Fragrance du Bois: A Fusion of the West and the Middle East

“My role is to oversee the entire creative side. The concepts, the packaging, the names of the perfumes… Everything ‘outside’ the juice, you might say.”
— Jonnie Swarbrick, Co-Founder and Creative Director

Essential Information

• Founded: 2013 (Paris)
• Founder: Jonnie Swarbrick
• Headquarters: Paris, France
• Official website: fragrancedubois.com

The Founder and the Brand’s Origins

A Career in Design

Before entering the fragrance industry, Jonnie Swarbrick spent nearly 30 years working as a graphic and packaging designer. He built his experience in Britain’s creative industries at renowned companies including the advertising agencies M&C Saatchi and TBWA, and Condé Nast Publishing. From 2003 to 2011, he headed his own design company, Digital Storm, as Creative Director.

This period spent pursuing visual beauty and brand storytelling as a designer would also play a central role in the fragrance brand he later launched.

A Life-Changing Phone Call

In 2013, Jonnie received a phone call from the person who would become his co-founder. The proposal was, “Let’s launch a global fragrance brand.” Jonnie recalls:

“The founder of another brand approached me and said, ‘Let’s launch a global fragrance brand.’ My immediate answer? ‘Sure, let’s do it!’”
— Jonnie Swarbrick, from a LinkedIn post

He says that building a brand’s visual identity from scratch, as the culmination of a design career spanning more than 30 years, struck him as “the ultimate design project.”

The brand initially took shape in Singapore, experimenting with prototypes. In a fiercely competitive market, it spent around three years refining its lineup, improving its packaging, and honing its products. Jonnie describes that period this way:

“We moved slowly, nurturing it carefully. We started in Singapore and learned as we went, changing various things along the way. It took about three years to bring it to a level where it could really succeed commercially.”
— Jonnie Swarbrick, from a 2020 interview

Then, in 2016, the brand secured a presence at Jovoy, a Paris boutique that could be described as a mecca for niche perfumery, and formally made the leap from Asia to Europe. “Our European journey began at Jovoy in Paris in 2016. That was the real starting point,” he recalls.

An Encounter with Oud as the Starting Point

Another crucial element in the brand’s birth was the discovery of a “sustainable source” of oud.

“It began with having access to a sustainable source of oud oil. There was a boom in oud fragrances in 2011, but we noticed that many brands were using synthetic oud. Our USP, our point of difference, was to bring a brand to market that could prove where its ingredients came from.”
— Nicola Parker, Brand Director

From the outset, the brand forged a close partnership with Singapore-based plantation company Asia Plantation Capital (APC), establishing a system for exclusively sourcing oud oil from sustainable plantations in northern Thailand. In 2013, APC announced that its oud oil had achieved compliance with IFRA Standards following testing by ABP Australia. Then, in 2015, Fragrance du Bois made a decision unusual even within the industry: to acquire and manage its own plantations in Malaysia and Thailand. This created an integrated ingredient supply chain, “From Soil, to Oil, to You.”

The Origin of the Brand Name

“Fragrance du Bois” means “fragrance of wood” in French. According to Jonnie, the name came naturally because the first collection was based entirely on oud (agarwood). A fusion of French perfume culture (Fragrance) and Asian wood (Bois), the name itself embodies the brand’s dual character.

What Defines the Brand

A Philosophy of Fragrance Creation

Fragrance du Bois uses the tagline “Born in Nature, Crafted in France” on its official website. Its perfumes are completed in collaboration with perfumers in Grasse, in southern France, regarded as the world’s spiritual home of perfumery.

“We combine traditional French perfume craftsmanship with modern innovation, respecting the heritage of classic scents while adding a contemporary twist.”
— Jonnie Swarbrick

Fragrance du Bois takes particular pride in the authenticity and transparency of its oud oil. Its oud fragrances come with a certificate stating where the ingredient was harvested and wood chips from the source wood, allowing purchasers to see the ingredient’s traceability for themselves.

Oud (agarwood) is a fragrant material obtained from the dark resin that trees of the Aquilaria genus, a type of agarwood tree, produce when injured. In the wild, it occurs in no more than 7% of trees. Illegal logging has brought wild species close to extinction, and they have been protected since 2004 under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention. Fragrance du Bois is also a rarity in the industry in securing CITES certification for all the oud it uses and using only oud from its own plantations. It also plants two trees on its plantations for every 100 ml or 50 ml bottle sold.

