SNIFF OUT CUSTOM-MADE SCENTS

News24, South Africa
Dec 27 2006

Buy Marie Antoinette’s perfume

Gwen’s signature fragrance

Eau de overflow…

Grasse – Unique perfumes offering a scent of exclusivity are now within
the reach of many pockets thanks to a new generation of young master
"noses" trying to buck a trend towards bland mass production.

Until recently, perfumers concocted such luxury only for the likes
of Arab princesses, millionaires and film stars.

Annick Le Guerer, perfume expert and author, said that perfume
companies today intentionally created their fragrances "by consensus",
and not according to the taste of one perfumer, in order to widely
appeal to customers regardless of nationality and local taste.

But the industry’s shift away from bold scents with personality to
blends designed to please all has triggered a backlash, prompting a
growing number of perfumers to set up their own "boutique" businesses.

"Demand for a personalised product has grown in the last few years
among a certain clientele," said Han Paul Bodifee, who heads up
France’s perfume industry body Prodarom.

"We’ve seen new businesses emerge that use the skills of a master
perfumer to create very high quality fragrances that are exclusive
and made-to-measure," he said in an interview with AFP in the world’s
perfume capital, Grasse, in the hills above the Riviera coast.

This new clientele is strangely eclectic – both men and women from
worlds as diverse as business, politics, the stage and screen and, of
course, the very rich. But all are connoisseurs in search of quality.

Their ages also range widely, from babies up to the over-eighties,
said Isabelle Burdel. She was the first perfumer to launch her own
chic label, Salon Prive, on the Riviera two years ago in the exclusive
seaside resort of Cannes.

Her youngest client to date was a three-year-old Arab princess.

The clientele for these "new" perfumes also tends to be very
international.

While the main customer base is in Europe and North America, perfumers
said the Gulf Arabs are becoming increasingly interested, along with
Eastern Europeans, North Africans and Latin Americans and more recently
customers in India and Asia.

Made-to-measure scents

These made-to-measure scents still carry a hefty price tag compared
with over-the-counter scents, thanks to the costly, rare, top quality
ingredients – and the time and skill to blend them – used instead of
today’s cheaper synthetic components.

The former includes pure flower essences, such as the highly-prized
Bulgarian rose that sells for around ~@7 000 per kilo (R64 926), or
rarities like centuries-old amber, often used to add spicy, earthy
undertones, which is now extremely difficult to find.

"The high price of natural ingredients today is why synthetics are
used in mass market perfumes and why ‘bespoke’ fragrances cost so
much," said Burdel.

"Noses" themselves, who number just 500 worldwide, are also somewhat
rare, as it takes many years of training as well as talent.

"’Bespoke’ perfume is very close to the world of haute couture in that
there are no limitations in price or in time," said Francis Kurkdjian,
one of today’s foremost young master perfumers.

Paris-based Kurkdjian, who is French of Armenian descent, said the
idea to set up a one-of-a-kind perfume business came to him six years
ago while he was working in Manhattan.

Asked to create scents for a charity auction, Kurkdjian thought it
would raise more money if he offered his nose to the highest bidder.

"People went crazy about the idea of having a perfumer create a unique
perfume for them and that was how my business was born," he said.

One of his strangest requests was to create a perfume that "smelt
of money".

Kurkdjian charges around ~@8 000 (R74 188) for a unique fragrance –
which can take anything up to six months to create for a client.

This cost can still be considered good value compared with the world’s
top perfume, couture and luxury goods houses, such as Guerlain,
Patou and Cartier.

These firms can command as much as ~@50 000 (R463 970) for a ‘bespoke’
service, Annick Le Guerer, expert and author of a recently published
book Parfum: des origines a aujourd’hui ("Perfume: from early times
to the present crisis"), told AFP in a telephone interview.

Limited editions

A less expensive option is a limited edition, offered by many of
the independent perfumers who work mainly in Paris, London, New York
and Los Angeles, Le Guerer said. Kurkdjian’s run for about ~@4 000
(R37 083).

Two other names, Frederic Malle’s Editions de parfums in Paris and
leading British perfumer Lynn Harris’s Miller Harris, have already
won a cult following with their hip limited-edition scents.

And inevitably, some of these limited editions end up becoming more
exclusive than others, such as two eaux de parfum created by Burdel at
the Cannes-based Salon Prive: Imagine with subtle hints of precious
Bulgarian rose and musk for women, and a fresh sea breeze fragrance,
So Sensual, for men.

Between 30 and 50 different essences were used to create each fragrance
and only 20 bottles will be available, sold on a first-come basis for
~@600 (R5 562) per elegant cube-shaped vial – a bargain compared to
her one-of-a-kind service that, like Kurkdjian’s, starts at ~@8 000.

Marie Antoinette

Perfume lovers who want to smell like a queen also have the opportunity
of a lifetime this year – to buy a fragrance that might have been
worn by the pleasure-loving French queen, Marie Antoinette.

This fragrance was recently brought back to life through the patient
efforts of Francis Kurkdjian based on the 18th-century writings of
a royal perfumer.

But they will have to be quick – only 10 crystal flasks priced at
~@8 000 apiece and 1 000 tiny phials that cost ~@350 each have been
put up for sale by the Chateau de Versailles.