Exposing The Perfumer _michelle Krell Kydd_may 2007

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      P    E    R    F    U    M    E    R    &    F    L    A    V    O    R    I    S    T    V    O    L .    3    2    M    A    Y    2    0    0    7 38  What a perumer does has always beena mystery to consumers, according toperumer Jean Pierre Subrenat, organizero the World Perumery Congressand owner o Creative Concepts.“Our job has always been anobscure and misunderstood one,and the consumer cannot decidei we are chemists, alchemists or just witch doctors. All o this isdue to a lack o communicationand exposure. Real perumers gothrough long and rigorous trainingthat lasts at least 10 years. One cannot be asel-declared perumer just because they  are able to blend a couple of essential oils ... [otherwise] everyone who cooks or burns asteak is a three-star Michelin che!”A growing number o ragrance crat-ers, most without traditional training, arestudying many o the old texts and col-lecting books such as Stephen Arctander’s Perfume and Flavor Materials of NaturalOrigins —the same book used by proes-sional perumers. In virtual communities,enthusiasts avidly explore the history o ragrance and raw materials, sharingpersonal stories about what they have learned anddiscussing ragrances they have made or themselvesor riends. There is an ethos that surrounds thesegroups that is highly personal, something onedoes not nd in a department or specialty store. A rejection o synthetics is part o thatculture or members o the Artisan NaturalPerumer’s Guild, ounded by author Mandy Atel. Members avor the purity and beauty o naturals, speaking about raw materials with thesame enthusiasm that chocolate lovers have when discussing the organoleptic properties o their avorite varietals. It’s not about ashion orbrands to these creators and consumers—it is aboutthe relationship they have with knowledge, cratedscents and raw materials. Perumer Defned The meaning o the word perfumer  was precious toGivaudan perumer Jean Carles, who ound the lacko a standard in olactive training quite maddening.Carles developed a system o study, creating twodistinct charts that organized raw materials by similarity and contrast, one or naturals and one orsynthetics. (See example charts in T-1 and T-2 , andlearn how perumers train rom them by reading“Using the Jean Carles Method.”)   Michelle Krell Kydd  Art o perumery Exposing the Perumer What it means to be a perumer in the inormation age and the need to communicate with consumers Michelle Krell Kydd A ccording to Merriam-Webster’s  online dictionary, a perumer is dened as “one who makes orsells perumes.” This rather simplistic denition, circa 1580, oers no insight into what a perumeractually does. Twenty years ago, it was o to the library i you wanted to know anything more thanwhat a dictionary or Encyclopedia Britannica would tell you, but today, both proessionals and hobbyistscan turn to Web sites like that o Project Guttenberg— www.gutenberg.org—   to download The Art of Perfumery  by George William Septimus Piesse, or www.amazon.com  to look or used copies o WilliamIrving Kauman’s Perfume  . Presently, true atelier methods and the structured orm o perumery educationare not public knowledge. As more inormation on ne ragrances and raw materials becomes public on the Internet, people want to know more about the creators behind their avorite ragrances. Not all o theinormation available online is accurate, which aects perceptions ofine, leaching into other media, suchas print. It is time or the industry to take the reigns and bring perumers into the limelight.  39 The method, which bears his name, is an industry standard used by all proessional perumers and waspractically olactive apocrypha to people outside theragrance business until enthusiasts started tellingeach other about William Irving Kauman’s Perfume.  Carles also ounded Givaudan’s Perumery Schoolin 1946, when it was part o Roure. Jean Guichard, who is currently director o the Perumery School, isproud o that legacy and adds that, “one-third o neragrance creators working in the business today aregraduates o the school.” These graduates includeJacques Polge (Chanel), Jean-Claude Ellena (Her-mès), Calice Becker and Françoise Caron, amongothers.For Guichard, the boundaries regarding who isand isn’t a perumer are clear—just because someonecan smell well and is adept at mixing accords does notmake him/her a perumer. “Mixing raw materialsor un and creating interesting accords is creativeand promising, but a perumer needs real [perume]bases, real knowledge and real experience. Can wecall someone a che i he takes pleasure in cookingand mixing favors at home? Can we call someone anoenologue i he likes to drink wine, and appreciate it?Can someone be called an artist