If you could commission a bespoke perfume for yourself, money being no object, what would it smell like?
Who would you want to create it?
What would you call it?
Tell me about your brief!
My Answer:
I am always happy with my question of the week and looking forward to what everyone is going to say, until I realize I have answer it myself too, then I am stumped. But only for a moment… 😉
My custom-made perfume would be called “Solitaire” and I would want Bertrand Duchaufour to create it, not only because he is a great perfumer and I love his work, but also because I believe we would have a blast working together, whereas would I have to work with JCE, I would just timidly nod my head and let him do his thing. But that is just my fantasy running away with me…
Solitaire would be a sensual amber scent (no, there are not enough ambers out there), it should signify alone-ness, solitude, being in my own company, but not unhappily so. A contented solitude, a cocoon of sorts, a warm place to recharge, to relax, to be myself, no masks, no roles to play, just myself – contented and safe.
The perfume should be able to create a protective, but soft shell around me, an invisible cashmere armor, a force field of a transparent second skin.
I cannot wait to hear about your perfume briefs!
Olfactoria's Travels 
Now that’s really an exciting question. You snatched away B.D. from me, so I have to think of other noses – let’s see … For MY lovely sensual ROSE scent it would be Linda Pilkington. For the days when I rather fancy a gentlemean style Tom Ford would have to make My Vetiver. And then I’d need My Solid Parfum, something smooth & comforting with herbs and resins – that must be from Mandy Aftel, of course.
So, I’m ready ! Who’s going to finance my project?
Wow, you are smart, hiring more than one perfumer, very good idea!
All three would be amazing, I am sure.
If someone comes forward to finance your project, I only take 20% commission. 🙂
Let’s make 10% of it plus you’ll be the only one to sniff my bespoke scents… 😉
15% and I’ll get to review them, then we have a deal! 😉
Perfect, everything agreed – only the financier is missing (no problem…)
No, no problem, s/he will show up in no time!
What a great question! Now, for a bespoke perfume IFRA restrictions wouldn’t be a problem, right? So for me oakmoss had to be in there and jasmine and probably iris. And I would love to see/smell what Vero Kern would do with that. And while I’m at it, I would ask Andy Tauer for a lavender/rose combo, because that combination makes a brief glorious appearance in his Rose Vermeille, which is way to sweet for me, but that little glimps of said combo made me swoon. And because I’m fickle and just beginning to get in my role as demanding, undecided, annoying customer I would ask Dominique Ropion for something with narcissus and hay and Sillage! 😉
That sounds lovely! Gisela, I would love to smell what Ropion comes up with!
No IFRA regulations indeed! 🙂
OK I have put way too much thought into this! First I couldn’t decide between Annick Menardo and Mathilde Laurent, but think I’ll go for ML because of the ground-breaking stuff she’s done for Cartier’s Les Heures as well as being the Nose behind Guest Apens and Shalimar Legere.
The perfume would be called “Metamorphose” and the brief would be to create a scent that could transform me from a cave-dweller (to use Dee’s term) into a confident, carefree woman of the world – not too much to ask? It would be a jasmine -hearted chypre with bergamot, pepper, lots of real oakmoss, balsams, Mysore sandalwood, a touch of smoke and some of that yerbamate which helps make L’Heure Fougueuse smell so great. It sounds like a hot mess because I want to chuck in everything I love, but I have faith that Mathilde could pull it together 🙂
Thanks for such a fun Monday Question, B! Oh and put me down for a bottle of Solitaire, “a force field of a transparent second skin” sounds perfect.
I love your perfume, Tara!
I think we would both do well with Metamorphose AND Solitaire. 🙂
Something created by either Jacques Guerlain, or Ernest Daltroff; apparently, I am not a woman of my times!
The creation would be mysterious, deep, but also pretty and feminine! It would have, among other ingredients, violets, roses, blackcurrant (blossoms/leaves), carnations, vanilla, tonka beans, a shy sandalwood… some iris too. Like an impressionistic painting…
Maybe I should follow Annick Goutal’s example, become a perfumer, and create it myself!
Have a lovely day, and my regards from London!
… and I would call it I’mPressIon
*from wikipedia: “Etymologically the word Ion is the Greek ιον (going), the present participle of ιεναι, ienai, “to go”. Therefore, the perfume will be the continuous projection of my energy to the world, electrically charged like an ion, attracting other ions (of opposite charge- in this particular case sex)…
What an insightful name for your perfume!
Beautiful, Alexandra! Maybe you could create it for yourself someday. Many great perfumers are self-taught, just look at Andy Tauer. If you do, let me know! 🙂
Ah!… The dream…. The personal perfume….
