Updated January 9, 2023
Perfume and Marketing
When you work for a designer brand, you can never be 100% satisfied with what you have created. That is because, before you reach the final process, you have to satisfy so many people: people in offices around the world, executives, marketing, and sales. Getting approval from every department in time to meet the deadline becomes a major task.
Kilian Hennessy
If one day I gained the power to change something, I would ban the consumer tests and pronouncements by experts that standardize and confine the world of perfume. And I would give creators confidence.
Christine Nagel
Market testing is “nothing more than an anti-anxiety drug to calm the anguish of failure, and of course taking it does not cure you.”
Jean-Claude Ellena
Advertising can only say, “This product exists.” It cannot say anything more than that. If you smell a fragrance and something happens between you and that perfume, that is emotion. Get a sample and try it on your own skin. If you like it on your skin, you can buy it. Perfume is like love, so do not rush; take your time. As with love, it is not good to hurry it.
Jean-Claude Ellena
Marketing people can be your best friends or your worst enemies, but you have to explain things to them. And this, too, is pedagogy.
Mathilde Laurent
Layering Perfume
(Layering two perfumes) is not something I would generally recommend. A perfume is formulated with 100 or more fragrance materials. A skilled perfumer arranges them in an exquisite balance to create a pleasant scent. Adding a material at as little as one part in 100,000 can dramatically change the fragrance. Each is a finished scent, so combining two or more disrupts that balance. For example, even if both are delicious, mixing curry and sukiyaki together would ruin them both, wouldn’t it? Apart from products such as perfume sets designed for you to mix yourself, it is better to enjoy fine perfumes one at a time.
Satori Osawa
In fact, I think layering is for people who have run out of things to create or invent. They invent layering precisely because so many people want it. I often say, “People have the right to experiment with perfume.” They have the right to try perfumes. But a manufacturer that tells you to “layer it” with absolutely everything is a manufacturer that has lost its way.
Mathilde Laurent
Perfume and Art
If I were to compare it with another art, my way of making perfume is like that of a sculptor. Perfume is a living sculpture.
Antoine Lie
(Is perfume art?) I do not think so, because the definition of art is something unique that cannot be reproduced. Besides, it is not for us to pronounce on the matter.
Calice Becker
As many people believe, perfumery is art, not science. Scientific knowledge is not necessary for a perfumer. Scientific knowledge can sometimes even obstruct the freedom required in creating perfume.
Jean Carles
For me, perfume is art. It is a work of art and a work of the mind. It is intellectual. Before it is put into a bottle, it exists as a written formula. The perfume industry is isolated. But niche brands such as Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle are changing that. Malle acts as a curator of scent, positioning perfume as art. I consider perfume art. I strive to practice it as art. I seek beauty and express olfactory beauty.
Mathilde Laurent
For me, perfume is art. You can make a perfume with no artistry, or one that is nothing but artistry. You have to find your own level of art according to what you want to do and where you are. In some environments, you may not be able to put 50% or more art into it, and I can understand that, but there may also be environments where you can put in 100%.
Mathilde Laurent
With “perfume,” the only advantage is that everyone can wear it.
Mathilde Laurent
It is important that everything exists. It matters that there are 10-euro perfumes and 1,000-euro perfumes. The problem now is that you can buy a 500-euro perfume and receive only 10 euros’ worth of value. That is outrageous, and I oppose it. That said, I think it is wonderful that you can find extremely cheap perfume in any supermarket. It is the same with art: you can spend several million yen on a Picasso, or buy a 50-cent picture postcard in a gift shop. That is fine. Art is everywhere. What is outrageous in this industry is that, because perfume is abstract and there is little information, there are so many superficial fakes or very expensive things based on positioning alone. There is no respect for the consumer or for perfume. It makes me angry. There is no dignity in it at all.
Picasso said, “Art is a lie that tells the truth,” and perfume is one of the arts. Perfume is a lie. But it is trying to tell the truth. I replaced “art” with “perfume” and wrote it on the wall.
Mathilde Laurent
Perfume is absolutely not about memory and sex. Perfume is beauty and intellect. Perfume is not a smell but a message bottled up. And that message is written by the perfumer and read by the person who smells it.
Luca Turin
The age of art perfume is now beginning. [Passage omitted.] Perfume for collectors, for people interested in the many messages perfume can convey and in how wearing perfume can change the way we live and think. Such people have no interest in a “signature fragrance.” These days, perfume has become capable of telling short stories and long ones. It can smell strange or so unsettling that you want to turn away; it can play with timbres and melodies, evade or break gender boundaries, and boldly assert a concept of beauty.
Tania Sanchez
(Do you consider perfume to be art?) No, but the perfume industry is. That is because a bottle of perfume sitting on a museum shelf says nothing. For me, art is visual, and scent is not. Scent is something you cannot understand until you open it, wear it, and experience it.
Francis Kurkdjian
Certainly, artistic sensitivity is fundamental to composing a fragrance. You need the right techniques to manage its diffusion, longevity, and evolution.
When I teach perfumery, I try to explain to my students that perfume as it is bottled and sold in shops such as Liberty is not art. First, the price of art is not determined by the price of its materials. So when I see brands justifying the price of a bottle by saying, “We have the most expensive rose, we have the most expensive iris,” I have my doubts. Second, Kant said, “Art is not the representation of a lovely thing, but the lovely representation of a thing.” It means that, as an artist, your sources of inspiration can be as varied as you wish. Tell me the name of a popular, famous fragrance inspired by old women, blood, war, depravity, or homosexuality.
Francis Kurkdjian
And the third point?
