Loc Dong: Turning Memories of the Plants of Home into Fragrances for the World

“Being a doctor and making perfume are similar. At their heart, both are about making people happier.”

Loc Dong, interview with ELLE Vietnam, 2016

Born in 1972 in Saigon, South Vietnam, now Ho Chi Minh City.

There was a boy who learned plants by smell while helping a grandfather who practiced herbal medicine. Loc Dong later studied pharmacy in the United States, where work in a fragrance laboratory reawakened a childhood love of plants.

Euphoria, Acqua di Gioia, Olympéa: Dong says that traces of Vietnam can be found even in these creations for global brands. Natural materials and synthetic ingredients, familiarity and strangeness: the sensibility that combines opposites is connected to a life lived across countries and cultures.

A Life in Perfumery

Learning to Identify Plants from a Grandfather

Dong grew up around Saigon. Profiles describe life in a village about thirty kilometers north of the city.

The grandfather was an herbal practitioner who prepared remedies for the villagers. Dong began helping at around six, learning how to identify herbs and plants by smell, gather them, and classify them. Years later, Dong recalled that time in ParfumPlus.

“Growing up with my grandfather is a large part of what made me who I am today.”

Loc Dong, from remarks published by ParfumPlus

This was more than learning plants as information in a field guide. It meant holding them, smelling them, and treating them as something useful to someone. The company’s profile also describes this period of familiarity with tropical plants as the foundation for Dong’s approach to perfumery materials.

At eleven, Dong left Vietnam for the United States. Profiles recount leaving home alone and passing through a refugee camp in Malaysia. From boyhood, Dong experienced major changes in the place, language, and culture of daily life.

How a Pharmacy Student Returned to Fragrance

In the United States, Dong chose to study pharmacy. During those studies, an opportunity arose to work part-time in a fragrance laboratory.

The smells encountered in the laboratory brought back memories of plants and time spent with the grandfather. In ELLE Vietnam, Dong described it as recalling a first love of the smells of herbs and plants.

Medicine and perfume may seem very different paths from the outside. For Dong, however, they were connected by the aim of making people happier. The opening words convey an interest in the person who will use a fragrance, beyond making the fragrance itself beautiful.

In 1992, Dong began a full-fledged career in perfumery at Haarmann & Reimer. The S-Perfume profile describes training in Grasse, New York, Paris, and Germany, as well as study at Créations Aromatiques.

From Haarmann & Reimer to IFF

After about ten years of developing technical skills and practical experience at Haarmann & Reimer, Dong moved to IFF in 2002. Based in New York and Paris, Dong worked there for about twenty years.

Profiles recount support and guidance from Dominique Ropion, Sophia Grojsman, Carlos Benaïm, and others. Ropion and Benaïm in particular became repeated co-perfumers on major creations.

In 2001, Dong created Marc Jacobs’s first women’s fragrance with Steve DeMercado. During the IFF years, work expanded to Elizabeth Arden, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, and other brands.

Alongside designer brands, Dong also created perfumes for Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, and others. The ability to bring different personalities together as scent led to a wide range of work.

A New Journey Beginning at Symrise

In 2023, Dong joined Symrise’s fine-fragrance division as a master perfumer, becoming part of its creative teams in Paris and New York and taking on a role working with international prestige brands.

Haarmann & Reimer later merged with Dragoco to form Symrise. The move was therefore both a new role and a choice with a connection to the starting point of Dong’s career.

On taking up the appointment, Dong described this personal approach.

“By nature, I am an explorer and a risk-taker. I draw inspiration from the people I meet, cultures, and life experiences. My responsibility as a perfumer is to bring something new through my creations.”

Loc Dong, statement on joining Symrise, published by Perfumer & Flavorist, 2023

The company’s head of creation, Véronique Ferval, described Dong’s fragrances as combining a raw sense of nature with a conceptual, abstract outlook.

Perhaps a childhood close to plants and modern fragrance technology are not separate things for Dong. The energy generated by bringing the two together drives creation forward.

A Fragrance That Is Simple and Complete

Asked about the creative method, Dong described it to ELLE Vietnam as “simple but complete,” using travel as an analogy.

“To set out, you need to decide where you are going and what kind of land you want to explore. The adventure that follows is full of unexpected forks in the road. One step becomes the foundation for the next. I begin making a fragrance moved by a strong inspiration, and keep trying until intuition tells me, ‘This is it.’”

Loc Dong, from an interview with ELLE Vietnam, 2016

Simple does not mean effortless. A clear starting point, an acceptance of change through trials, and a search for the point where everything needed fits within a single scent: that is the completeness Dong describes.

According to S-Perfume’s profile, Dong is interested in less common materials and encourages colleagues to consider ingredients from different angles. Familiar with natural plants, Dong has also been praised for innovative use of synthetic materials.

Asked how the homeland appears in the work, Dong answered as follows.

“A trace of Vietnam drifts through every one of my perfumes. My roots gave me a different feeling for materials and a love of combining opposites: the harmony of nature and chemistry, disliked and liked smells, softness and intensity, strangeness and familiarity.”

