Perfumers wish you Happy Holidays!

Alexandra Balahoutis, Perfumer & Founder Strange Invisible Perfumes:

I always think of my family farm in Kentucky, the smell of fir trees, the annoying Christmas songs I complain about (but secretly love), crinkled up gift-wrapping, that serrated edge on the scotch tape dispenser against my fingers as I frantically wrap presents on Christmas Eve while exhausted from cooking, and my mother's unreal pies and coffee. The holidays are full of exciting energy, the type that usually marks the beginning of something. Ironically, all of our holiday traditions also indicate another end to another year.

In the meantime we all do the familiar things we have done since childhood and have the same conversations about all of the traditions we keep up with. Conversations like, we cannot believe it is December already and we are all so behind on our holiday shopping, et cetera.

I think the holiday season is a return to something before beginning a new year. At the end of the year we like to revisit the past with family, tradition, and gluttony. At the beginning of the year we like to launch ourselves into the spirit of newness and untapped possibility. Ultimately, this time of year keeps us connected to a cycle that, while not without its miseries, really is rather fun.

Alexandra Balahoutis, United States

 
Andy Tauer, Perfumer & Founder Tauer Perfumes:

In a sense, the holiday season means a lot of work. Since I have my own perfumery house, the holiday season starts early. I start stocking up as early as August and continue doing so all the way into late November. Then, the true season starts and I continue being occupied by worldly issues. Yet, I try to remember what this season is all about and share my joy and gratitude with perfume lovers by organizing an advent calendar on my blog (this year with a few other bloggers). I do so since three years, giving away samples, perfumes, and sharing stories.

It is my way of saying thank you to passionate perfume lovers, clients and friends. When I think advent time and X-mas, then I cannot but think: “Mailänderli.” This is a delicate X-mas cookie, made with lots of butter, and I feel the cold dough, fresh from the fridge, and I see my mom watching her little boy with their clumpy hands trying to cut out trees and stars.

I smell the butter melting on my hands, and I bath in the perfume of fresh baked cookies, right from the oven, where the stars and trees got all golden and transformed a little apartment into heaven. This is Christmas for me.
 
A big fragrant hug to you from the little boy in the kitchen,
Andy Tauer, owner and perfumer of Tauer perfumes, Switzerland!
 

Annie Vannier, Parfums Romea D'Ameor:

For me, holidays means that the snow covers everything and the towns have no odors any more. The air is actually pure. I can smell with no pollution the fresh leaves of the fir trees, the burnt wood odor out of the chimney. And finally, the more important perfume of winter is the hot chocolate in a  mug and some pieces of clementine.

Merry Christmas Fragantica!
Annie Dr Annie Vannier, CEO
Parfums Romea D'Ameor Paris, France
  

Bertrand Duchaufour, Perfumer:

There are two important holidays season for me. First is Xmas time, because during  my childhood I
was living in a particularly cold region of France, with a
continental climate as in North of North America. The presence of snow was everywhere and very different  than nowadays.

Smell of snow, with its ozonic effects, presence of air, windy notes are very important and evocative of this season. I like to use it and why wear it as presence or an accord in a
 summer season fragrance. Although you asked me about X-mas, the second very important season holiday time is summer, in July and August.

I spent most of holiday time as a child, in country field, mainly in
Drdogne and Bearn (French Pyrénées) and the smell of earth, hay and cow dung nearby farmers was very, very important and is a fundamental reference of smell for me. I spent all my time with my farmers, children 
neighbors and its a deep intense memory - these mixed scents.


It's surely why I love the deep intense even dark earthy notes, accompanied with wood and dry herbs notes you can find in my parfumery. I like to wear chyprus notes with presence of patchouly and eathy rooty perfums (iris). I used to wear a lot perfumes like Tuscany of Aramis, Halston Z14, Anteus of
 Chanel, Monsieur Chanel, Yatagan of Caron.

All those perfumes are chyprus woody even animalic ("bouse de vache"! I am not affraid of that!) and orris notes are as well very important for me, I am wearing Dior homme and I used to wear
before Grey Flannel (Geoffrey Beene's) and Fahrenheit of Dior. I do feel
 something with iris notes, do I?
See you soon Michelyn and Fragrantica, take care of you! 

Bertrand Duchaufour, France
Dawn Spencer-Hurwitz, Perfumer & Founder DSH Perfumes:

The fragrance of the Holiday Season is multi-layered. My memory is suffused with favorite spices for cooking (nutmeg, orange, cinnamon), home made egg nog and anisette; but the overwhelming aroma that is filled with feeling and memory for me is that of a fresh Christmas tree (hemlock spruce) that has been warmed with lights and adorned with heirloom ornaments. 

The ornaments themselves had a wonderful warm, dusty aroma that seemed to be infused with my grandparents and parents lives. 

My great aunt made holiday ornaments and would give each of us a new one every year.  I am unable to open one of the boxes of ornaments that I now have without being immediately transported back to my childhood to see those magic twinlking lights in the dark evening.
 
Dawn Spencer-Hurwitz  DSH Perfumes
United States

Fabrice Penot, Co-founder Le Labo:

Holiday season? The smell of the Playdoh box I got that year for Christmas... I think I loved it so much I ate most of the yellow one...

Fabrice Penot, Le Labo, France

Gerald Dubose, Perfumer:

The holiday season means decorative lights and the smell of Pine trees. It is about the purity of joy and sharing with everyone. It is egg nog, fresh chocolate chip cookies, cardboard boxes and tons of shiny colorful wrapping paper. It is smiling children and exhausted parents. Most of all it is about the appreciation and love for our friends and family that evokes the holiday spirit in all of us that makes this time of year so special.
 