Longevity. Perfume has to be in step with its time. It is not about yesterday or today, and it must not be too nostalgic. You can still make nostalgic perfumes. How about making perfumes that smell like elderly ladies, like Roja Dove’s mother, as he does? But if you become too avant-garde, perfume is not like an artwork that you can leave in your basement for years. So with perfume, you have to find the right fit in the right place. Fourth is the secrecy surrounding formulas. It is a major problem. If perfume is art, you should be able to patent it like any other art. But you cannot. And nobody wants to.
What Is Perfume? What Is Scent?
The more you seek to master it, the more scent captivates you. It lives within the heart and becomes central to us.
Edmond Roudnitska
When you smell cognac, just as when you smell wine, you talk about red berries, yellow fruits, moss, and wood, but the vocabulary is small and does not expand. In perfumery, however, there are 3,000 scents, so the vocabulary is very large and more complex.
Kilian Hennessy
I do not seek mystery or complexity. I prefer clarity and things that can be understood. Giving understanding means showing pleasure.
Jean-Claude Ellena
Even if you can read a perfume formula and know its aromatic molecules, that alone does not allow you to understand everything about it. Only those who can sense poetry, music, landscapes, and texture beyond the scent can remain with it for a lifetime.
Satori Osawa
Scent is a treasure hunt through life.
Carlos Benaïm
Perfume is poetic, not conceptual. It touches the heartstrings, moves us, stimulates the imagination, and lets us feel emotion, pleasure, and the joy of being alive. Like armor, perfume can also be a protective bubble for keeping others away; conversely, it can project a desire to seduce, to be seen, and to show oneself. But without someone to wear it, it is nothing. Whether rich or restrained, it exists only through how it is used and speaks to the senses.
Christine Nagel
Above all, perfume is about emotion. I create perfume to move people on an emotional level. But I like the idea of universal freedom.
Christine Nagel
Perfume becomes part of you. For a woman, it is intimate. Buying it means buying something that will truly become “you.” When you pass through a room, the perfume remains. Perfume is unchanging.
Jacques Polge
I liked the poetic idea that scent is a kind of language. Scent does not use words. It does not use images. It is invisible. All of those qualities made sense to me.
Jacques Polge
Scent is a kind of poetry. It says no words, yet gives us so much.
Jacques Polge
Perfume must take you somewhere. If that essential element is missing, it cannot transcend time.
Jacques Polge
Odors are words, and perfume is literature.
Jean-Claude Ellena
A perfume must be completely thought through. You have to consider it from every angle. Then you begin making it, using perfect materials. Cost is not an issue. You apply the idea to the most wonderful materials.
Jean-Claude Ellena
Picasso once said, “Art is a fiction that tells the truth.” For me, that is exactly what perfume is. I create illusions and make them feel more real than reality.
Jean-Claude Ellena
Perfume is art. Technique matters, but technique without artistry means nothing. And art without technique makes no sense either.
Jean-Claude Ellena
To appreciate a perfume, you have to know its background.
Jean-Claude Ellena
Scent is invisible. But, just like a photograph, it can become a good memory.
Miya Shinma
The mystery and appeal of perfume lie in the emotional connection experienced by the wearer.
Miya Shinma
Perfume has an endless connection with the power to evoke a variety of sensations, because it always expresses the dreams of the person wearing it.
Dominique Ropion
Perfume is a kind of message about beauty. It can move you very deeply and emotionally, and you can express yourself through the perfume you wear. It can become part of your identity and personality. When you decide to wear perfume, it becomes part of you, and when you are wearing it, it is trying to say something to other people.
Dominique Ropion
A beautiful perfume must contain something startlingly new, but it must also be easy to understand.
Ralf Schwieger
Perfume is a child. Making it requires two things: indulging it and educating it. So, for me, its launch is almost like a birth. After that, you have to let it live for as long as possible.
Maurice Roucel
For me, perfume is, above all, emotion. One of scent’s distinctive qualities is that it is one of the senses that envelops us completely in a blanket of personal memories. Indeed, scent has a unique ability to evoke memories of moments engraved in the heart.
Michel Almairac
Perfume is a powerful magician that takes you traveling through time to the days you have lived.
Helen Keller
Every plant is a lamp, and perfume is the light.
Victor Hugo
Perfume is an invisible, unforgettable, stylish accessory. It announces that you have arrived and stays behind even after you have left.
Coco Chanel
God created scents, and humankind created perfume.
Jean Giono
Perfume must be light to wear and, at the same time, carry a weighty meaning.
Paco Rabanne
Perfume is the brother of breath.
Yves Saint Laurent
If love is a sin, a good perfume is something that urges you to commit that sin.
Jean-Paul Guerlain
Perfume is like a work of the mind. You can use any colors you like for a painting, but what matters is its artistic value.
Thierry Wasser
Perfume and Learning
I look to the past a great deal, because the past is history and history tends to repeat itself. Not in exactly the same way, but the values do not change. That is why I think it is so important to understand history, study it, and learn more.
Francis Kurkdjian
Finding a Perfume
A person’s taste, or sensibility, is enhanced through constantly refining the self in depth. Is that not the same as encountering painting and sculpture, or opening your heart to music and literature? Improving yourself is the path to finding a perfume that is good for you. When you know yourself deeply, the scent that suits you best will naturally become clear.
Edmond Roudnitska
Perfume and Evaluation
When you look at a Chanel jacket, examine the details, and touch it, you can feel its texture and quality. With fragrance, however, it is very abstract and invisible. Even when you spray it into the air, you see nothing. Its quality is difficult to judge. But how long it lasts, its depth, and the pleasure of wearing it are part of its quality.
Thierry Wasser
Perfume and New Technology
What AI gives me is time to explore new olfactory territories, visions, and approaches.
Honorine Blanc
