Christophe Laudamiel: Beyond the Perfume Bottle through Science and Art

“Throughout my career, I have moved back and forth between creating scents and engineering scents.”

— Christophe Laudamiel, from a personal contribution to Osmo in 2023.

Born: 1969–

A fragrance spreading through a shopping mall and a scent opera performed in a museum. Christophe Laudamiel has traveled through these two seemingly distant worlds as a single perfumer.

Chemistry was the starting point. But knowing molecules was not enough. Composing a scent, devising equipment to deliver it to people, and preserving the name of its creator: Laudamiel’s work does not end inside the perfume bottle.

A Life in Perfumery

Discovering Natural Scents and Taking the Path of Chemistry

Christophe Laudamiel was born in 1969 in Clermont-Ferrand, in the Auvergne region of central France. Childhood was spent not only in the natural landscapes of France, but also in New Caledonia in the South Pacific.

Tulips and daffodils, wild berries, herbs, spices, wood, and tropical fruit. The family taught Laudamiel the scents of familiar plants and a rigorous sense of discernment about quality.

Among the earliest olfactory memories is an old coal-fired oven at home. It was lit with matches and newspaper, then fed with firewood and more coal. Laudamiel recalls that the distinctive smell of the rising smoke led to an enduring fascination with fire.

Yet perfumery was not the original goal. Chemistry was where the young Laudamiel excelled. In 1986, Laudamiel won the French national Chemistry Olympiad and, in 1988, earned a bronze medal at the International Chemistry Olympiad in Helsinki. A special award from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) is also recorded in the résumé.

In 1991, Laudamiel earned a master’s degree in chemistry at the European Higher Institute of Chemistry in Strasbourg, graduating top of the class. Studies in chemistry and German followed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, alongside work in chemistry teaching. In 1992–1993, Laudamiel then served as a teaching assistant in Harvard University’s chemistry department.

During this student life in America, perfume opened another world. On a station platform in Boston, a German friend gave Laudamiel Chanel’s Égoïste. According to Laudamiel, it was the second perfume ever worn. As an inorganic chemistry student, receiving a first item bearing the name of a luxury fashion house brought a joy that remained vivid years later.

The world of science and the world of creating beauty would continue to exist side by side for Laudamiel.

The First Work: A Fabric Softener Fragrance

An internship at Procter & Gamble provided the opportunity to move toward perfumery. In 1993–1994, Laudamiel worked in flavor chemistry in the healthcare division in Cincinnati.

In 1994, Laudamiel entered the company’s perfumery training program, receiving training in places including Newcastle upon Tyne in the United Kingdom. In 1997, Laudamiel obtained the company’s internal perfumery qualification at its European center in Brussels. Until 2000, work on fragrances for detergents, fabric softeners, and other products was based in Brussels, Cincinnati, and Newcastle.

One representative creation is Cherry Blossom for the fabric softener Lenor. Laudamiel’s own work history dates it to 1999, and the same fragrance has also been used under the name Sahara.

A scent remaining on laundry has different requirements from a perfume. It must be stable within the product and retain the intended impression after the washing process. This beginning in everyday products is important to understanding Laudamiel’s later approach to scent as something involving spaces and equipment as well.

In 1999, Laudamiel also obtained an internal quality-assurance certification. Making a beautiful fragrance and making that fragrance work in practice were both part of his work from an early stage.

Scents of Their Time, Born in New York

In 2000, Laudamiel moved to the New York fragrance company International Flavors & Fragrances, known as IFF.

Working in Manhattan with Carlos Benaïm, Sophia Grojsman, and others, Laudamiel began creating perfumes for the skin in earnest.

Ralph Lauren’s Polo Blue and Abercrombie & Fitch’s Fierce appeared in 2002. Clinique’s Happy Heart was released the following year, in 2003.

None of these was his work alone. Happy Heart was co-created with Olivier Polge. Polo Blue is also widely presented as a collaboration with Benaïm, but Laudamiel’s own CV records the additional participation of Pierre Wargnye and Laurent Bruyère in its realization.

For Laudamiel, who would later call for the accurate communication of perfumers’ names and roles, these collaborative histories are also significant.

