JUL ET MAD Paris: A House That Captures a Love Story in Fragrance

“If we had to sum up the essence of our perfumes in one word, it would be ‘Honesty.’ That is because our fragrances are born from genuine stories lived by real people.”
— Madalina Stoica-Blanchard (co-founder)

Basic Information

• Founded: 2012
• Founders: Julien Blanchard & Madalina Stoica-Blanchard
• Official website: juletmad.com

The Founders and the Origins of the House

Two Very Different Lives

The story of JUL ET MAD Paris begins where two entirely different paths through life intersect.

Madalina Stoica grew up in Valea Mare-Pravăț, a mountain village in Romania’s Carpathians. After graduating from a secondary school specializing in teacher training, her life took an unexpected turn. A scholarship took her to the United States, where she excelled in the Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing program at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), part of the State University of New York. While still a student, she sold perfume at retail counters, meeting customers from every cultural background. She has said that this experience sharpened “a real-world perspective that marketing research cannot provide.”

Julien Blanchard, meanwhile, was born in Paris. After earning a master’s degree in neuroscience and a doctorate in biology, he researched the brain’s sensory mechanisms. He later left fundamental research for technology and communications. A serial entrepreneur, he founded several communications companies specializing in science. A backpacker who trekked through Nepal’s Annapurna mountains, he was equally at home at a Parisian soirée: a “Dandy Parisien” with a taste for adventure.

A Fateful Evening in Saint-Germain

The two met one evening in May 2004 at a restaurant terrace in Paris’s Saint-Germain district. Madalina, then living in New York, was visiting Paris and having dinner alone. She later recalled the encounter in an interview.

“One evening, I was having dinner alone in Saint-Germain. I caught the eye of a handsome man walking along the pavement. He was looking at me, too. He tried to come closer, but apparently he had not quite reached the curb and stumbled. Then he walked on. An hour later, when I had finished my meal and left the restaurant, there was the same man, coming from the same direction. I thought, ‘Him again!’ I was about to head back to my hotel, but something made me call out to him. I could not speak a word of French, but I managed ‘Attend,’ meaning ‘wait.’ We started talking, and before we knew it, it was six in the morning. He spoke English. I had not expected any of it. It really felt like fate. About nine months later, we were married.”
— Madalina Stoica-Blanchard

For a while afterward, the two continued living on separate continents. The turning point came in 2005, when Julien surprised Madalina with a trip to Venice and proposed. For the man she loved, Madalina left New York and made Paris her home.

A Career in Paris, Then a House of Their Own

After moving to Paris in 2005, Madalina first became marketing and sales manager at the long-established niche perfume house L’Artisan Parfumeur (in Japanese), a brand she says she already knew from her visits to the city. In 2008, she became operational marketing manager for Asia-Pacific at Parfums Christian Dior (in Japanese), continuing her career as a senior beauty-industry executive. In the United States, she had also gained experience at Clarins, Carita, Decléor, and Natura Bissé.

After “17 years in the industry,” Madalina had also undertaken perfumery training, developing the ability to “speak the same language as perfumers.” In 2011, she finally decided to establish her own fragrance house. Her unexpected meeting with Julien had been nothing less than “the first brick in the idea for the brand.” After roughly two years of development from concept to product, JUL ET MAD Paris officially launched in 2012.

The name combines Julien’s nickname, “Jul,” and Madalina’s, “Mad,” with “Paris,” the city they share. Blanchard means “white,” or “blanche,” in French, and their friends’ habit of calling them “The Whites” would also inspire a later collection name.

What Defines the House

The Philosophy of “Perfume Without Compromise”

Julien sums up the house’s motto as “Parfum sans compromise,” or “perfume without compromise.” More than a slogan, it is an attitude that runs through every stage of creating a fragrance.

Collections such as Les Classiques offer Extrait de Parfum, while Les Essentiels is offered as Eau de Parfum. Madalina states that the house uses natural essential oils and absolutes, highly concentrated natural aromatic materials extracted from plants, generously and without any compromise over cost.

The way the house works with perfumers is distinctive, too. The brand concept and “story” are established first, then a perfumer suited to them is chosen and given “complete freedom,” without budgetary constraints. Madalina then undertakes the “olfactory evaluation” to bring the creation to completion. Sometimes the same brief is given to several perfumers, with the final choice made through a blind test.

“We sit down with the perfumers and say, ‘This is our story. Please create freely, with no limits on either budget or creativity.’ For Terrasse à St-Germain, we received three versions, and the moment we smelled the first one, we said, ‘That is it!’”
— Madalina Stoica-Blanchard

Madalina also dislikes the term “niche,” preferring to describe the fragrances as “artistic perfumes.” Remaining faithful to their own story rather than following trends is also why they continue as an independent house, free from the influence of outside investors and large corporations.

