Céline Ellena: A Storyteller Who Writes in Scent

“I prefer to say that we embroider memories, weave bonds, and mend souls.”

Céline Ellena, in words published on her website À Vue de Nez.

A Life in Perfumery

In a Family of Three Generations of Perfumers

Céline Ellena grew up in Grasse in southern France. Her grandfather, Pierre Ellena, was a perfumer at the fragrance company Chiris. Her father is Jean-Claude Ellena, who would later become Hermès’s house perfumer. Her uncle, Bernard Ellena, also works in the same profession.

Fragrance materials and small bottles were always close at hand. Yet that environment did not automatically mean she freely wore whichever perfumes she liked.

In an essay for the specialist fragrance magazine Nez, Céline recalls her tenth birthday. A boy gave her a perfume in a bottle shaped to evoke a honeysuckle flower. She says she would open the bottle to smell it, but never put it on her skin. What would her family say? What would her friends at school think? These thoughts came first.

Knowing about fragrance from an early age and being able to entrust her feelings to it were two things with a little distance between them.

First Studying Words and the Human Mind

Céline did not begin by studying perfumery alone. At Paris V University, she studied linguistics and communication sciences, and psychology, earning two qualifications corresponding to completion of general university studies. Before entering perfumery, she had explored what words communicate and how people receive them.

She subsequently studied at ISIPCA, the specialist school for perfumery, cosmetics, and food flavorings in Versailles, graduating in 1994. She joined Haarmann & Reimer, a fragrance company that would later become part of Symrise’s history.

Her early work was not confined to the glamour of fine fragrance. A Konbini video interview describes her experience scenting shampoos and gels, and even condoms. It was also a period of practical training in how to make a fragrance work within a product.

After about ten years at the company, she moved to Charabot in June 2004. That same year, following her father’s appointment as Hermès’s house perfumer, she took over perfume creation for The Different Company.

On the brand’s official website, she describes her approach as follows.

“I compose perfumes with the aim of making the best possible scent, without constraints of cost or marketing.”

Céline Ellena, The Different Company’s official “The Creators” page.

Working in the same place as her father did not mean repeating his creations. At this brand, Céline turned her own questions into perfumes, including salty vetiver, a chypre without moss, and a light amber.

A Perfume That Gave Intuition Free Rein

Two unforgettable fragrances are important in considering Céline’s creative work: Thierry Mugler’s Angel (1992) and Issey Miyake’s Le Feu d’Issey (1998).

In her own essay for Nez, she recalls seeing male perfumers direct harsh words at Angel while women actually began buying it. Established judgments and the feelings of those wearing the scent did not necessarily point in the same direction.

She then writes about encountering Le Feu d’Issey.

“This perfume was like a tightly packed ball of different emotions, and it was not rational at all. Suddenly, it gave me permission to free myself from classical forms. Since then, my mind has loosened the reins on intuition.”

Céline Ellena, contribution to Nez, written in December 2022 and published in January 2023.

Perfume, which she had studied and analyzed intellectually, became something that moved her heart. Such experiences lie behind her way of describing scent not simply as a structure but as a story.

After Independence, Hearing a House Breathe

Following the reorganization of Charabot and Robertet, Céline became independent in 2010 and founded NeZeN. She left Paris with her family for the area near Grasse, moving her activities to Cabris and then Spéracèdes.

For someone accustomed to the sounds of a city, a quiet life was not immediately peaceful. When she later presented her home fragrances for Hermès, she said that after moving, she had not known what to do with the silence.

As she listened and smelled attentively, however, she realized that there was movement within the quiet. The sounds of the house, the suggestion of rain, the air entering through a window: such everyday experiences underpinned the 2014 collection.

Chroniques Olfactives, the writing she had been publishing since 2009, was not a hobby separate from her creative work. Encountering a scent, putting it into words, and constructing it as another fragrance: for Céline, writing and composing perfume are neighboring activities.

Creative Philosophy: Turning Everyday Memories into Fragrant Stories

Writing with the Nose as Well as the Pen

J.U.S Parfums introduces Céline as someone who tells fragrant stories inspired by daily life, writing with her nose as she does with a pen.

