Perfume Room

A perfumer and a person with congenital anosmia walk into a bar... What ensues? A multi-sensorial fragrance created around everything BUT smell. Together Mane Junior Perfumer Ugo Charron and Journalist Emma Dancourt , who lives with congenital anosmia (meaning she has never smelled), set out on a most challenging endeavor: to create Emma’s signature scent. How do you capture someone’s essence in f...

*REQUIRED LISTENING* Frank Voelkl—Principal Perfumer at Firmenich, and creator of cult-classics like Santal 33, Glossier You, The Noir 29, and yep, even Axe— is in the Perfume Room today!! Frank shares what it takes to set a trend, actually setting it, and of course, what happens next (hint hint: copycats, dupes, etc.). We talk about why being a perfumer isn't all coming up roses (sometimes it's m...

Maya Njie (of Maya Njie perfume) is a self-taught, London-based perfumer who combines her own scent memories, Swedish and Gambian roots, imagination, and design background to translate photos into scents. And not just any photos— ones from her own family’s archive. Drawing on inspiration from the 60s and 70s and the unique color palettes of those decades, she color picks family photos from this er...

Aurélien Guichard reaps what he sows... and then facets it. The rose and tuberose in his fragrances? It's sourced directly from his own organic flower farm in Grasse.  So yeah, in addition to being an illustrious, brilliant, 7th-generation perfumer responsible for some of your favorite smells (*cough cough* Gucci Guilty, Versace Eros, Narciso Poudree, Burberry Hero) Guichard is redefining wha...

WOWOW, have you missed my train of thought musings? You are in luck. Today's ep is just moi and I'm talking about my biggest fall trend prediction: *mac & cheese scents.* (And btw, please, do join me in making this expression happen.) I also discuss how Baccarat Rouge is a microcosm of of larger Internet behavior, specifically TikTok behavior, and more specifically, the current state of Perfum...

Fragrance Agent Bart Schmidt is in the Perfume Room today! Don’t know what a fragrance agent is? You’ll learn in this episode! Bart breaks down every aspect of the process of creating a fragrance from ideation to getting the bottle into consumers' hands — a great listen if you’ve ever been curious about how to launch your own fragrance! Bart also shares what his the trends he thinks are here to st...

Your fave candle creator, Sir Candle Man (Kudzi Chikumbu), is in the Perfume Room today! This ep has been a long time coming! Sir Candle Man and I discuss everything from his creative process for content creation, to the chance encounter in Paris that started it all, and obv, you guessed it the launch of his first-ever fragrance (in collab with L’Or de Seraphine) Soft Life! We discuss the meaning...

Icelandic Artist and Niche Fragrance Founder Andrea Maack is in the Perfume Room today. While all of her fragrances are incredibly unique, they're united by a common otherworldly feel; today we discuss exactly what that feel is [Iceland]. We discuss her background as a visual artist, the interactive art exhibit that launched her fragrance career, the fragrance scene and  niche scents permeati...

Chris Collins, Founder of the niche, luxury, Black-owned fragrance brand Chris Collins (and casual former International Model) is in the Perfume Room today! We cover so much ground including the smell of hustle (yes, it has a smell), Chris Collins' little-known secret: he’s actually quite shy, why every fragrance brand needs a homebase, High School Chris (and what he smelled like), and how for bet...

This week I am joined by your fave fashion analyst/tastemaker Mandy Lee, AKA Old Loser in Brooklyn . With over 400k TikTok followers, Mandy has played a pivotal role in both setting and predicting so many trends, perhaps most notably, the ever-loved Indie Sleaze, which we obviously scent. From Cottagecore to Coquette, we also discuss the perfect fragrance for every trending e-aesthetic. And you kn...

Breaking Beauty podcast co-hosts Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins are in the Perfume Room today! These two longtime friends and beauty editors tell the stories behind the breakthrough people, products, and moments shaping beauty history and swatch and spritz everything so you don't have to. Today we discuss the most coveted fragrances in their personal collections, how beauty editors select the fragr...

Egyptologist Dora Goldsmith is in the Perfume Room today! Dora is a PhD researcher at the Freie Universität Berlin who employs linguistics-based evidence to study and reconstruct the smells of ancient Egypt. You read that right; Dora doesn’t just study Egyptian scents, she brings them back to life(!) through perfect recreations of these ancient formulas. What did Cleopatra’s perfume smell like? Mu...

Hayley Kiyoko, AKA “Lesbian Jesus,” as her fans adoringly call her, is in the Perfume Room today! This multi-hyphenate pop-star, advocate, dancer, actress, producer, director, and ultimately queer *icon*, has added one more notch to her belt: perfume (which we obviously chat all about)! We discuss everything from the smells of her first crushes, to her newly-public relationship, to her horosc...