i he enjoys paint-ing? I think [enjoyment] is not enough. Hobby andproession are two dierent things. In a hobby thereare mainly nice acets. In a proession there are a loto rustrations that stimulate your creativity [and leadto new discoveries].” Guidance and training: The incomplete de-nition o a perumer oered by  Merriam-Webster  supports the assumption that selling perumes alonemakes one a perumer. Acceptance o that deni-tion dilutes the hard work and eort that goes intotraditional training, to Subrenat’s point, which notonly means attendance at an established perumery school or three to our years, but ve or more years o apprenticeship under an experienced perumer, whoseskill and know-how help a junior perumer grow into aseasoned one. When Givaudan perumer Yann Vasnierreers to Françoise Caron, he does so with lovingrespect or his  maitre parfumeur  (master perumer),the experienced proessional who trained him.A master perumer can provide the kind o nur-turing that one cannot get rom reading books orparticipating in the virtual world o the Internet.Carlos Benaim, a senior perumer at InternationalFlavors and Fragrances (IFF), says that, “or eachmod made, there are at least 50 mods behind [it],” aact that makes a threshold or rejection and tweakingan absolute requirement o the job o a perumer.Benaim reminisces about his early days at IFF, underthe tutelage o Ernest Shitan, and is pleased that hiscompany ollows the historic atelier model that was ineect when he began his career at IFF.  Emotional connection to scent:   There are stan-dards in every proession, but the sensorial nature o ragrance creation brings a great deal o emotion tothe table. Our identity as individuals is based in part The FragranceConversation Online Here are just some o the numerous Web sources orperumery discussion, education and debate: Download The Art of Perfumery  by George William Septimus Piesse at: www.gutenberg.org/etext/16378  Natural Perumery: www.artisannaturalperfumers.org  (Mandy Atel’s ArtisanNatural Perumer’s Guild) http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/NaturalPerfumery  Perumery Discussion and Blogs: www.boisdejasmin.typepad.com http://nowsmellthis.blogharbor.com www.perfumesmellinthings.blogspot.com www.scentzilla.com www.leffingwell.com/perfume.htm www.PerfumerFlavorist.com       P    E    R    F    U    M    E    R    &    F    L    A    V    O    R    I    S    T    V    O    L .    3    2    M    A    Y    2    0    0    7 40 on how we arrange our recollections, andscent is the ultimate evoker o memories.There is no wrong answer when it comes tohow someone  feels about what they experi-ence with their senses. Understanding thisis quite a revelation to some who don’t work in favors and ragrances.Combine the physiological and psycho-logical aspects o smelling with inormationthat can be ound on the Internet and itis easy to see how misunderstandings canoccur. There isn’t a universal editor work-ing to make sure that all Web content isaccurate—there are millions o edoms.This unleashes tremendous virtual creativ-ity, but it can also leave a trail o invisiblesnake oil between Internet users and theircomputer screens.The path to clarication o who is and isn’t a per-umer will require that the client side o the industry get more comortable with putting a public ace onperumers, and educating their respective marketingand communications sta with regard to the sciencebehind the sense o smell. This is a long-term projector the industry, but one that has been slowly buildingmomentum. In 2004, IFF Perumer Carlos Benaim was included at the in-store launch o  Prada at SaksFith Avenue’s New York store, but very ew o thesetypes o events have occurred. Prior to that, in 2000, Frédéric Malle Editions de Parfums began putting apublic ace on perumers. Beore this, at least in theUnited States, perumers were shrouded in mystery due to ears that they would upstage the brands or which they were creating ragrances. Malle’s line o perumer-inspired ragrances put the creator centerstage, becoming part o the brand’s equity, an ingredi-ent that niche perumery Le Labo also touts, albeit ina less prevalent manner—pictures o the perumers who make the scents are not on the box, but they areopenly discussed at counter. Malle, the grandson o Dior Perumes ounder Serge Hetler, was recently named ragrance columnist or  Allure . When asked i valid work was being done by untra-ditionally trained perumers, Malle says, “No. Thetraditional way seems best to me. Also, [traditionalperumery training] only works i you work very hard,as it is a skill based on experience. O course one doesnot go anywhere without talent. The types [untradi-tionally trained perumers] that you make reerence toare most oten amateurs. From experience, I can tell you that their