Mom, Dad, what is a Nose?

I am a shadowy profession, rare and highly coveted, I require a lot of experience, creativity and motivation, I add my little personal scented touch to many products in your daily life... Am I?

A Nose is a perfumer , an artist of smell. This is the one behind the creation of all your scented products .

And before explaining his job to you in detail - we can never repeat it enough - having a nose or having a good sense of smell is not innate: you are not born with a nose, you become one and as with all professions, it takes a lot of training. years of work.

What does a perfumer smell like?

This is rather a good question, given that a nose does not realize that the perfumes that you find in stores. It can just as easily create the smell of your future deodorant, shower gel, detergent, laundry detergent, candle and so on, while managing to olfactorily transcribe an idea, a memory or an emotion .

Both an artist and a chemist , a perfumer knows how to convey emotions thanks to his knowledge of the chemistry of natural and synthetic odors .

Please note, however, that a nose that produces room fragrances will not produce luxury perfumes or shower gel perfumes: quite simply because the technical constraints and market knowledge are not the same !

Everyone has their own way, everyone has their own way

Each type of product has specific know-how and knowledge . While it is rather simple to imagine a perfumer with his nose in his perfume bottles, know that there are in reality 4 categories of perfumers .

1. First of all, the creative perfumers . Concerning them, there are several ways to practice this profession: for a brand, in a composition house or independently.

• A perfumer can be said to be a "house perfumer" if he is the perfumer of a brand: this is the case of Francis Kurkdjian at Dior, Mathilde Laurent at Cartier, etc. The perfumer therefore only works for this brand as long as he is under contract with it.

• The “employee” perfumer is part of a composition house. That is to say, he belongs to a composition house such as IFF, Firmenich or Givaudan and therefore works in a company which will produce perfume for various brands. There will therefore not be just one perfumer but several who will work together, or not for different projects and brands. Often the composition houses are put in competition by brands which do not have a perfumer and only one of them wins the contract. Can you imagine the pressure behind the creation of a “La Vie Est Belle” or a “One Million”?

  At Bastille, we also work with so-called “employee” perfumers. Our perfumes and candles were, in fact, created with perfumers from IFF-LMR, a pioneering laboratory in the natural and ethical sourcing of perfumery ingredients throughout the world. The olfactory originality, the talent of the Noses, complete creative freedom and exceptional raw materials have allowed perfumers to create an original and completely free perfumed collection.

  DISCOVER THE BASTILLE COLLECTION

• And the independent perfumer can work for all brands.

In all cases, the perfumer will respond to a brief given either by marketing or by the customer. To help him in the production of the perfume concentrate, an evaluator will be at his side to evaluate each test and put it back on the right track - according to the briefing. Being a perfumer requires a lot of patience and perseverance because a perfume is not created in just one attempt - if the making of a perfume intrigues you, discover all its secrets through our dedicated article!

The following 3 categories concern perfumers specializing in more technical branches :

2. Ingredient perfumers are specialists in raw materials. They enrich the olfactory palette of the laboratories and raw materials companies in which they work.

3. Perfumer analysts study the composition of products on the market to help perfumers better understand trends and create products adapted to consumer demands.

4. Technical perfumers are those who adjust the formula of an existing perfume to create a range of derivative products (creams, candles, etc.) - this is particularly the case for our Full Moon and Rayon Vert candles!

And There you go ! You already know a little more about this very secret profession. If you dream of becoming a perfumer one day, go to our latest article on “ How to improve your sense of smell and become an expert nose?” and start training yourself to smell perfumes but also pure raw materials!

The competition is tough so you have to know how to get a little ahead ;)