Hey Fragrant Friend 👋 ,
It’s day 716 of me trying to change the perfume industry for the better. Here’s the weekly note from inside the engine room…..although, I might need to rethink that line. When I said this to Christophe Laudamiel during our last meeting, he paused for a second and said something along the lines of: you are not really trying to change the perfume industry, you are trying to support the artists behind it.
Which, if I am honest, feels much closer to the truth. I will keep thinking about how to phrase this properly. For now, we will leave it here.
Update
If I zoom into my current reality, my evenings have taken on a very different shape than I had imagined a few months ago. My study, which used to have some sense of order, has quietly turned into a small logistics hub. Bottles everywhere. Packaging materials stacked in corners.
And then there are the questions no one romanticises when talking about perfumery. How do you pack a parcel so it feels beautiful and still survives the journey? Those two things do not naturally go hand in hand.
The uncomfortable truth is that part of the primary packaging did not hold up under transport in every case. The moment I received that first message from a customer mentioning damage, I felt it immediately. That is a complete no go. No discussion.
What followed were nights on the floor, quite literally, working on fixes. Cutting and reinforcing delicate inlays, millimetre by millimetre, making sure not a single imperfection would ever be visible to the customer. Work that I am neither particularly good at nor naturally drawn to. Extremely detailed, repetitive, almost meditative in a way that tests your patience more than your skill.
Together with my wife, we went through box after box. Around thirty minutes per piece. For over a week.
There was a moment where I realised I had a choice. Either delay everything again or find a way to keep my word. I chose the second. Not because it was the rational decision, but because it felt like the only one I could live with.
The paradox is that I have rarely felt so far outside my comfort zone and at the same time so aligned with what this is supposed to be. This idea that the first object someone holds from New Niche must feel right. Even if it costs more time, more energy, more nerves than expected.
And yes, there is a slightly absurd side to this. If anyone ever asks whether this is truly handcrafted, I can now say with full confidence that there are very few perfumes on this planet that have been this manually handled over the past two weeks.
Milestones
On a completely different note, something quietly significant happened. We are now listed on Parfumo, Fragrantica and Basenotes.
And with that came the first public reviews. Written by people who spent time with the scent and decided to put their thoughts into words for others to read. Permanently.
Reading those for the first time gave me a feeling I had not experienced before in this journey. It moved from private conversations into something that exists on its own. Independent from me.
That, more than anything, gave me a deep sense of calm. Because it means this is no longer just an idea I am trying to push into the world. It is something people are beginning to respond to in their own way.
And if there is one thing I can take from this week, despite all the chaos on the operational side, it is this: the reason for doing all of this is starting to become visible.
Mood of the week: Exhausted, stretched, but quietly proud (I say this every five years or so 😂 )
More soon,
Sebastian