The Missing Piece

It’s day 679 of me trying to change the perfume industry for the better. Here’s the weekly note from inside the engine room.

Before we dive into this issue, a quick favour: Move this email to your Primary tab so future issues land where you’ll actually see them.

Update

I’ve started counting the days. The packaging is almost done and if everything goes to plan, in about two weeks we’ll finally have the finished fragrance in hand, and I can genuinely say I’m just excited like a child at this point. After showing the scent to quite a few people over the past weeks, I’ve reached a level of conviction where I feel comfortable saying there won’t be anyone who can seriously call this a bad fragrance. It’s a damn proper piece of perfumery, a real one, and you feel that the moment you smell it.

One thing I didn’t expect to hit as hard as it did is the decision to print the perfumer as a large portrait on the packaging. Every time I show it, people react the same way, almost relieved, saying “finally there’s a face behind the perfume”, because up until now it’s always just been a name. And that’s exactly the point, you’re not buying a brand, you’re experiencing the work of a human being. On top of that, with every bottle sold the perfumer earns money through an ongoing royalty, which sounds obvious when you say it out loud, but in perfume it really isn’t. In that sense, I do think we’re currently one of the brands pushing things in a genuinely positive direction for independent perfumers.

The Question

This week I had one of those moments where something suddenly feels very close.

Through a completely random chain of events, I ended up speaking with a veteran (network is everything in life!) who has spent the last 25 years working directly at the origin of perfume materials, not in a theoretical way, but actually being there, building relationships with communities in places like the Comoros, Sri Lanka or Madagascar. He showed me images, including moments where he was on the Comoros during the ylang-ylang harvest together with Quentin Bisch (probably the hottest perfumer of recent times?), and I had this very clear thought: this is it. My missing puzzle piece.

This is exactly how I believe perfume should be created.

Not sitting in a lab guessing what a place might feel like, but actually being there, together with the perfumer, understanding where things come from, what they smell like in reality, what kind of life surrounds them. I’m fully aware how complex, slow and expensive this is, and how far away it is from how the industry currently operates, especially in a world where 10,000 fragrances are launched every year.

But at the same time, I keep asking myself: isn’t this the only way that still makes sense?

Because if we’re honest, the goal is not just to “do something nice” for the industry. The goal is to create something that actually matters, something that has depth, something that you can feel. And that only really happens if the perfumer has a blank canvas, real freedom, and the chance to connect to something beyond references and briefs.

So yes, part of this is still a dream. Travelling together, maybe even with a small part of the community, experiencing these places first-hand and translating that into perfume. But when I saw those images, it didn’t feel abstract anymore.

It felt like the missing piece. And I guess the real question is simply this: When you read this, does that grab you in the gut? Or is it just me?

Mood of the week: Succeeding 💪

Song of the week: ANOTR - How you Feel

More soon.

Sebastian