Polo Blue won Men’s Star Fragrance of the Year at the 2003 FiFi Awards, as well as the American Society of Perfumers’ Perfumers’ Choice award that year. This was a period when Laudamiel’s work, following the move from everyday products into perfume, became widely known.

Beyond the Bottle: Independence and DreamAir

Laudamiel remained at IFF until 2008, then joined Aeosphere, which treated scent as an expressive medium, as co-CEO and chief perfumer. The perfumer’s CV dates the start of this activity to 2008, while some profiles date the co-founding to 2009.

An emblematic project from this period was the scent opera performed at the Guggenheim Museum in 2009. Fragrances were delivered to audience seats in time with music. In this work, how to deliver a scent mattered as much as composing it.

On May 7, 2010, Laudamiel co-founded DreamAir in New York. Activities expanded into hotels, museums, stores, and exhibitions through “Air Sculpture,” creating scent within spaces.

On the skin, rapidly evaporating notes gradually disappear. In a space, however, equipment can repeatedly supply fragrance. In an interview with a trade publication, Laudamiel explained that these differences also bring new freedom to fragrance composition.

Museum involvement is not simply about making a venue smell pleasant. Works have been acquired by institutions including the International Perfumery Museum in Grasse, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Rubin Museum in New York, while exhibitions and performances have taken place at venues including the Guggenheim Museum. In these activities, scent itself becomes the object of appreciation.

Laudamiel has also presented olfactory works at mianki.Gallery in Berlin, continuing to combine visual works and fragrance in expressions that engage memories and sensations beyond the reach of sight alone.

The Zoo, Japan, and Osmo

The personal brand The Zoo, whose works began appearing in 2016, brought this experimental spirit back to perfumes worn on the skin.

The brand has used categories such as Raw, emphasizing the character of materials; Fresh, for freshness; Sexy, for sensuality; and Forbidden, challenging convention. Scents are understood not only through established olfactory-family names, but through the kind of experience they deliver.

There is also a connection with Japan. In 2019, Laudamiel was introduced as chief perfumer at BélAir Lab, Rohto Pharmaceutical’s research and fragrance-creation base in Tokyo. It is a place for considering ambient scents together with the technology that delivers them.

In 2023, Laudamiel became in-house master perfumer at Osmo, which researches olfaction and artificial intelligence. As a reason for joining, Laudamiel cited the possibility of developing new forms of expression through collaboration between scientists and artists.

The aim here is not to make a perfumer’s senses unnecessary. At least in Laudamiel’s own explanation, the work involves expanding the possibilities of fragrance materials and expression together with scientists and engineers. The opening quotation comes from the contribution announcing this move.

In 2024, Vetiver Rain appeared from the Amsterdam perfume brand Annindriya. Work translating impressions of nature into scent and work engaging with technology continue in parallel for him.

A Perfumer Is the Author of a Scent

Another indispensable pillar of Laudamiel’s activities is the argument that the person who makes a perfume should be recognized as its author.

In a 2022 interview with Nez, Laudamiel expressed the forceful view that half of contemporary perfumery consists of copying or reworking existing formulas. This proportion is his own challenge to the industry, however, and should not be taken as a statistic measuring the industry as a whole.

The Perfumery Code of Ethics, whose establishment he promoted, calls for originality, respect for authors, transparency, and disclosure of interests in reviews, among other principles. When an existing fragrance serves as a starting point, it also calls for identifying and appropriately rewarding the original author or rights holder.

This code is not a law binding the entire industry, but a voluntary initiative joined by its supporters. Nor does it mean that perfume copyright is already protected in the same way as music. It expresses Laudamiel’s position that the industry should move toward such treatment.

The same approach appears in the treatment of natural fragrance materials. Laudamiel argues that if advertising emphasizes an ingredient such as jasmine, it should also explain how that ingredient is actually used in the formula. The aim is to make perfumery more transparent to both ingredient producers and consumers.

However sharp the criticism, at its center is the wish to treat a fragrance as a work made by a person with a name.

Teaching and Preserving Scent

In 2002, Laudamiel founded the nonprofit Academy of Perfumery and Aromatics. Its work in scent education and culture has involved not only perfumers, but also specialists who create food flavors, cooks, and others.

