Frassaï: From Argentina to the World, a Philosophy of Slow Perfumery

“Perfume is an experience best savored slowly.”
(Perfume is an experience to be savored slowly.)
— Natalia Outeda, founder of Frassaï

Basic Information
The Founder and the Origins of the Brand
What Defines the Brand
The Fragrance Lineup
As an Aside…

Basic Information

Founded: 2013 (Buenos Aires)
Founder: Natalia Outeda
Based in: Buenos Aires, Argentina / Northern Italy
Official website: https://frassai.com

The brand name “FRASSAÏ” is a coined word combining the English word “fragrance” with “assai.” “Assai” refers to an assay used to measure the purity of metals, and the founder says that the name expresses her aspiration toward “purity of fragrance.” In Italian, “assai” is also an adverb meaning “very,” and is used in musical terminology, for example Presto assai, meaning “very fast.”

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

A Girlhood in Buenos Aires

Natalia Outeda was born in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. She says she grew up surrounded by the sensory worlds of dance, cooking, and floral design. She describes her deepest scent memories as follows.

“My earliest scent memories are of the trees in my neighborhood: madreselva, or honeysuckle, and tilo, or linden. There was a little bridge on the way to school, always covered with leaves, flowers, and branches. I remember the smell of damp earth, and a slight sense of awe as I walked across it.”
— Natalia Outeda

She moved to New York as a teenager and spent her youth there. While studying design at the Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), she had an encounter that would shape her future.

La Grenouille: Formative Experiences of Flowers, Food, and Beauty

As a student in New York, Natalia began working at La Grenouille. One of Manhattan’s most distinguished French restaurants, it is a legendary place once frequented by Salvador Dalí, Greta Garbo, and Charlie Chaplin, and where Saint-Exupéry is said to have written part of The Little Prince upstairs. Its owner, Charles Masson, also ran a floral-design business, and Natalia became involved in the flower work there as well.

“La Grenouille had the most wonderful flower arrangements I had ever seen. The scent of that dining room is still with me. My sensitivity to texture, color, and volume was refined there, and it informs my creative work today.”
— Natalia Outeda

She later reflected on those experiences in these words.

“In New York, I worked in the studio of a very famous floral designer, someone who created flowers for the Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the opera. The same owner also ran an exquisite French delicatessen. There were few items, but every one was the very best. What I learned there was that true luxury means doing simple things in the most beautiful possible way.”
— Natalia Outeda

Her immersion in the ephemeral worlds of flowers and food would eventually lead her to another fleeting art: perfume.

From Quest International to Givaudan: Discovering the World of Scent

In 2005, Natalia joined the New York office of the fragrance company Quest International. She has repeatedly described her entry into the perfume industry as a chance encounter.

“I had never felt passionate about perfume until I began working in the industry in 2005. I wore Diva, Cristalle, and Ysatis, but I had nothing I could call a signature scent. As soon as I entered the industry, though, a completely new world opened up. Seeing behind the scenes, testing things every day, and becoming part of this secretive world was fascinating.”
— Natalia Outeda

Her first assignment at Quest was the account for Bath & Body Works, which was then growing rapidly. Surrounded by vast numbers of body lotions and shower gels, she spent her days rigorously developing her perfumery skills and sense of smell. At this workplace, she met two perfumers who would later create fragrances for Frassaï: Rodrigo Flores-Roux (in Japanese) and Yann Vasnier (in Japanese). At the time, she says, she could never have imagined that at least a decade later they would be making perfumes for her own brand.

In 2007, Quest was acquired by Givaudan (in Japanese), the world’s largest fragrance company. After the merger, Natalia became an evaluator and began working more closely with perfumers. An evaluator is a specialist who assesses the trials created by perfumers, checks their alignment with the client’s brief, and provides feedback.

“After moving to Givaudan and becoming an evaluator, my work brought me closer to the perfumers. There was always something to learn from every perfumer, and I also worked hard to teach myself perfumery. Learning on the job can be frightening at times, but it is immensely rewarding to grow while immersed in creation and dealing directly with clients.”
— Natalia Outeda

At Givaudan, she handled major clients such as L’Oréal and P&G, contributing to the development of global-brand fragrances including Ralph Lauren’s Polo Red and Big Pony #4 (perfumer: Olivier Gillotin) and Kiehl’s Orange Flower & Lychee (perfumer: Yann Vasnier).

Yet despite evaluating hundreds or thousands of perfumes, Natalia says she never found a scent she could wholeheartedly call her own.