The roster of perfumers is equally rich. François Merle-Baudoin has worked on the Privé Collection and the early Nature’s Treasures fragrances, while Givaudan’s Nanako Ogi and Gael Montero have also contributed. Nicola Parker explains:

“We only work with perfumers who understand our ethos and can create fragrances with oud. Raw oud is difficult to use in a fragrance, and it takes real skill.”
— Nicola Parker, Brand Director

Bottle and Packaging Design

Jonnie says that, when designing the bottle, he had in mind “a fusion of Eastern and Western luxury.”

“We wanted to add Western luxury to spicy oriental fragrances with Middle Eastern and Far Eastern inspiration. A square bottle, a square cap, gold details. It was a blend of Middle Eastern opulence and Western design, and the design came together naturally.”
— Jonnie Swarbrick

The unboxing experience is designed so meticulously that it could be called “theatre,” with a multilayered opening process that moves from the outer box to the inner one. The latest collections use a new crystal-glass bottle with an embossed logo. Bottles in the Privé Collection carry a special gold plaque to distinguish them from the other lines.

Environmental consideration extends throughout the packaging, with plastic wrapping removed from the outer box and reusable outer boxes and renewable materials adopted.

Collections Growing Beyond Oud

Fragrance-making that began with oud gradually expanded to other materials and the character of cities. In November 2020, brand director Nicola Parker described four principal lines, two based on oud and two without it.

Later additions included For Lovers, which explores relationships, and fragrances made with outside creators. By November 2026, the collections brought together different organizing ideas, from materials and cities to collaborations. Parker’s four-line description belongs to an earlier stage of that expansion.

Shades du Bois

The early flagship collection imagines a voyage across the seven seas, using oud as its core while giving different colors and moods a fragrant expression. The initial seven colors were represented by Oud Bleu Intense, Oud Rouge Intense, Oud Vert Intense, Oud Jaune Intense, Oud Orange Intense, Oud Violet Intense, and Oud Rose Intense. Jonnie has named Oud Bleu Intense as his favorite, describing the depth and mystery of its resins, frankincense, coriander, and ginger.

Parker described the early aim as bringing oud to a wider audience, including people who expected it to be overpowering. Fresh or floral fragrances could be paired with oud to enhance the other notes and extend their presence. Rather than always placing oud at the forefront, the collection uses it to support a different expression for each color.

Privé

Privé is a premium line intended to let perfumers pursue their ideas without being constrained by the cost of materials. Where the earlier Shades collection connected moods and colors, Privé explored the relationship between perfumers and oud more closely. A gold plaque on the bottles also distinguishes the line.

Its starting point was Sahraa Oud, introduced as the first Privé fragrance at the Amber Lounge during the 2013 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Made with rose absolute and natural oud, it was unveiled in a region where oud was already part of daily life, as Parker explained when discussing the choice of launch location.

The line subsequently expanded to fragrances including Heritage, Amber Intense, and Parisian Oud. The current store lists Sahraa Oud and Parisian Oud under the names Sahraa and Parisian respectively.

Nature’s Treasures

Nature’s Treasures was introduced as a new collection in 2016. One inspiration was the Arabian Gulf tradition of layering fragrances to create a personal scent. Other materials support each fragrance’s central note, allowing the perfumes to be worn alone or combined. Santal Complet and Brume du Matin are among its fragrances.

In 2020, Parker described the development aim for Nature’s Treasures and Fashion Capitals as offering a more accessible price point than the oud lines without compromising quality. Some fragrances took about a year of work with the perfume houses to complete. The team considered what the collection needed before refining the scents with perfumers.

Today, the presence or absence of oud does not by itself define this collection. Cannabis Intense, for example, places a green cannabis accord over natural oud and cedarwood. Parker explained that the cannabis brief produced two different proposals that the team could not choose between, so both Cannabis Blue and Cannabis Intense were released. A shared material became the starting point for two distinct fragrances.

Fashion Capitals

London, Paris, Milan, and New York provide more than fashion references: these cities bring together art and ways of living. The collection treats perfume as part of dressing, alongside clothes, bags, and shoes. Each city’s name offers a starting point for its atmosphere and style.

