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NA

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BEAU

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IN TH

E AIRW

hile we once coveted big-im

pact, big-name scents, there’s now

a grow

ing demand for little-know

n yet luxurious, fragrances. A

NG

EL

INA

VIL

LA

-CL

AR

KE

finds out more

While there’ll alw

ays be a place for a spritz of C

hanel No. 5 or a burst of

the sensual scent that is Guerlain’s

Shalimar, the w

ay we w

ant to smell

is changing. Many of us are seeking

out more unusual brands in the quest to sm

ell unique and in a decidedly top-end m

arket, many perfum

e lovers are w

illing to pay eye-popping prices for scents containing exotic, hard-to-source ingredients.

The proof? C

onsider that in October 2014, cosm

etics conglom

erate Estée Lauder Com

panies acquired the niche fragrance em

porium Le Labo in a deal slated to be w

orth around $60m

. Soon after, it added Editions de Parfums

Frédéric Malle to its stable, w

hich already includes some

of the most w

ell-known beauty brands in the w

orld and its eponym

ous scents as well as the colognes of Tom

Ford. C

oincidentally, the purchasing of Editions de Parfums

Frédéric Malle w

as finalised in the same m

onth that H

arrods unveiled a 5,000 sq ft Salon de Parfums to

showcase an edited selection of the w

orld’s rarest scents in the grand surroundings of a ‘fragrance gallery’, com

plete with tw

inkling chandeliers and impressive

architectural columns (harrods.com

). H

ere, you can secure a limited edition bottle of

Emerald Stars from

the niche Italian brand Xerjoff (£350

for 50ml) or, indeed, invest in the w

orld’s most expensive

perfume. T

he special edition version of Clive C

hristian’s N

o 1 fragrance, which w

as first launched 15 years ago, com

es in a 24-carat gold and diamond encrusted crystal

bottle and is filled with 30m

l of the scent, costing an eye-w

atering £143,000. A

lexia Inge, co-founder of Cult Beauty

(cultbeauty.co.uk), which seeks out lesser-know

n beauty brands from

across the world, agrees that w

e are shunning generic perfum

es. “N

o-one wants to sm

ell like everyone else anymore,”

she says. “A good perfum

e is like a fine wine – it alw

ays starts w

ith old fashioned artistry and skill and takes at least 12 m

onths to formulate. By com

parison, most

‘celebrity’ perfumes are put together

in two days. W

hen you wear a niche

fragrance people chase you down the

street to find out what it is. It’s that

elusive quality that we are all after.”

Her tips for unique scents include

Molecule 01 by British brand Escentric

Molecules (£65 for 100m

l). “Its pherom

onic effect smells different

on everyone and yet is intensely alluring. Y

ou will never get as m

any com

pliments about your scent as

when you’re w

earing this,” she says.

“Black Jade by Lubin Paris [£65 for 50ml] is another

must-try. It’s based on an ancient com

position called Jardin Secret, w

hich was m

ade especially for Marie

Antoinette by royal perfum

er Jean-Louis Fargeon, to w

hom Lubin w

as apprenticed. It has smoky notes yet is

very feminine. It’s basically a rose floral, w

ith attitude.”R

enowned for his alternative take on scent is perfum

er Francis K

urkdjian (franciskurkdjian.com) a m

an who

is best known as the ‘nose’ behind Jean Paul G

aultier’s Le M

ale, one of the world’s bestselling perfum

es, not to m

ention another 40 fragrances he created for major

perfume com

panies. Inspired by the origins of perfume,

he launched his own luxury fragrance house, M

aison Francis K

urkdjian, in Paris in 2009. Custom

ers can visit his fragrance atelier for a bespoke service but as w

ell as perfum

es for wom

en and men, his olfactory creations

include impregnated papers and perfum

ed bubbles to scent the hom

e. He has also been called upon to create

‘perfume installations’, including decadently scenting the

fountains at the Palace of Versailles.

“Creating a scent is a w

ay to express myself and

create unique emotions,” he says. “People look for

something new

to wear that w

ill make them

noticeable and garner com

ments w

hen they are wearing it. A

fragrance is a story. Y

ou need a beginning and an end.” W

ith a cult following already w

ell established, Byredo, a Stockholm

-based perfume house, is also gaining

mom

entum in the perfum

e world, not least because of its

enigmatic founder Ben G

orham. H

aving had no formal

training as a ‘nose’, his unusual creations – such as G

ypsy Water and Bal D

’Afrique – explore the connection

between scent and m

emory, and are m

eant to take the w

earer on a personal journey (byredo.com).

“As a perfum

er, having a unique voice is vital,” he

Something’s

“Creating a scent is a w

ay to express m

yself and create unique em

otions”

Image courtesy of Cartier

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says. “A great fragrance should have som

ething to say, and transport the w

earer to another place. Byredo is about the vision – w

e seek to take the wearer on a journey and

to surprise them along the w

ay. It’s nice to use a rare or little-know

n ingredient to add the element of surprise.

In my Flow

erhead scent I used lingonberry, for instance, w

hich achieved this perfectly because it is typically used in Sw

eden for jam”.

“Fragrances have become ‘bigger’ in the last few

years,” he continues. “C

ustomers are m

ore confident and m

uch happier to make a statem

ent with their scent.