For me it would have to be Yann Vasnier of Parfums Divine (and others) or Marc-Antoine Corticchiato (of Parfum d’ Empire). And it would have an opening of bergamot and mock orange, followed by woods, iris, pepper and juniper berries, with some vetiver thrown in to lead into a leathery labdanum base.
If the description rings any bells to you, please let me know if you have come across anything like this
_ Christos
I would want to smell this perfume, it sounds gorgeous. I thought about L’Humaniste by Frapin when reading your description, but the base of that is probably not strong enough.
I love your description of your bespoke scent. It sounds so lovely it might just end up in someone’s perfume line…hopefully they will ask permission first 😉
My best friend and I are celebrating 30 years of friendship this year and I decided, after seeing her tattoo dedicated to me and our friendship, that I would commission a custom fragrance for us. I was thinking a spicy floral tea fragrance called “30”.
Turns out her husband is not fond of fragrance, and complains when she wears it….Back to the drawing board!
Thank you, I would love this to come true…:)
Oh, too bad about your friend’s husband’s scent aversion, it would have been an awesome gift. 😦
I went ahead and made a couple of my own, since I can’t afford the tens of thousands of euro it takes to commission a bespoke fragrance, and because I wanted a couple of very simple, but unusual combos. One is a musk/dark chocolate/patchouli with a wee bit of spice, the other, a cologne based on Brazilian orange extract, tomato leaves and white musk. Apart from those, my favorite is actually B. carterii CO2 extract diluted in perfumer’s alcohol!
Wow, Marla, that is great, I am impressed. Both sound intriguing, especially the first one I would buy in a flash. 🙂
When I make up a new bottle, I’ll send you some– Right now I pretty much just smell like the beach, since that’s what I live on, now!
That is lovely of you! Thanks!
It is not too bad to smell like the beach either, I must say. I hope you are all acclimatized by now! 🙂
Another fun, and challenging Monday question! I have thought about this (probably we’re all guilty of this fantasy), but I’ve never really thought about it in an unlimited budget kind of way. I’ve thought of doing the custom fragrance from AbdesSalam (and may at some point actually do so), which service he provides for a reasonable fee, and it was his Mecca Balsam that changed my mind about patchouli and the resins in perfume.
My bespoke would have: rose, iris, hay/tobacco leaf, amber, benzoin, vanilla and a touch of civet. I would love to have the ghostly green traces of hemlock running through it, as it does in OJ Woman. I like plush orientals, but a green-streak really takes it to the next level (Memoir, check!). Of course, since everything that I want is subject to change, I reserve the right to pick an entirely different list of notes at any time. 😉
Thank you for the link, Dee. I will certainly check that out, in case Bertrand’s and my schedules clash. 😉
If your desires change, no problem – remember money is no issue, you’ll just commission another one!
I’d commission Andy Tauer to create Eau d’Orage, capturing the amazing smell just *before* and during a rainstorm in the desert where I grew up. I’d have to fly him down to El Paso during the summer first, to do some headspace stuff. It would have to have a creosote note, and a labdanum base.
Andy Tauer would love going to El Paso, I am sure!
I love labdanum. Your perfume sounds extremely interesting.
I think he would do a wonderful job on that one! I’m an expatriated native Texan (and Texas-Ex–hook’em Horns!) and love Lonestar Memories! I’ve just gotten a nice decant of Orange Star and like to think of it as a ‘burnt orange’ scent as well!
Although I don’t have any definite ideas about the notes, I would want my bespoke perfumer to be either Dominique Ropion or Lucas Sieuzac (who created Amouage Jubilation 25). This sounds ridiculously stupid and impossible, but I would love it if the perfumer could spend some time with me–a few afternoons–going to lunch, chatting, taking a walk through the park–and then surprise me with something that he thought matched my personality. I guess I would like to see myself reflected back as I appear to another person (and hope that it’s a reflection I like) rather than try to determine what my signature scent would be.
I love, though, that you have a very exacting idea about yours, B (as well as most of you ladies above). It gives me an idea of what you are like, what’s sacred to you.
Suzanne, your idea is beautiful. To see or rather smell in this case how others see you, is very interesting.
You could call it Reflection (I’d like that one more than the Amouage version 😉 )
It would be a woody, green chypre with as much oakmoss as humanly possible. There would be patchouli for the smell of my hands in damp earth, vetiver for roots, violet leaf and galbanum, labdanum and sandalwood, bergamot, then petitgrain as a woody citrus and some evergreen – maybe pine – some geranium for the swift up the nose kick like a the air of a freezing day and something honeyed for snowdrops, but I haven’t decided yet. I would call it Sibylline, and because I like L’Air de Rien so much I would like Lyn Harris to be the perfumer. It’s to be like a walk through ancient woods, immersed deep into a forest and part of it like a sibyl of myths.
