a good recipe ... includes generosity, sensuality, surprise

"Today, 60 basic ingredients constitute 80 percent of all fragrance formulas.

....Of course, I can create perfumes in the classical manner, or in the baroque, narrative, figurative, abstract, minimalist, and so forth. But above all, I believe that all fragrances should have form, distinction, imagination, generosity, sensuality, and surprise so that perfume is not simply reduced to a product, an object, or a commodity."

-Jean-Claude Ellena

with a lovely fragrance creation history, currently the exclusive in-house perfumer for Hermès, from his book Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent 2011

When I think of the number of words used in daily communication,
the number of ingredients needed to make a fine meal,
it makes sense that it's how we use ingredients
in a fragrance formula
in order to capture perceptions.


assemblage: Put the Fizz In detail Lura Astor

Scent Categorization

... we each must figure out how we categorize smells
and even categorize
how our interpretations can fluctuate and be influenced.

- Lura Astor click here

The following is from
the long awaited book
Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent

by Jean-Claude Ellena

Perfumer at Hermès 

"In order to judge perfumes that have outlasted time I use today's nose, whereas for new perfumes I use yesterday's nose. 

And I realize that memory works in such a way that perfumes, which are not experienced with excitement and passion, which are not linked with a personal story or, in our business, with the training of the nose, are devoid of meaning and leave no trace in the memory. I thus conclude that evaluation by categories, by classification, is not enough for me. This perception of perfume is too analytical, too distanced, to move me. In order to discover a perfume, I have to enter into it and grasp it from the inside. Once it is separated from its external apparel, I can appraise, judge and decide.

I also notice that my perception, my understanding, and my judgements of perfumes have evolved with the ideas, the values, the customs, and the tastes of society, and that the mental picture I have of perfumes has constantly altered and become richer. This means that I am constantly reinventing my representation of the past - the past that builds my future creations."


Illustration: Heart of the Matter Lura Astor