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Francis Kurkdjian once came across a rather unusual demand. A caller from America asked the Paris-based Kurkdjian to create a concoction that would smell like his favourite car, his Bentley. Now how does one define a "Bentley smell"? And how is it different from, say, a Ferrari or a Maserati smell? A matter of perception, it can, after all, vary from one man's olfactory sense to another's. Even so, Kurkdjian, who is counted among the world's most celebrated perfumers and has even created the smell of money (a US dollar bill to be precise), gave it a shot. How he did it is, however, a trade secret.
Step into the indulgent world of bespoke perfumes where the perfumer - affectionately called a 'nose' - will pull out dozens of fragrances collected from across the world to whip up a concoction that encompasses your personality and defines you best. This is how the traditional fragrance business has operated in India, where you go to an ittar shop, ask the man at the counter to mix your preferred aromas and bottle them for you. However, this is not an organised market and you are unlikely to come up with the same fragrance the second time. Also, no top-end store caters to such fancies.
The perfumes we're looking at are personalised to the extent that they're also named after you - unless you specify otherwise- and their formulae is not shared with anyone else. "Each perfume is entirely unique to the person it is created for. Even I do not wear perfumes I have made for someone," says Louise Bloor, the London-based perfumer whose trained nose can capture the abstract concept of fragrance and lock it in a bottle.
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The place to turn to for some of the finest perfumers, like Kurkdjian, Lyn Harris (retailed as Millet Harris) and Roja Dove (famously called the "Professor of Parfums"), is Europe. Some of these fragrance artists spend months trying to understand a person's personality. Kurkdjian is one of them. The journey begins with a consultation with Kurkdjian on phone that can last for about an hour (details on www.franciskurkdjian.com). That's the way he prefers it. During the conversation, he tries to understand how particular fragrances are associated with memories or events in the person's life without the visual distraction of talking to the person face-to-face. Once he's drawn a fairly accurate "perfume map" for the person, a private meeting follows. Kurkdjian travels to the meeting with his mini-laboratory - a leather trunk stocked with fragrant oils, pipettes (or droppers), blotters, smelling sticks and the works. Once he has an accurate sense of the scent the person is chasing, he gets down to creating it. The process can take three months to a year, through which there is constant communication with the scent-seeker. Samples are sent back and forth, tweaked as often as is needed until the final product is ready. A bleak possibility, but a possibility nevertheless, is that the person might not be happy with the final creation. Which is why Kurkdjian insists that half the cost of the perfume be paid in advance. And, that is by no means small.
For a Kurkdjian bespoke creation, the price is on request but starts at ^12,000 for two engraved 60 ml flacons. Refills of 30 or 60 ml begin at ^180. Once ready, Kurkdjian retains the private formula with the promise of preserving its uniqueness and confidentiality. Every perfumer worth his or her salt, in fact, preserves the formula so you can re-order more of your perfume at any time.
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If you're looking for something quicker and lighter on the pocket, try out the Louise Bloor bespoke perfumes (www.louisebloor.com). Bloor uses natural essences only because, she says, "I find them more interesting, more complex and I like the stories behind them. For example, jasmine has to be hand-picked at dawn before the dew damages the fragile blooms. And that frankincense has been used throughout the history of perfume." Bloor's oils come from all over the world - boronia from Tasmania, galbanum from Iran, rose from Morocco, vetiver from Haiti, sandalwood from Mysore and lavender from France.
To order a Louise Bloor bespoke perfume from India, you can email her directly. She then quotes the cost of sending the oils overseas, with the smelling notes (see box), to help you pick your favourites for your perfume. Your chosen notes are then blended into a perfume. This usually takes a month. Initially, Bloor sends a sample of the perfume to be tried for a few days. "They (buyers) then let me know how they feel about it. For example, they might want it to be more floral or less spicy and I will then tweak their formula until they get something they are completely happy with," she says. The final bottle arrives in about three weeks. Personal consultation (£200) is also possible and takes place at Bloor's home in North London. It usually lasts about two hours during which she takes you through 40-odd essential oils combinations of which can be blended into a bespoke perfume.
Through this olfactory journey, perfumers also offer advice if they feel you've selected oils that are not great together. For example, vanilla can often overwhelm citrus notes. Similarly, for a light, fresh perfume, heavy notes like tobacco or hay don't work.
If you'd rather whip up a concoction on your own, check out Essentially Me (www.essentially-me.co.uk) which offers perfume-making kits with aromatic extracts than can be blended to create fragrances from scratch. The pack includes a lab kit with pipettes, blending bottles, funnel, filters and other perfume-making tools.
Owning a personalised perfume is an exercise in patience. Some bespoke perfume brands, like Miller Harris, have a waiting period of over a year. But the wait could well be worth it. After all, if Christian Dior is to be believed, "A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting." And so does a man's. So why not get something which is exclusively you?