An autumn/winter presentation in 2021 associated London Oud with London’s cultural variety and Parisian with couture and late-night cafés. New York 5th Avenue evokes Manhattan in winter, connecting coats and scarves with the warmth of woods and spices and the softness of caramel.

François Merle-Baudoin composed London Oud, aiming to enhance a complex combination of cedarwood, cardamom, and lemon with oud.

The current collection lists London Spice, Voyage à Paris, Milano, New York 5th Avenue, and New York Intense. Its present assortment is not identical to the fragrances featured in the 2021 presentation.

For Lovers

For Lovers follows attraction and the way relationships evolve through three fragrances sharing rose. Cavort gives the flower a quick, bright, restless character; Secret Tryst draws out a warmer rose after dark; Lovers lets it settle into a soft, fully opened bloom. The same flower moves from instinctive attraction through a deliberate approach to a lasting memory.

Lovers is a woody-fruity fragrance, opening with passion fruit, plum, and ginger before rose, saffron, and jasmine, then settling into the warmth of cashmere wood and sandalwood.

In February 2026, the house collaborated with Dave Steele, known as The Blind Poet, who lost his sight to retinitis pigmentosa. His writing from instinct, memory, and emotion was brought together with the three fragrances. The poems explore attraction, its complications, and what remains afterward, expressing connection through feeling rather than visible appearance.

Sirène and Lucius

In 2024, the brand released Sirène, its first fragrance for women, which quickly became the “No. 1 bestseller in almost every store and market.” Jonnie describes its success this way:

“Today’s consumers are moving away from the mainstream and seeking distinctive signature scents that set them apart. Sirène is proof of that.”
— Jonnie Swarbrick

In 2025, its sister fragrance, Sirène Privée, arrived with a darker, spicier character and the brand’s first lacquered pink bottle. Meanwhile, Lucius, its first fragrance for men, also launched in 2024. Its spicy-citrus composition moves from top notes of bergamot and mandarin through cedarwood and orange blossom, with tonka bean and amber adding depth.

Collaborations with Outside Creators

Minuit et Demi was the brand’s first external collaboration. Created with Dubai-based fragrance influencer Demi Rawling, it was composed by perfumer Stéphane Bengana and launched in the UK in 2021. A luscious gourmand, or food-inspired fragrance, with cardamom, coffee, caramel, and bourbon de l’air, it was nominated in the Fragrance Foundation Awards’ “Perfume Extraordinaire” category. The brand has continued actively collaborating with outside creators, including its AM/PM project with Producer Michael.

Minuit et Demi brought Demi’s personal fragrance aesthetic together with the house’s choice of raw materials and production standards. For its collaboration with Michael Blakey, known as Producer Michael, the house reflected his love of watches in PM’s carbon-fiber collector’s case. Its successor AM uses the same special case, carrying the collaborator’s world into both the fragrance and its packaging.

Growth and Global Expansion

The brand first entered Hong Kong in 2016, making its debut at Parfumerie Trésor. Nicola Parker, then Brand Director, described the thinking behind the move:

“Hong Kong is part of our strategic expansion plan to reach Chinese consumers. They already have a deep understanding of oud and agarwood.”
— Nicola Parker

In the UK, the brand brought distribution in-house in March 2024, ending its previous distributor agreement. As a result, sales at major department stores including Harrods, Selfridges, and Harvey Nichols rose by at least 600% in less than a year. Global sales have at least tripled over the past three years, and in 2025 the brand is expanding into new markets including China, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Indonesia.

Incidentally…

• The brand celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2023 with a party at The Carlton hotel in Cannes, France. Jonnie described it as “a venue perfectly suited to Fragrance du Bois’s French roots.”
• The brand also makes custom bottles to order, with Swarovski crystals applied individually by hand, priced between £1,500 and £3,500. It has also created a special bottle in gratitude to NHS healthcare workers, based on Oud Bleu and adorned with at least 5,000 Swarovski crystals, and offered it at a charity auction.
• Jonnie Swarbrick enjoys landscape photography as a personal hobby and shares his work on his personal Instagram account, @swarbrickjonnie. Although he is the founder of a perfume brand, he says that “landscape photography lets me step away from the most commercial things and reset my mind,” an attitude that resonates with the brand’s approach to making things.
• Perfumer Ogi Nanako also composed Shiro’s Be Like You.