At the Osmothèque, the perfume repository in Versailles, Laudamiel also participates in curatorial activities dealing with scent history. This means not only creating new things, but also preserving and communicating works of the past.

With lectures at universities, scientific conferences, the European Parliament, the World Economic Forum, and other venues, Laudamiel has discussed olfaction from both cultural and scientific perspectives. The Institute for Art and Olfaction, a Los Angeles institution devoted to scent and art, recognized Laudamiel as the first recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Scent Culture.

Major Creations and Their Stories

Abercrombie & Fitch, Fierce (2002)

Fierce is a perfume whose smell some people remember even without knowing Laudamiel’s name. In America during the 2000s, it spread from stores into shopping malls, shaping the brand’s impression alongside its clothes.

Its starting point was a men’s fragrance formula on which Benaïm had been working. Laudamiel and Bruno Jovanovic took it over and completed it.

Laudamiel worked to streamline the impression of a classical men’s fragrance. Heavy resinous qualities and elements recalling old-fashioned colognes were removed to make it easier for younger people to wear. Finally, an element suggesting a sea breeze was added.

According to Benaïm, the collaboration began with a fragrance combining woody-amber materials such as Grisalva, Cashmeran, and Iso E Super with sage essential oil. Laudamiel and the collaborators refined that structure for a younger generation.

A fragrance for young people’s skin eventually became the air of the store. Fierce already overlaps with his career spanning both perfume and space.

Ralph Lauren, Polo Blue (2002)

Introduced in the same year as Fierce, Polo Blue is a major creation that translated a clean freshness into a perfume appealing to adult men as well.

In addition to the widely known account of co-creation with Benaïm, the perfumer’s CV distinguishes those responsible for the original idea from those involved in its realization. The original idea was Benaïm and Laudamiel’s; Wargnye and Bruyère also participated in its realization. The distinction reveals the multiple kinds of work behind a completed fragrance.

The awards the following year were a major achievement for Laudamiel after entering fine fragrance. Creating not only experimental olfactory works, but also scents chosen by many people: this creation demonstrates both sides.

Estée Lauder, Youth-Dew Amber Nude (2005), and Tom Ford, Amber Absolute (2007)

Estée Lauder’s Youth-Dew Amber Nude revisited the celebrated Youth-Dew under a project led by Tom Ford.

Laudamiel’s own CV explicitly identifies Youth-Dew as the starting point. Rather than erasing the classic’s existence to call the result new, the work considers how to bring an inherited structure into the present.

Amber Absolute in 2007 moved toward a dense, resin-like expression of amber. It is a substantial fragrance, unlike the lighter Fierce and Polo Blue.

Being made by the same perfumer does not mean every work smells the same. Rebuilding a structure to suit the desired world is also part of the breadth of Laudamiel’s work.

The 15 Scents of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

Following Patrick Süskind’s novel and its film adaptation, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, through scent: that was the purpose of the set of 15 fragrances released by Thierry Mugler in 2006.

They were created by Laudamiel and Christoph Hornetz. The two also work under the name Les Christophs.

The task was to represent the story’s streets, human skin, leather-working places, and other settings through scent. Unlike an ordinary perfume, the aim was not to make everything smell pleasant. It was an attempt to let people experience scenes from the story through their noses as well.

The set continued to be used in later years. In 2013, a screening in Los Angeles combined the film with a scent experience. Fresh batches were prepared for it, and a special new creation by the two perfumers was also added.

From a product that ends with a single release to a work that can be performed repeatedly: the scent set also demonstrated this possibility.

Green Aria (2009): An Opera Heard through the Nose

On May 31 and June 1, 2009, Green Aria: A ScentOpera was performed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The concept was devised by Stewart Matthew. Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurðsson contributed the music, and Laudamiel the scents. The perfumer’s profile and CV describe a work using 33 fragrances.

In darkness, the audience received sound and scent. Dedicated equipment, developed with the involvement of Fläkt Woods and others, delivered fragrances to the seats. Rather than explaining the characters solely through their appearance on stage, the work let them be sensed through smell and sound.