I will have this fragrance one day, even if I have to learn to make it myself….
Hello Jacqui! Thank you for commenting!
Sibylline sounds indeed like a walk through primordial forests, so enchanting!
I hope you will have your very own perfume soon.
I was JUST talking to a friend about this! I actually have about 10 different ideas for scents, and one person I’d love to work with- Liz Zorn. I feel like I “get” her and her work, and I think it would be a lot of fun. I don’t want to lay out all the specifics, because I don’t want to jinx myself if this should ever come to pass, but I’m pretty sure the first on my list would be a scent based around cedar, something she does so well (and a favorite note of mine). I would probably let her name it, too.
Carrie, this has the ring of something that might come true in the not too far future. Great! I hope you keep us posted (withput jinxing anything!)
I’d love to have Ellena create something wonderful for me with iris – something with the qualities of Un Jardin sur le Nil – something with the clarity of water but the supreme clarity of UJN – I think he could do that – make iris float on water. with green, green, green and a bit of warm wood and perhaps a pinch of vanilla. Perhaps a bit of sandalwood would be enough for a deep, but also soft finish – but I’ll leave that up to Jean Claude. What would “Floating Iris” be in French? 😉 Or Iris Clair (-e?) or Iris Profond. My French is rusty. To say the least.
As you can tell Ellena is growing on me 🙂
Another choice would be to commission Annick Menardo to make me something outrageous that takes Hypnotic Poison and Bulgari Black to the next level!
Did you try Iris Ukiyoé (Hermessences)? The inspiration for that perfume sounds exactly like your dream scent, floating iris. I am not sure about the execution, but the idea certainly is the same.
That’s me: Not an original thought in my brain 😉
Thanks for the tip on Iris Ukiyoé – will see if a sample can be obtained from somewhere.
By the way: I really, really, really like Un Jardin sur le Nil 😀
It shows you think along the same lines as the Master himself!
A question: Do you like Nil at all? 😉
I loooooove, loooooove, looooooove Nil 😉 It’s a masterpiece. Caught whiffs of it on a scarf I wore this past weekend today and it was so elegant and contained. When I finish the bottle I have, a repurchase must take place. That happens rarely.
Hmmmmmm very interesting question: my signature perfume would be called Georgeous a mixture of vetivier and citrus notes and I think the house of tom Ford should create it……
I love that name!!!
I hope you win the lottery and let Tom Ford produce it, I would adore to see “Georgeous” on the shelves (for you would have to share it with the world!)
Hey, did you see Angela’s latest post for Now Smell This? It’s the same as your Monday question! You must be tapping the universal consciousness (again!), LOL!
Ha, I am glad I posted it first, no plagiarism suits to expect then… 😉
I’ve been harboring two perfume ideas for a long time. The first one would be called “Brûlée” and would incorporate notes of immortelle, chamomile, honey, and dates on a base inspired by traditional Indian hina attar, with sandalwood, myrrh, and a touch of magnolia absolute for extra hypnotic effect. Christopher Sheldrake would be my man for the job.
The other perfume would be called “Dís” (Old Norse for “goddess spirit”) and would be a smoky-spicy leather fragrance reconstructed from ingredients found in Viking lands (angelica, caraway, birch essence and tar) and along Viking trade routes (cardamom, nigella seed, saffron). If I could talk Dawn Spencer Hurwitz into designing it, I would be one happy client. 🙂
Oh Meg, those sound wonderful! It shows that you didn’t come up with those ideas just yesterday. It would be a great addition to the world of perfumes would those two be realized by an experienced hand.
I love your monday question !!! you should definitively launch your SOLITAIRE perfume Birgit !! Do you know that “Solitaire” in french also means “a big diamond” ?
It is easy for me to participate today as you may know that I am currently working with the perfumers to launch my first 3 perfumes next september. I am working with 3 young womens perfumers (Nathalie Lorson, Dorothée Piot and Dora Arnaud) and I like to work with women who don’t act like stars…
I chose the names “Autoportrait”, “Chambre Noire” and “Still Life”, which are all woody-spicy-sensual notes.
If anyone here wish to launch its own perfume, I can help you to produce it, I have all the contacts in France!
Céline Verleure, creator of (the future) Olfactive Studio Perfumes
Celine, I am so curious about your three new perfumes. Woody-spicy-sensual, well that sounds right up my alley! I hope I get the chance to try them, when they are ready. I love the mock-up of the bottles you put up on FB. I look very much forward to September!!!
And yes, I know the second meaning of Solitaire… 😉