The celebration of the individual is another influence –

our customers w

ant to smell unique and use a fragrance

that says something about them

as individuals.”W

hile mainstream

perfume houses focus on glitzy

packaging as much as – or som

etimes m

ore – than the fragrance, w

ith obscure labels it’s all about the content and artistry. T

he emphasis is on using higher

concentrations of perfume extracts and natural

ingredients, which m

eans it can comm

and a premium

price. Packaging, by contrast, is often sim

pler, albeit

sophisticated, in design.C

hrista Moreau, the founder of Scent C

orner (scentcorner.com

), a luxury online emporium

that sources unusual scents from

around the globe, agrees: “I believe m

ore and more people are prepared to pay a

higher price for their perfume as long as it is singular,

authentic, while also carrying strong values.

“Only sm

all niche brands have the time to spend

several years in the creation of a new fragrance, to

use the finest quality of raw m

aterials or to work w

ith craftsm

en who can hand craft each bottle,” she explains.

“This freedom

makes authentic perfum

ery a real luxury.“A

s an example, I recently discovered the om

umbiri, a

raw m

aterial gathered by the indigenous Him

ba wom

en from

Nam

ibia. We now

stock some South A

frican brands, such as Frazer Parfum

, that are among the only ones in the

world to include om

umbiri in their creations.”

Derived from

the Latin word m

eaning ‘to choose the best’, new

British perfume brand Electim

uss also takes inspiration from

further afield. The label’s starting point

is the ancient Rom

ans, who used only rare and exotic

ingredients in their perfumes sourced from

their expansive em

pire (electimussparfum

.com). Its Pure Perfum

e Series

uses a very high concentration of essential oils – such as that from

the Golden C

hampaca flow

er found in the H

imalayas – m

aking it attractive to perfume aficionados,

and giving it unusually long-lasting properties.O

ther ‘under-the-radar’ brands – such as Odin N

ew

York, Juliette H

as A G

un and Tham

een – also have their ow

n way of catering for this grow

ing appetite for the unusual. O

din New

York’s new

White L

ine scents, for instance, pull together fine, raw

materials

in pure form and are presented in elegant w

hite-on-w

hite bottles (odinedt.com).

Juliette Has A

Gun, founded by R

omano R

icci, approaches perfum

ery as art and has just launched a new

luxury collection, with a first offering called

Moon D

ance. It features exquisite natural ingredients to create an intense floral blend (approxim

ately £180 for 75m

l, juliettehasagun.com).

“Our new

range has enabled me to indulge m

yself as a perfum

er but also indulge our clients by using some

of the most rare and costly ingredients on the m

arket,” Juliette H

as a Gun’s R

icci says. “A sum

ptuous velvety rose absolute and an incredibly sensual tuberose, the m

ost hypnotic of all the white blossom

s, are a joy

where it w

as first stocked, instantly and devotees would

queue to get their hands on it once they heard that a new

batch had arrived. It’s still very hard to get a bottle unless you’re quick. It becam

e the fragrance to copy – although nobody else has got it quite right. It is w

arm, dark and

sensual and smells like nothing else on the m

arket.”O

f course, the ultimate purchase in luxury

perfumery is that of your ow

n bespoke scent and for som

e, only the work of late Jean-Paul

Guerlain’s protégée M

athilde Laurent w

ill do. Since 2005, L

aurent has been overseeing personal orders as the in-house perfum

er at C

artier (cartier.com), w

here €52,000 (around £38,000) w

ill procure a gold and crystal fragrance bottle, w

ith the options of adding initials, stencilled draw

ings – and even diam

onds. How

ever, Laurent

is adamant that the latest trend in

perfumery for niche com

positions is not about extravagance. “It’s

not always the point,” she says.

“A three-hour appointm

ent w

ith a perfumer, talking about

your life and your pleasures, is a very nice conversation, like taking

a walk through your m

ind. It is often the case that people w

ant something that they

can be proud of. They can truly say ‘ok it’s m

ine’; understanding som

eone so well is som

ething that is at the heart of hum

an comm

unication.”

“It is warm

, dark and sensual and sm

ells like nothing else on the m

arket”

to work w

ith and to wear. I also hunted dow

n the m

ost beautiful saffron. It is very expensive, but it is incredible.”

No expense is spared w

ith Tham

een’s limited edition

Palace Oud, w

hich costs £2,500 for 30ml due to its

precious ingredients. Rare Indian oud, aged for 12

years, wild Egyptian jasm

ine and Arabian rose from

Taif are brought together in a hand-blow

n crystal decanter. C

onsumers need to be quick off the m

ark, though, as only 100 bottles have been m

ade (tham

eenfragrance.com).

Finally, Nasom

atto, the fragrance project of international creative perfum

er Alessandro

Gualtieri, aim

s to offer conceptualised scents that are both radical and unique (nasom

atto.com). H

aving composed

perfumes for m

any fragrance houses, the off-shoot label – translated as ‘crazy nose’ in Italian – w

as formed to allow

G

ualtieri the freedom to use a tranche

of new ingredients, including cam

el dung from

the Arabian D

esert and hashish, w

ith the latter being used as the central ingredient in his stand-out perfum

e Black Afgano.

“Black Afgano w

as the first ever ‘black’ fragrance and also the first to feature hashish as its central note,” says industry expert M

ichael Donovan.

“When it launched a few

years ago, this scent caused a m

ajor stir with beauty buffs. It sold out at Selfridges,