The olfactory workshops she runs, À Vue de Nez, extend this approach. They are not tests to identify a pleasant scent correctly, but places to encounter smells, engage with materials, and discover one’s own emotions and preferences.

The opening words about embroidering memories and weaving bonds explain this work. Rather than considering perfume a correct answer imposed from outside, she sees it as something connected with its wearer’s life and memories.

Shifting the Center of a Classic

Céline’s work includes experiments in deliberately setting aside the conventions that define a fragrance family.

The Different Company’s Sublime Balkiss (2008) was introduced as a chypre composed without oakmoss. In Oriental Lounge (2009), which followed, she explored an amber expression that did not place vanilla at its center.

Removing something is not the goal in itself. Can a fragrance family’s appeal come across without relying on a particular material? Reconsidering that question gives a familiar scent a different expression.

For L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Côte d’Amour (2009), meanwhile, she worked with a formula of naturally derived ingredients and the requirements of Ecocert certification. Some projects use only natural materials; others make use of synthetic ingredients. Her approach suggests choosing according to what she wants people to feel, rather than letting a material’s origins alone determine the creative possibilities.

Resembling Her Father, Without Being the Same

In a review of the Hermès home fragrances, Denyse Beaulieu of the perfume criticism website Grain de Musc discusses their affinity with Céline’s father’s aesthetics: lightness of materials, avoidance of clichés, and poetic simplicity. Yet Beaulieu also says they are not variations on Céline’s father’s Hermès creations.

The two, familiar with the same places, family, and materials, may well share resonances. Even so, what Céline remembers and which scenes she wants to turn into scent are her own.

Major Creations and Their Backgrounds

Sel de Vétiver: The Memory of the Sea Left on Skin

The Different Company introduced Sel de Vétiver in 2006. One of its reported inspirations is the sensation of salt drying on the skin after swimming in the sea.

The brightness of grapefruit and cardamom meets a dry scent suggesting vetiver roots. Adding an impression of salt evokes the sea without making the perfume merely watery.

Victoria Frolova of the perfume criticism website Bois de Jasmin praises the layering of a sheer veil of transparent spice with earthy vetiver. Rather than depicting a single material, it brings skin, air, and evaporating water together into a landscape. It is an important work for understanding Céline’s character as a perfumer.

De Bachmakov: Russia Through Texture Rather Than Weight

De Bachmakov (2010) arose from the Russian roots of the brand’s art director, Thierry de Baschmakoff, and the France–Russia cultural exchange year of 2010.

Its name does not come from a street in Saint Petersburg. Its starting point is the personal history of someone who helped shape the brand.

Here, Céline explored powderiness without sweetness, a smooth, matte mineral texture. Rather than associating the vast subject of Russia only with luxury and grandeur, she expressed it through a subtle balance of coolness and softness.

Le Parfum de la Maison: Smelling with Attentive Ears

Introduced in 2014, Hermès’s Le Parfum de la Maison consists of five home fragrances created by Céline.

Denyse Beaulieu reports her words at the launch.

“Every house has its own way of breathing. It rustles and creaks.”

Céline Ellena, at the launch of Hermès’s home fragrances, 2014.

She also described fragrances for interiors in these terms.

“An interior fragrance is a smell we listen to closely. An olfactory whisper that makes us want to slip away somewhere. With that scent, the mind floats into the air.”

Céline Ellena, at the same launch.

Des Pas sur la Neige, meaning footsteps in the snow; Temps de Pluie, depicting a time of rain; Fenêtre Ouverte, an open window; Champ Libre, open fields; and À Cheval!

Each was given a color and a scene, and offered in vessels by designer Guillaume Bardet, horse-shaped paper objects, candles, and other forms. Rather than merely filling a room with a powerful scent, the collection aims to gently stir the imagination of the people within it.

La Belle Saison: The Sensation of Spring Falling Around You

The arrival of spring became the theme of Houbigant’s La Belle Saison (2020).