Bottle and Packaging Design

The same exacting attention extends to the exterior design. The bottles are made by the French glassworks Verrerie Flaconnage Agussol, pairing partially frosted glass with a zamac cap for a simple yet substantial presence. The house’s logo, a “lovers-knot” motif, was designed by the Paris design company QuartoPiano.

Each product pairs a 50 ml bottle with a 7 ml “nomad spray” housed in a stylish metal case. The entire set is then enclosed in a gray leather case lined with white velvet.

The Les White collection takes the packaging a step further. Madalina describes its construction as follows.

“During production, the White bottles are immersed in a gold bath, and artisans engrave the brand name on each one by hand. The wooden boxes are handmade by craftspeople who also make pianos, with five coats of lacquer. They are true masterpieces.”
— Madalina Stoica-Blanchard

The Fragrance Collections

JUL ET MAD Paris currently divides its perfumes into three collections.

The Les Classiques Collection

This collection turns the couple’s “love story” into chapters told through scent. Each bottle captures part of Julien’s and Madalina’s individual lives, followed by their meeting and their travels after marriage.

All three fragrances released at the launch were created by perfumer Dorothée Piot of Maison Robertet.

• Stilettos on Lex: An evocation of Madalina striding along New York’s Lexington Avenue in high heels before the couple met. Heads turn, and a lingering trail of fragrance hangs in the air like an afterimage. Madalina herself described it as “me before we met.” A chypre, fruity, floral fragrance.
• Terrasse à St-Germain: Set on the café terrace where the couple met that fateful evening. Its woody, floral, musky profile is, in Madalina’s words, “a fragrance you either love or hate, without hesitation, just like love at first sight.” It was a finalist for the 2013 FiFi Indie Award.
• Amour de Palazzo: A tribute to Venice, the destination of their first trip together. Its oriental, woody, leathery profile intricately intertwines spices, leather, and oud (agarwood).

The collection later welcomed Aqua Sextius, created by perfumer Cécile Zarokian and set in Aix-en-Provence, where the couple held their wedding. Memories of Marrakesh and further travels have also become fragrances. The collection now comprises seven creations, including Stairway to Heaven and Histoire d’Amour 2.0.

The Les White Collection

After telling their “love story,” the couple turned inward. Les White, their second collection, explores their personal passions for music, art, history, and philosophy, together with “Art de Vivre à la Française,” the French art of living.

Many of the fragrances draw inspiration from ancient civilizations and mythology, with each gold-finished bottle presented as a “jewel.”

• Nin-Shar: Inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, this fragrance centers on pure Turkish rose absolute. It took approximately two years to complete in collaboration with perfumer Sidonie Lancesseur of Maison Robertet.
• Nea: Created by perfumer Luca Maffei, this fragrance won in the Independent category at the 2016 Art and Olfaction Awards. Madalina says it was “finished without a single change to the first sample.”

Even their meeting with Luca Maffei happened by chance. On the final day of the PITTI exhibition in Florence in September 2014, a Romanian marketing manager introduced him to the couple. They told him to send some samples, and two weeks later the first versions of Garuda and Nea arrived, Madalina recalls.

The collection also includes Bella Donna, Callisto, Fugit Amor, and Mon Seul Désir.

The Les Essentiels Collection

The third collection consists of seven creations that put individual ingredients or accords in the spotlight. Presented as unisex eaux de parfum, they have a more contemporary, airy character.

Alongside Lys Nobilis, Noisette Iris, Ganja Oud, Cedrat Gingembre, Vetiver Cuir, and Begramote Twist, the collection notably includes a distinctive aroma enhancer called Revelo. Its innovative concept is to spray it on the skin before another perfume, making that fragrance last longer and stand out more vividly.

A Few More Details…

• Nine months from meeting to marriage.
  Madalina knows that the story of their meeting is sometimes dismissed as “too perfect for PR,” yet continues to tell it as a true account. “Truth is stranger than fiction,” she said with a laugh. That night, she could not speak French at all, but she did know the one word “Attend,” meaning “wait.” It was the beginning of everything.
• Les White comes from their surname.
  The name “White,” used for the second collection, comes from the family name Blanchard and its connection with the French “blanche,” meaning white. Friends called the couple “The Whites,” as in, “Whites, how about dinner tonight?”
• Nea was right on the first attempt.
  Nea, winner of an Art and Olfaction Award in 2016, was reportedly completed without any changes to Luca Maffei’s first sample. By contrast, Nin-Shar, in the same collection, took around two years to finish: an anecdote that offers a glimpse of the depth of perfume creation.