Even with a scent composed, the next scene cannot begin if the previous smell keeps lingering. This is why the work required not only perfumery, but also the technology of moving air. It gave concrete form to his words about moving between scent creation and scent engineering.

The Zoo and Experiments with Materials

The Zoo creations such as Community, Spacewood, and Louis present impressions of nature and the individuality of materials in forms that cannot be fully contained by existing perfume classifications.

Carré Blanc, from 2018, was co-created with Andrew Everett. In an interview that year, Laudamiel chose it when asked to select just one perfume, saying it suited many settings, from everyday life and work to private time.

Sailors, also from 2018, does not hide its relationship with an earlier work. Published formula documentation explicitly states that it is a reconstruction of Cartier’s Déclaration by Jean-Claude Ellena. This is not co-perfumery in the ordinary sense, but work that acknowledges the original author.

Tubereuse Organique, from 2019, was co-created with Ugo Charron. Looking beyond the brand name to each work’s authors shows that The Zoo is not an activity confined to a single person’s name.

Incidentally…

• Laudamiel’s mother preferred cosmetic creams to perfume, and Laudamiel has said that Happy Heart, a personal creation, was probably the first perfume she wore.
• Laudamiel’s father used a spray by Maurice Mességué, known for natural therapies. Meanwhile, Laudamiel recalls that childhood dishes made with artichoke stems and orange flower buds were extremely bitter. A pleasant scent and a delicious taste were not the same thing.
• Unfinished trials are not simply regarded as failures. In an interview, Laudamiel said, “All you can do is calm your mind and keep improving.”
• Laudamiel enjoys dancing and travel, and lectures in English, French, and German. The official profile also mentions competing in kung fu forms.

Perfume Creations

Major perfumes and other scent works important to the career are listed chronologically below. Where sources mix creation and release years, or oil and spray versions, those differences are noted. “Not listed” in the co-creator column means the consulted source does not name a co-creator; it is not an assertion of sole authorship.

There are also works in many other forms, including the Humiecki & Graef series, candles, hotel ambient scents, and artworks. The table above is not a complete catalogue.

References

• Osmo — Christophe Laudamiel, “Why I Joined Osmo” (2023; opening quotation)
• DreamAir — About Christophe Laudamiel (official profile)
• Christophe Laudamiel — Curriculum Vitae (education, career, and creation credits; PDF)
• S-Perfume — Christophe Laudamiel (childhood and early career)
• Stephan Matthews — “Stephan’s Six: Christophe Laudamiel” (2018; scent memories and approach to work)
• Wikipedia — Christophe Laudamiel (career and works list)
• Now Smell This — Christophe Laudamiel (career and works list)
• Perfumer & Flavorist — “Christophe Laudamiel: Perfumer of the Future” (independence and DreamAir)
• Netflix Tudum — “The Untold Story of Fierce, the ‘White Hot’ Fragrance That Defined Y2K” (interviews with co-creators)
• The Institute for Art and Olfaction — Scented Screening (the film and 15 scents)
• Now Smell This — Green Aria ScentOpera at the Guggenheim (2009 performance announcement)
• The Art and Olfaction Awards — Christophe Laudamiel
• Nez — Christophe Laudamiel interview (2022; authorship and ethics)
• Perfumer & Flavorist — Christophe Laudamiel Launches perfumeryethics.org (the code of ethics)
• Essencional — Christophe Laudamiel: The Perfumers Advocate Starts a Revolution
• Annindriya — Who is Christophe Laudamiel? A biography
• Annindriya — Vetiver Rain (official product description)
• Fragrantica — Vetiver Rain (2024)
• Fragrantica — Christophe Laudamiel (perfume creations list)
• Now Smell This — Nest Amazon Lily, Passiflora & Midnight Fleur (2012 launch report)
• Parfumo — The Zoo (creations and release years)
• Parfumo — Carré Blanc (co-perfumers)
• Parfumo — Tubereuse Organique (co-perfumers)
• Parfumo — No Perfume (release year)
• Parfumo — Strangelove NYC (works listed by product format)
• The Zoo — Sailors GC and Formula (published formula explicitly naming the original author; PDF)