In the brand’s official introduction, Céline says:

“When the arrival of spring envelops us as lightly as a shower of feathers: that is the scent of La Belle Saison.”

Céline Ellena, Houbigant’s official “La Belle Saison” page.

Impressions of mimosa, orange blossom, and lily of the valley join a softness suggesting apricot blossom. Sandalwood and musk support that lightness.

Botticelli’s painting Primavera, or Spring, is also among the images presented by the brand. Rather than emphasizing the contours of a particular flower, the intention is to clothe the wearer in the light and air of the flowering season. The quotation’s “shower of feathers” conveys that distinction.

Atelier Ellena: Three Chapters Written by Father and Daughter

Their collaboration as father and daughter also took shape as Atelier Ellena. Born from their relationship with 100BON founder Christophe Bombana, the collection was introduced in late 2021 with Désir, meaning desire, as its theme.

100BON describes the collaboration as follows.

“Today, Jean-Claude and Céline Ellena want to share perfumes that are carnal, spontaneous, and full of sensitivity, inspired by their own lives.”

100BON’s official “Perfume Waters by Atelier Ellena” page, the brand’s introduction to the two perfumers.

Its three chapters are Musc & Jasmin, Vétiver & Iris, and Ambre & Tonka. Sensations of childhood, past love, and intimate desire are entrusted to different combinations of materials.

Some perfume databases credit only the father, but the brand describes the series as four-handed creations by father and daughter. It can be understood as a joint project in which two people, each with a body of individual work, addressed shared subjects.

Incidentally…

• She names Chanel’s Bois des Îles (1926) among her favorite perfumes. Alongside Le Feu d’Issey, it is a work she has discussed when explaining her own sensibility.
• She is also interested in the work of abstract painter Pierre Soulages. For Nez issue 4, she contributed an olfactory essay inspired by Outrenoir, the series exploring black and light.
• She appears with her father in Sabine Chabbert’s book on food and perfumers, La Cuisine des nez (2010). It includes a recipe for pork fillet baked in pastry.
• Her own website also presents plans for a perfume collection called L&Na! / elle&Na! Alongside composing perfume, she is expanding the ways she communicates scent through writing, workshops, and plans for her own brand.

Perfume Creations

Release years are based on initial announcements and perfume databases. The three 100BON works are presented by the brand as a joint father-and-daughter collection.

References

• Hermès Le Parfum de la Maison by Céline Ellena: “Scents we listen to”
• Jean-Claude Ellena – Wikipedia
• Céline Ellena, French perfumer and daughter of Jean-Claude Ellena
• Céline Ellena : « Et puis Le Feu d’Issey est apparu, un truc …
• A Vue de Nez – Les Ateliers Parfumns par Céline Ellena
• Son nez est son outil de travail ! Céline Ellena crée des parfums dans son atelier – elle est nez. Elle explique son métier, ses inspirations et comment elle joue avec les molécules pour confectionner des odeurs ! – Vidéo Dailymotion
• The creators – The Different Company
• Céline Ellena – J.U.S Parfums
• Perfume waters by Atelier Ellena – 100BON
• The Different Company Oriental Lounge ~ fragrance review
• L’Artisan Cote d’Amour ~ new fragrance
• The Different Company Sel de Vetiver fragrance review
• The Different Sel de Vetiver : Perfume Review – Bois de Jasmin
• The Different Company De Bachmakov ~ fragrance review
• The Different Company de Bachmakov- Bloodlines As Deep As The …
• Hermès launches first home fragrances collection – LUXUO
• La Belle Saison
• Céline Ellena, auteur sur Nez
• Noses profiled in the kitchen… and beyond: La Cuisine des Nez
• Parfumo — Céline Ellena
• The Perfume Girl — Céline Ellena
• Auparfum / Nez — L’atelier Ellena et 100BON : trois parfums nommés désir, 2021
• Stephan Matthews — EGLANTINE by Fragonard, 2022
• Now Smell This — Fragonard Narcisse, 2023
• ScentAdvice — Pivoine Souveraine, 2023