Returning to Buenos Aires: The Birth of Frassaï

“A longing to create something I truly loved, and a desire to live at a slower pace: those two things led me from New York to Buenos Aires.”
— Natalia Outeda

In 2012, Natalia decided to return to her hometown of Buenos Aires. It was a choice to leave the glamorous frontline of New York’s perfume industry and reconnect with her own roots. After returning, her first venture was jewelry. She fashioned tiny perfume flacons into pendants, handcrafting objets d’art that brought jewelry and fragrance together. Frassaï was born in 2013 from this work.

In 2015, she introduced a collection of scented candles inspired by legendary musical artists. Named Bebel and Gustav, among others, the candle series was also an experimental project that preceded the perfume collection.

Then, in late 2017, she finally unveiled her first eau de parfum collection. Beginning with jewelry, passing through candles, and arriving at perfume, this gradual progression might itself be said to embody her philosophy of “slow perfumery.”

“Moving from working at the world’s largest fragrance company to connecting directly with the people who wear my perfumes has been immeasurably rewarding. There is a sense of community through the brand. I want Frassaï to be approachable and inclusive.”
— Natalia Outeda

Natalia took no outside investment when founding the brand. Frassaï is an independently owned business, and she continues to create at her own pace, guided by intuition rather than the pressures of a marketing calendar.

“Running an independent brand allows me to evolve at my own pace, create without following a marketing calendar, and focus on creativity and quality rather than numbers. That slow approach is what I enjoy most.”
— Natalia Outeda

Praise from Luca Turin and International Expansion

Early praise from the internationally renowned perfume critic Luca Turin gave Frassaï’s launch a powerful boost. Beginning at Argentina’s “end of the world,” the brand has now expanded its distribution to the United States, countries across Europe, and Asia, including Japan.

In Japan, the brand is stocked by NOSE SHOP. In April 2024, a brand event was held at the Argentine Embassy in Hiroo, Tokyo, with an introduction by Ambassador Eduardo Tempone. Frassaï also exhibited at Esxence in Milan in March 2025, steadily strengthening its presence in the European market.

What Defines the Brand

The Philosophy of Slow Perfumery

At the heart of Frassaï is the idea of “slow perfumery.” It applies the principles of slow food and slow living to fragrance creation, summed up in the attitude “fewer, better perfumes.”

In practice, the fragrance oils undergo several weeks of aging, or maturation (in Japanese), followed by at least three weeks of maceration. No deadlines are set for new releases, and production takes place in exceptionally small batches of 400–500 bottles.

“I never intended to release a hundred perfumes at once and insist that they were all my own work. Authenticity and transparency are important pillars of Frassaï.”
— Natalia Outeda

Materials Nurtured by the Land of Argentina

Frassaï’s perfumes make frequent use of ingredients native to Argentina. Representative examples include yerba mate (in Japanese), aguaribay (Schinus molle, a type of pink pepper), and palo santo (“holy wood”) (in Japanese). For Natalia, using these materials is both a tribute to her homeland and a way of bringing a fresh South American perspective to a perfume industry centered on France.

More recently, the brand has actively adopted Pure Jungle Essence™, developed by the French fragrance company MANE (in Japanese). This innovative, environmentally friendly supercritical CO2 extraction technique draws essences with aromas remarkably close to fresh flowers from materials such as cardamom (in Japanese), lavender (in Japanese), and black pepper (in Japanese). These extracts appear in recent creations including Ajedrez and Dormir al Sol.

Bottle and Packaging Design

Frassaï’s bottles use Italian-made glass paired with wooden caps. Natalia is said to have fallen in love with this glass at first sight, while the richness of the wooden caps’ texture is intended to emphasize an experience that appeals to all five senses.

Their most distinctive feature is a label placed diagonally across the corner of the bottle.

“I placed the label diagonally to play with shape and perception. It makes the bottle look completely new. Incidentally, Balmain was the first to use a corner label in perfume.”
— Natalia Outeda

The outer boxes are deliberately thinner than those of other niche brands, and cellophane wrapping has been eliminated. Limited editions use cedarwood boxes designed to encourage reuse. All products are certified vegan, cruelty-free (not tested on animals), and paraben-free.

Collaborating with Perfumers

Natalia does not call herself a perfumer. She explicitly says that she cannot use that title because she has never attended perfumery school. Yet her long career as an evaluator at Givaudan has given her an unusual advantage over other brand owners: an intimate understanding of perfumers’ individual habits and strengths.

Frassaï’s fragrances are co-created with the perfumer best suited to each work, while Natalia directs the entire process as creative director. Her collaborators so far include Olivier Gillotin, Yann Vasnier, Rodrigo Flores-Roux, Roxanne Kirkpatrick, Irina Burlakova, and Ralf Schwieger (in Japanese).