work, although some rare times dier-ent, is always imprecise and mediocre. It takes a very skilled artist to nish a ragrance.” Malle goes evenurther with regard to training by stating, “The best[perumers] come out o the ex-Roure, now Givaudan,in Grasse. Another great source o top perumers isInternational Flavors and Fragrance’s in-house train-ing.” Other academic perumery schools, like the twoMalle mentions, exist—but the public doesn’t know about them. Natural vs. Synthetic Published in 2001, Atel’s Essence and Alchemy presents the early history o ne ragrance andapplication o select raw materials in perumery. Itencourages the crating o ragrance rom naturalessential oils and absolutes, and includes simpleormulas that are accessible. Because Atel is aroma-molecule averse—hence the chapter title “A  Natural  History o Perumes”—there are missing pieces i one is seeking a complete and accurate history o neragrance and its evolution beyond Ernest Beaux’suse o aldehydes in Chanel No. 5 , the benchmark orashion-based ragrance concepts.In the same vein, Chandler Burr revealed someo the political inner workings o essential houses inhis book, The Emperor of Scent (2003)  , through the *Magazine articles that reer to untraditionally trainedragrance creators as “perumers”:L Van Gelder, The Scent Renegades. Allure, October,298–303 (2006).Your Sexiest Scent Revealed. Cosmopolitan, November,87–90 (2006).C Burr, What Is That Fragrance You’re Wearing .   O,The Oprah Magazine, November, 165–170(2006). “Mixing raw materials or un and creatinginteresting accords is creative and promis-ing, but a perumer needs real [perume]bases, real knowledge and real experience.”—Jean Guichard The Rise o Sel-trained “Perumers” Should one consider the rise in sel-trainedragrance craters alarming? The answeris maybe. The movement is a naturalresponse to department store ennui, adearth o genuine olactive and sensorialeducational initiatives and the over-celeb-ritized fankerization o ne ragrance. Inaddition, there is a legacy aspect amongenthusiasts, similar to the one that perum-ery schools and programs promote, basedon ragrance history and the idea o learn-ing something rom others who possessknowledge. There is, however, cause ordebate, as in 2006,  Allure, Cosmopolitan and O, The Oprah Magazine gave cratersand oil mixers ink as “perumers.” This is areminder that the denition o a perumermay not be clear to beauty editors, writersor the public.*  41 Using the Jean Carles Method Jean Carles’ rustration over a lack o olactive training method led to the development o two distinct charts thatorganized raw materials by similarity and contrast, one or naturals and one or synthetics. The charts shown in T-1(naturals) and T-2 (synthetic) contain 60 materials in each. Although Givaudan’s perumery school gives their studentsmore in-depth charts—with about 150 natural and 350 synthetic raw materials—T-1 and T-2 are great examples o how this method works.The charts may be interpreted as ollows:1. Starting with Study 1, and moving down the column (vertically), students are able to “learn by contrast.” Thisenables trainees to smell very dierent raw materials (lemon, rose, star anise, jasmine, mint, etc.), which areeach very characteristic o the amily they represent. According to Jean Guichard, who is currently directoro Givaudan’s Perumery School, “Normally, there is no problem learning to distinguish between materials in this vertical study. It would be similar to seeing and being able to distinguish black, red and yellow.” The sameexercise can be carried out with Studies 2–6, always working vertically. This concludes the study o the contrast type o smelling.2. Moving on to Study 7, and moving across the row (horizontally), students are able to compare the raw materialso the same amily and distinguish between them. Students start with the citrus amily: lemon, orange, graperuit,lime, etc. All o these raw materials are citrus, resh, energetic, acidic and juicy. The goal is to ind the acets thatcharacterize each o them—some words, some peculiar odors typical to lemon that are reminiscent o graperuit,etc. Here are some examples:ã Lemon: acidic, sour and sweet, aggressive, bright, lemon cake, lemon tea …ã Graperuit: resh, orangey, but bitterness is coming in some minutes, aldehydic, piquant …ã Orange: resh, sparkling, reshly squeezed orange juice, summer holidays …The idea or these charts is simple but ingenious. As Guichard explains, “In every learning process we never startwith the impossible, but we should proceed progressively. Here our nose will be slowly getting [acclimated] and slowlyimproving. It [requires] continuous work; exercise is necessary everyday. Exactly as musicians need to practice scaleswith their ingers, perumers need to practice raw material scales with their nose.”