CHRISELLE LIM(!), Phlur Re-Founder, Bümo Co-Founder, mother, mega-influencer, Creative Director, and Rich Mom to 2.8M doting fans is in the Perfume Room today!! We discuss Missing Person—the Internet’s most wanted perfume (and its 200,000-person-long waitlist), the secret to great PR, the re-brand/launch/birth of both Chriselle and Phlur, and of course, Chriselle’s *Single* Rich Mom era—including...

At long last, today's ep is the recording from Perfume Room LIVE (the one-year anniversary live show)!! Enjoy a snippet on trends of the past, present, and future from panelists Travaulya Wallace, Liz Renstrom (Basenote Bitch), and Dulma Altan, plus a full length interview with the Founder/Perfumer behind Kismet Olfactive, Shabnam Tavakol! Shaby and I discuss the path that led her to perfumery, wh...

In today’s installment of all the best people are fragheads, I am joined by the ultimate fraghead: the one, the only MARGARET CHO!!! A 5-time Grammy-nominated comedian, Emmy-nominated actor, activist, entrepreneur, musician and artist, Margaret Cho not only does it all, she does it all…smelling GOOD. Margaret has an extensive collection, immaculate taste, and lays her head on her pillow each night...

If you’ve ever been curious about the perfume-lover to perfumer pipeline, that's exactly what today's ep is about. I am joined by Ashley Santiago, AKA Ashley in Paris, who is — you guessed it — a perfume-lover turned [classically-trained] perfumer. Currently, she’s an Apprentice Perfumer at Givaudan. And if you’re wondering how an Apprentice Perfumer differs from a regular perfumer (or a even a Ma...

Boy Smells Founder Matthew Herman is in the Perfume Room today! A personal fave candle and fragrance line of mine, Boy Smells is an accessible, inclusive, cheeky, post-binary personal care brand that elevates your intimate world. What began as a messy kitchen experiment has become is an award-winning, global brand with beautifully complex scents developed by master perfumers. Matthew is a delight...

Beyonce and Jay-Z, Barack and Michelle, David and Victoria… LEV & ALINA. Today, I sit down with the ultimate power couple—The Maker Hotel & Fragrance Co-Founders, Lev Glazman and Alina Roytberg. Business and life partners whose titles (past and present) span from Founders to Presidents to Hoteliers to Noses to Designers to Restauranteurs, are also the same duo behind Fresh Beauty. We discu...

Maison Crivelli Founder Thibaud Crivelli is in the Perfume Room this week! Thibaud shares the ethos behind ‘slow perfume,’ the thru-line of *shock* in all of his fragrances, tales of his travels around the world the scents that came from them, the multi-sensorial discovery kit and what's actually on those re-usable blotters (spoiler alert: it’s not just pretty patterns), the biggest compliment-get...

Today I am joined by BROWN GIRL Jane Co-Founders Malaika Jones and Tai Beauchamp. BROWN GIRL Jane is Black women-owned, plant-based wellness line with everything from CBD gelees and serums to you guessed it… fragrance! What all of their products have in common is the they were specifically designed with the needs and wants of BIPOC women in mind. In this episode we discuss the inspiration behind t...

Veteran beauty exec turned fragrance founder Michelle Feeney is in the Perfume Room today. Michelle's illustrious background in the industry spans everything from launching Creme de la Mer, spearheading the MAC AIDS initiative as the VP Communications, and later becoming the CEO of St Tropez. Today, she is the Founder and CEO of Floral Street, a fragrance brand known for its sustainable packaging...

Today’s episode is the best, and that’s my 100% objective take. We are joined by two of three co-founders behind Akro— multi-award-winning Master Perfumer Oliver Cresp, and his daughter/Co-Founder, Anaïs Cresp (the third founder who unfortunately could not join is Anaïs’ partner, Jack Miskelly). Akro is an incredible (and very new) niche brand that creates daring, polarizing, addicting fragrances...

Today, world-renowned, award-winning Master Perfumer Alberto Morillas is in the Perfume Room! Alberto is the visionary (and nose) behind blockbuster fragrances you know and love like Estee Lauder Pleasures, Gucci Bloom, CK One, Versace Bright Crystal, Kenzo Flower, Lancome Miracle, Thierry Mugler Cologne, Marc Jacobs Daisy and Armani Acqua Di Gio… and there are hundreds more where that came from!...

Wrestling Champion, Hall of Famer, and Producer Gail Kim is in the Perfume Room today. This episode is a little less perfume-centric than others, but there are so many parallels in both industries and if you've ever wondered anything about the behind the scenes of wrestling, today's ep is for you. We chat about everything from cultivating a wrestling persona, developing a signature move, the smell...