“What matters is not how long a perfumer has been in the profession, but who will best understand my concept. I have worked with these people for years, so I know their personalities well too. The freedom to bring natural materials and high-quality ingredients into open-ended ideas is a tremendous advantage.”
— Natalia Outeda

The Fragrance Lineup

As of 2025, Frassaï’s perfume collection comprises eleven creations. All are genderless eaux de parfum, and each is based on Natalia’s personal memories or stories. They can broadly be divided into three periods.

The Early Collection (2017–2018)

The first five creations marked Frassaï’s starting point. They grew out of a reunion with perfumer colleagues from her New York years.

Tian Di (2017 / Olivier Gillotin) — The name means “heaven and earth” in Chinese. An oriental-woody fragrance embodying the balance of yin and yang, inspired by tai chi and the Taoist legend of an immortal peach tree in the Kunlun Mountains that bears fruit once every 3,000 years.
Verano Porteño (2017 / Rodrigo Flores-Roux) — Named after Astor Piazzolla’s tango of the same name. Jasmine, bergamot, cardamom, and Argentine yerba mate evoke a summer evening in Buenos Aires.
Blondine (2017 / Yann Vasnier) — A floral gourmand inspired by a French fairy tale, pairing a salted-butter caramel and cocoa absolute accord with tiger lily. Frassaï’s bestseller.
A Fuego Lento (2018 / Rodrigo Flores-Roux) — Meaning “over a low flame.” It envelops the sensuality of jasmine sambac blooming in a late-night milonga, or tango dance hall, in civet and tolu balsam.
Teisenddu (2018 / Roxanne Kirkpatrick) — Its name means “cake” in Welsh. It grew from memories of Natalia’s grandmother baking torta galesa, the “black Welsh cake” brought by Welsh immigrants who traveled to Patagonia in 1865, among them Natalia’s great-grandfather. Characterized by the warmth of rum, spices, and leather, it was commissioned from a female perfumer because of Natalia’s firm conviction that “a woman’s story should be made by a woman.”

The El Sur Collection (2020)

A three-fragrance series whose name means “the south,” created entirely in collaboration with perfumer Irina Burlakova. Celebrating Argentina’s nature and landscapes, it was also designed with layering (in Japanese), or wearing scents together, in mind.

Rosa Sacra — Grasse rose and palo santo evoke a sacred flower.
El Descanso — Wheat fields in the Pampas and a moment of “rest” beneath the shade of an ombú tree. Its key note is an unusual material, bran absolute (a solvent extract of wheat bran).
Cuir Pampas — A scent of horsemen riding across the Pampas, combining a gaucho’s leather with mate tea and black pepper.

Recent Releases (2022 Onward)

Victoria (2022 / Irina Burlakova) — A tribute to the Argentine writer and editor Victoria Ocampo, distinguished by the bold contrast between creamy tuberose and opulent oud.
Dormir al Sol (2024 / Irina Burlakova) — Meaning “to sleep in the sun.” Mimosa absolute, forest pepper, and saffron depict a dreamlike scene in which time seems to stand still. Its title comes from Argentine writer Adolfo Bioy Casares’s 1973 novel, although there is no connection to the novel’s content.
Ajedrez (2025 / Ralf Schwieger) — Spanish for “chess.” An aromatic fragrance of lavender, orris, tobacco, and amber woods, imagining a dimly lit room of chess players in the 1960s. It is also a tribute to Natalia’s grandfather.

“A master chess player enters a state of deep concentration, almost a form of meditation. I wanted to capture that slowly flowing time in a perfume.”
— Natalia Outeda

As an Aside…

Natalia says the first perfume she received was Chanel (in Japanese)’s Cristalle, while the first she bought for herself was Givenchy (in Japanese)’s Ysatis.
She practices tai chi, an internal martial art encompassing qigong, which also provided inspiration for Tian Di.
Silvina Ocampo, the wife of Bioy Casares, whose novel supplied the title Dormir al Sol, was the youngest sister of Victoria Ocampo, the muse for Frassaï’s Victoria. It is intriguing that two Frassaï creations are linked like sisters within the world of Argentine literature.
Natalia’s grandparents were educators who founded several schools in Tierra del Fuego and Chubut Province in southern Argentina. These deep ties to Patagonia connect directly to the story of Welsh immigration behind Teisenddu.
In a 2020 interview, Natalia revealed that she was a big fan of Terrace House, the Japanese show distributed worldwide on Netflix. In 2024, she fulfilled her wish to visit Japan for the first time and held an event at the Argentine Embassy in Tokyo.