INITIO | Perfume Begins with a Feeling | ルシェルシェパルファム

The collections are organised by function.

Quentin Dubois

Before asking which smell you enjoy, consider how you want to feel. INITIO Parfums Privés is a French fragrance house that makes an intended emotion the starting point for perfume. Quentin Dubois, the house’s Head of Europe, describes organising the collections by function. Sensuality, inner harmony and joy help organise the house’s collections.

Understanding that premise means looking beyond evocative names to the decisions behind them. How can familiar vanilla become something more intimate? Why give joy two different olfactory expressions? These questions reveal more about INITIO than a list of promises.

Contents

Basic Information
The Founders and the Origins of the House
1. Speaking about perfume rather than personal biographies
2. A public business history alongside creative anonymity
The House’s Approach to Making Perfume
References

Basic Information

House: INITIO Parfums Privés
Country: France
Founded: 2015
Main products: Unisex fragrances made in France, with eau de parfum and extrait de parfum formats across different collections
Creative approach: Connecting a perfume’s composition with an intended emotional experience
Official website: INITIO Parfums Privés

The Founders and the Origins of the House

Speaking about perfume rather than personal biographies

INITIO has chosen not to foreground its founders’ biographies. In a 2026 interview, CEO Patrice Béliard explained that they did not wish to disclose their identities. He located the house’s inspiration in older traditions that assigned fragrance a role in the life of the body and mind.

Interviewed by The National in 2015, then artistic director Nadia declined to disclose her surname or career history.

We want to return to the magic of perfume.

Nadia

She described starting with a fragrance’s intended effect, rather than a chosen ingredient. The house’s later research partnerships can be read as an extension of that early interest.

A public business history alongside creative anonymity

INITIO belongs to the same group as Parfums de Marly. In June 2023, Advent International announced a partnership agreement with group founder Julien Sprecher. It set out a majority investment, with Sprecher retaining a large minority stake and continuing as Executive Chairman and Creative Director. These disclosed group roles belong to the business history; they are distinct from the individual biographies of INITIO’s founding members.

The House’s Approach to Making Perfume

Turning familiar vanilla towards sensuality

For the early fragrance Absolute Aphrodisiac, Nadia described a specific challenge: keeping vanilla refined rather than reminiscent of household products. Sensuality was the aim; musk and castoreum brought an animalic counterpoint to its softness.

For the current Absolute Aphrodisiac, the house also lists vanilla, musk and castoreum alongside white flowers and amber as scent notes. The interesting decision is to connect sweetness with an impression of skin and bodily warmth. These are descriptive scent notes, rather than a full ingredient list establishing animal-derived materials. Absolute Aphrodisiac belongs to Absolutes, which explores animalic character through fragrances also including Blessed Baraka, Addictive Vibration and Mystic Experience.

Giving desire the language of sweetness, spirits and spice

For Carnal Blends, the house makes a generous use of Hedione central to its sensual theme. Side Effect, Atomic Rose and Narcotic Delight belong to this collection.

In Side Effect, the house foregrounds tobacco, vanilla, rum and cinnamon. Sweetness combined with boozy and spicy references gives its provocative name a tangible olfactory basis. Comparing it with Absolute Aphrodisiac suggests a useful focus: vanilla with an animalic dimension, or vanilla framed by rum and tobacco. The shared note leaves room for very different creative choices.

Approaching harmony and strength through different arrangements

Hedonist is organised around inner harmony. Its principal fragrances, including Musk Therapy, Rehab, Paragon, Power Self and Lift Me Up, are offered as extraits de parfum. Musk Therapy lists white and pink musks, white sandalwood, magnolia and blackcurrant. Looking at how flowers and fruit accompany the musks is more revealing than treating it simply as another musk perfume; it also gives a point of comparison with Absolute Aphrodisiac.

Black Gold Project, meanwhile, gives oud its own territory through Oud for Greatness, Oud for Greatness Neo, Oud for Happiness and Oud for Grace. Patrice Béliard described Oud for Greatness as an invitation to embody inner strength. Its current notes combine oud with lavender, saffron, nutmeg, patchouli and musk. The abstract idea of strength becomes easier to consider alongside this choice to frame wood with aromatic and spicy elements.

Harmony and strength describe the experiences the house seeks to create. They are most useful as invitations to explore how a composition feels to you, rather than as effects to infer directly from a fragrance’s name.

Making the intended feeling part of the evaluation

INITIO began working with fragrance company dsm-firmenich in 2024; Power Self, introduced in 2025, was described as the first result. The house identifies three pillars: bespoke accords, olfactory technologies and ways of measuring emotional responses.

Dubois described the goal as evaluating a complete fragrance’s conscious and unconscious impact, with bases assessed before development and results evaluated afterwards. This extends the inquiry from the properties of individual materials to the response to a finished composition.

Christelle Porcherot, the dsm-firmenich scientist leading its emotions and cognition programme, also pointed to individual experience and culture.

Context also plays a role.

Christelle Porcherot

An intended emotion and an individual’s response both matter. Research belongs here as a way for the makers to examine their aims, rather than a promise that every wearer will experience the same mood.

Giving joy more than one kind of sweetness

Research does not remove the need for repeated creative judgment. Asia-Pacific regional marketing manager Sara Toselli described persisting until the intended emotions were felt.

The creation process involves many attempts.

Sara Toselli

Joy was the new territory she identified for Supercharged. The house describes its proprietary Joydrop Complex as a feature of both fragrances, but their olfactory choices diverge. Wild Rush is an aromatic fougère listing bergamot and lavender alongside vanilla and caramel. Sugar Blast takes an ambery gourmand direction, with coconut, praline, rum and vanilla among its notes.

The official descriptions associate the former with forward momentum and the latter with warm, playful joy. Giving a shared intention two different olfactory forms is a creative decision that goes beyond organising collections by function. Comparing them means considering whether aromatic sweetness or a more foodlike sweetness moves you.

Leaving room to combine finished fragrances

Magnetic Blend 7 lists musk as its main note and is officially recommended both on its own and layered with another INITIO creation. The house gives individual perfumes a direction while leaving the wearer room to change their combinations.

First learn a composition on its own, then consider what adding musk changes. The house’s emotional vocabulary can open the conversation, while the fragrance itself brings it back to personal preference.