It really reflects me and my experiences. Rich woods and earthy moss, with a little sweetness. Vanilla, whiskey for warmth, and a cannabis accord.”

David Apel, from an interview with A.N. Other

Cannabis here refers to a scent accord. Its green, herbal impression is linked with woods, moss, and sweet warmth. According to Apel, its greenness also strongly recalls rhubarb.

From the brightness of blood orange and anise to impressions of resins, night flowers, vanilla, and driftwood, the fragrance brings together memories of a rugged coast and a food-like sweetness.

While welcoming the freedom, Apel adds this final observation.

“The real constraint when there is no brief is that you have to create something wonderful.”

David Apel, from an interview with A.N. Other

Precisely because anything is possible, he has to decide for himself what to create. Behind the joking nickname lies a creator’s responsibility.

Poppy Soma: Two Perfumers Portray a Poisonous Flower

Parfums Quartana’s Poppy Soma (2016) was co-created with Emilie Coppermann. According to Symrise’s announcement, the two spent about two years creating it.

The collection explores the beauty and danger associated with poisonous flowers. Poppy Soma layers the bite of pepper and curry leaf with white flowers and rose, and the smoky warmth of incense and resins.

In 2017, it won the Fragrance Foundation’s Perfume Extraordinaire award. The year of release and the year of the award are different, and its creation cannot be treated as the work of Coppermann alone or of Apel alone.

Artificial Intelligence: A New Collaborator

Another interesting aspect of Apel’s work is his collaboration with Philyra, the artificial intelligence system developed by Symrise and IBM Research.

Philyra proposes new combinations using a vast body of existing formulas, relationships between ingredients, and consumer data as clues. Apel’s role was to smell those proposals in practice, adjust them, and finish them as products.

In 2019, the work was commercialized as perfumes for Brazil’s O Boticário. A machine proposed combinations a human might not readily imagine. In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Apel described the experience this way.

“I trained her, and now she is training me.”

David Apel, from an interview with Deutsche Welle

Apel is not presenting Philyra as something that perceives odors in the same sense as a human being. Working with a collaborator that connects ingredients differently from him reveals new possibilities. The curiosity of the young man who was astonished by raw materials continues.

An Aside…

His wife, Sabas, is also a perfumer. Raised in southern France before moving to America, she names Apel in an interview as one of her important mentors. At work they are collaborators; in life they share cooking, painting, travel, and entertaining. According to The Fragrance Foundation UK’s profile, Apel has five children.

The outlook on life he inherited from his father is distinctive, too.

“My motto is, ‘You can always wash dishes.’ Even when my father lost a job or a restaurant closed, he would start again washing dishes and work his way back to being a chef. I always thought that was a good way to look at the world.”

David Apel, from remarks published by What We Do Is Secret

Trying something new requires a sense that one can start again after failure. Seen through this story about his father, Apel’s willingness to step outside fragrance’s rules feels a little different from mere boldness.

Perfume Creations

Principal works are listed chronologically. Notes identify works whose release years differ between sources.

References

• What We Do Is Secret — David Apel
• A.N. Other — David Apel
• The Fragrance Foundation UK — David Apel
• Now Smell This — David Apel: Perfumers
• The Perfume Girl — David Apel
• Fragrantica — David Apel
• Symrise — Symrise receives Fragrance Foundation Award 2017
• Symrise — Breaking new fragrance ground with Artificial Intelligence
• DW — Perfumes created by artificial intelligence
• Fragroom — Caroline Sabas Interview: I’m Up For Any Challenge!
• Perfumer & Flavorist — The Fragrance Foundation Reveals 2022 Award Winners
• Bois de Jasmin — Sean John Unforgivable: Perfume Review
• Fragrantica — London Rain White Jasmine & Mint
• Fragrantica — Kingside
• Now Smell This — Ralph Lauren: Perfume Houses
• Basenotes — Blue by Ralph Lauren