Interview with Miya Shinma

Miya Shinma is a Japanese perfumer and founder of Miya Shinma perfume house. She was born in Japan in 1970. Miya truly discovered perfumery as an art form after her trip to Florence in 1995. Miya started studying perfumery in Paris in 1997 and launched her first perfumes in 1998. The line now includes five perfumes and several other interesting perfumed objects.

Miya Shinma is not just an artist, but an enlightener, as well, because she tries to acquaint her people with the world of perfumery by means of her creativity and her books. Fragrantica is very thankful to Miya Shinma for the information that the perfumer kindly agreed to share with our readers.


You decided to become a perfumer after a trip to Europe, and yet your work is clearly inspired by Japanese culture. Do you consider your perfume house to be French or Japanese?

My house is based on Japanese ideas and philosophy (Sense), but with a lot of French influence (Essence). It is just like my life, because I travel between Japan and France every month.

Please tell us more about scents (including personal fragrances) in Japanese culture.

We, the Japanese, tend to like light fragrances. Maybe it's because of our climate, which is humid. It's a pity that most Japanese choose their perfume just because it is "a la mode" or trendy.

That is why I also write books about the perfume world and sometimes have exhibits in Japan—I want to inform people that there is this fantastic perfume world out there.

Apart from the eau de parfum, you offer many other fragrant forms to the customer: fragrant fans, tea, sachets, fragrant pearls, kokoroba. I suppose each of them is traditional for Japanese culture. Are they still popular there? What is innovative about them in your offer?

My products'  style is mostly influenced by the old Japanese culture. When I released perfumed Green tea, it was a complete shock to the Japanese people at that time, because Japanese green tea had never been flavored before. If I may say, the innovation in what we offer is that "the base is so very Japanese, but all of it is perfumed with scents from France". Perfumed sachets are still in use in our country, while other types of product (like kokoroba) are not as widely popular now.

Miya Shinma fragrances:

Hana, Tsuki and Kaze were the first fragrances that I made. I wanted to impart them with the essence of Japanese beauty. I was looking for inspiration in Hyakunin-Isshu, because those old poems contain all the basic ideas that we share as a nation. I chose three love poems and translated them into perfumes, I felt  it was the right thing to do.

SAKURA: this is a memory of me walking along a narrow pathway surrounded by countless cherry blossoms. As their petals were fluttering in the wind, we were enveloped by a very delicate perfume of Sakura.

FEULLIAGE VERT: I made Feuillage vert in May. When I saw tree leaves shining in wonderful nuances of green in the gentle sunshine, I suddenly wanted to realize the warm energy that I sensed coming from those scents . It has a French name, just because I thought that the French name sounds more beautiful for this perfume.

Do you plan to create something for your future collections that would be inspired by incense (one of the important scents in Japanese culture)?

Frankly, I made incense products a few years ago. Now I just want to express myself with perfume, because perfume gives more possibilities for expression in my case. I would like to continue creating perfumes, which is so very French, but with acute sensibility to Nature, which is so essential in the Japanese culture.

Miya Shinma's books on the world of perfumery aim at Japanese readers and are written in Japanese. She writes about the perfume world and suggests people to make their world happier and more beautiful with the use of  scents.

Books you can buy at Amazon.com

Please visit the official site of Miya Shinma
Please read Miya Shinma - Fragrant Beauty

Images: mrhayata, bernadettemacphersonmor