Loc Dong, from an interview with ELLE Vietnam, 2016

Personal experience appears not just in capturing the plants of home in a bottle, but also in contrasts between materials and the ways they are combined.

Major Creations and Their Backgrounds

Euphoria: A Turning Point Born of Collaboration

Calvin Klein’s Euphoria (2005) was co-created with Benaïm and Ropion. Repeatedly mentioned in profiles, it became one of Dong’s important successes.

It combines juicy fruit, a deep floral impression, and the warmth of amber and woods. Its appeal is bright and accessible, while the part that remains on the skin has depth. It delivered Dong’s characteristic contrasts in a perfume for a major brand.

Dong continued to work on the series, including Euphoria Men (2006) and Euphoria Blossom (2006).

Acqua di Gioia: Watery Impressions and Botanical Brightness

Giorgio Armani’s Acqua di Gioia (2010) was a collaboration with Anne Flipo and Ropion.

Known as an aquatic fragrance with a cooling impression, it is counted among the works that define Dong’s career. His work also expanded in a direction suggesting nature’s sense of openness, unlike the density of Euphoria.

Manifesto: The Presence of Flowers and Vanilla

For Yves Saint Laurent’s Manifesto (2012), Dong collaborated with Flipo. The fragrance gave floral impressions a sweet, warm drydown, creating a powerful presence.

It later developed into Manifesto L’Élixir (2013) and Manifesto Le Parfum (2015). Expanding a single idea while changing concentration or the center of gravity of a scent is also an important part of Dong’s career.

Olympéa: The Salt a Grandmother Used to Dry

Paco Rabanne’s Olympéa (2015), from the brand now known as Rabanne, was a collaboration with Flipo and Ropion. It combined a goddess-like image of womanhood with a salty vanilla accord.

That saltiness is connected to Dong’s childhood memories.

“This perfume has a strong impression of salt. It is a fragrance for an alluring, powerful woman, like a goddess standing at the summit of a sacred mountain in Greek mythology. It began with the memory of my grandmother often drying salt in the backyard long ago.”

Loc Dong, from an interview with ELLE Vietnam, 2016

This does not mean making salt itself smell as a perfume ingredient; it is an olfactory expression that suggests saltiness. A very intimate memory of a grandmother’s garden overlaps with the mythology of a distant land.

Olympéa expanded into Olympéa Aqua, Olympéa Intense, Olympéa Legend, and other versions.

Phantom and Million Gold for Her

For Rabanne’s Phantom in 2021, Dong collaborated with Flipo, Ropion, and Juliette Karagueuzoglou. Familiar elements including lavender, lemon, and vanilla were assembled into a contemporary impression.

For Million Gold for Her in 2024, Dong worked with Aliénor Massenet, Nathalie Benareau, and Suzy Le Helley. A Parfum version followed in 2025.

Alongside work with long-standing collaborators, Dong creates individual fragrances with perfumers of newer generations and different backgrounds.

A Place within the Industry

Specialist publications describe Dong as a pioneering perfumer from Asia who achieved success in international fine fragrance. Some call Dong the industry’s first Asian fine-fragrance perfumer.

This does not mean the first Asian person in all fragrance-making worldwide. It describes the attention Dong has received in a field centered on major Western fragrance companies and international luxury brands.

Understanding Dong’s work surely involves more than that title. It also means recognizing a life of migration and different cultures, through which memories of a grandfather’s herbs and a grandmother’s salt have been connected to perfumes worn around the world.

An Aside…

ELLE Vietnam’s interview also contains an exchange revealing Dong’s humor. Asked who the most powerful woman was, Dong named figures from politics and business before answering that, personally, it was the wife at home.

Remarks about career milestones also suggest that a new cycle has arrived about every ten years, and that Dong has embraced those opportunities. A boy who left home studied in the United States, France, and Germany, and moved onward to another new workplace. Dong seems still to regard that path as a journey.

Perfume Creations

Major works are listed chronologically. A “—” indicates a work for which the reference materials do not name another perfumer.

References

• ELLE Vietnam — Lộc Đồng: Nhà chế tạo nước hoa cao cấp (2016)
• ParfumPlus — Making People Feel Beautiful And More Youthful: Loc Dong
• Perfumer & Flavorist — Master Perfumer Loc Dong Joins Symrise Fine Fragrance Division (2023)
• S-Perfume — Loc Dong
• Almaycasa — Loc Dong
• Isolée — Loc Dong
• BW Confidential — Symrise names Loc Dong Master Perfumer
• The Perfume Girl — Loc Dong
• Fragrantica — Loc Dong
• Parfumo — Loc Dong
• Fragrantica — Heaven Sent, Dana
• Fragrantica — Phantom
• Rabanne — Million Gold for Her, a new feminine signature
• Fragrantica — Million Gold for Her Parfum
• Now Smell This — Laurent Le Guernec
• Scandinavian Mind — Paco Rabanne uses NFC chip and AI with Phantom (2021)