Gerald Dubose, G Knight Perfumes
United States

Geza Shoen, Perfumer:

Holiday memory:

 Thailand, Kho Phangan, 1996.
It was the night of the full moon party and it had been cloudy all day,
yet warm and the air was almost a liquid but somewhat dry too. It was in the afternoon when I looked out in the sea and I thought this is a fab moment to go to the beach and inhale the sea. When i stood at the beach I closed my eyes and had a deep breath of air, and what did I smell: nothing.


It was the perfect warmth and slightly windy and nothing was missing.

 ...That is indeed a strong memory to me, proof that the sea does NOT smell...

xo Geza Shoen, Germany



Keiko Mecheri, Founder Keiko Mecheri Les Parfums:

The holidays are always about family and friends, gathering and sharing, warmth and comfort, but most of all a new beginning. Although we have these large family dinners every year where the smell food cooking with spice and herbs are everywhere, it is the olfactive memory of the New Year's Day, the 1st of January not the 31st, that has been embedded in my conscience.

The cuisine is meticulously prepared in advance and served in beautiful lacquer boxes. Each dish represents a special meaning to celebrate the New Year but generally it is to welcome the new season.


I always recall the smell of freshly peeled tangerines, Japanese pine, and sometimes incense all of which evokes a feeling of renewal.

Keiko Mecheri Les Parfums de Keiko Mecheri, United States

Kilian Hennessy, Owner By Kilian:

Spending my childhood holidays in Cognac, France, my memories are filled by the scents of my surroundings: the needles of on the pine trees outside, the tuberose scent always worn by my mother and the smell of the  freshly lacquered wood of the chairs at the dining room table before Christmas dinner.

Kilian Hennessey, Owner of By Kilian

Linda Pilkington, Perfumer & Owner Ormonde Jayne:

I LOVE CHRISTMAS, I love traditional family rituals, listening to the choirs at Trafalgar Square, making Christmas decorations with my children, as I did with my parents.

The two smells of Christmas I remember well, are bee's wax and peat. The bee's wax comes in big sheets, and we cut them to the desired size and roll them into candles. Bee's wax smell  is thick, soft and comforting.

Blocks of compressed peat are used to burn in our fireplaces because it is smokeless. The earthy smell is just wonderful, mixed with christmas tree pine, and you've got the Schwarzwald in your home.

Merry Christmas
Love Linda Ormonde Jayne, UK
   

Liz Zorn, Soivohle, Perfumer:

When I was a girl I remember receiving for Christmas a big stocking filled with fresh fruit and nuts. I would always tear into the big juicy orange, and to this day when peeling an orange remember those days. The strong smell of the fruit oil from the skin, the color, the texture, everything about oranges and the scent of orange was formed for me in those times. My first foray into perfumery came around the age of twelve, when I was taught about altar oils and incense making.

One of the things that I love, and still do during the holidays is make a blend of vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks and frankincense resin and burn it as a potpourri. And although I do not wear it as a fragrance, I love in winter to spray a scarf with Opium Perfume and drape it over a lamp shade. The heat of the bulb releases the wonderfully sensual and spicy smell throughout the house.

Liz Zorn, United States

Mandy Aftel, Perfumer & Founder Aftelier:

I love the bright joyfulness of Christmas especially a beautifully decorated Christmas tree with colored lights. The jammy sweet aroma of fir trees always reminds me of Christmas.

At this time of the year, I want to wear my more layered and voluptuous perfumes - the ones that focus on the heavy florals like tuberose, champaca and jasmine. The heavy sensuality of those aromas feel right with the warmth indoors and cold sharp air outside and the dark and festive longer nights.

Mandy Aftel, United States

Maria McElroy, Perfumer & Owner Aroma M:

I grew up in house with a Greek mother and one that entirely embraced the holidays. Early in November when snow was often falling the house would warm with the baking that had begun, fabulous Greek pastries. The house would fill with scents of powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and simmering honey syrup. That combined with the evergreen fragrance from Christmas tree made the perfect holiday blend, one that I would be hard pressed to recreate but will forever be in my olfactory memory.

Maria McElroy, Owner and Perfumer  for Aroma M, United States

 
Marie-Hélène Rogeon:

Holidays mean to me time to discover new gardens and new roses, silence to listen to the perfumed air in the wind, and space to move in there.

The fragrant memories from my childhood are 2: my mother’s Chamade from Guerlain, and the promenades with my grand mother when she explained to me how to smell leaves, herbs, flowers and almost everything, by pressing them in my fingers.
 
With kind regards,

Marie-Hélène Rogeon, Les Parfums de Rosine, France

Mark Buxton, Perfumer:

I would love to capture the smell of snow, it is snowing at the moment. Lebkuchen is the smell the open fire, roasted chestnuts, x-mas pudding, the fresh cut x-mas tree so its a mixture of woods, spices, fir balsam, the iceing sugar must be the snow it is a very peaceful smell.All the best from Paris!

Mark Buxton, France
 

 
Michel  Roudnitska, Perfumer:

The holiday season is for me associated with evenings in the mountains, near a fire after a day of skiing with my children and grandchildren.

It is a mixture of smells of pine, lichens, smoke, warmed by the aroma of gingerbread with cinnamon and anise, plus the zest of an orange that we peel to quench our thirst ... TO SMELL OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

It is exactly these olfactory memories that I tried to reconstruct in the multi-sensory show that is currently presented at the Musée International de la Parfumerie in Grasse. Bises!

Michel  Roudnitska, France

                                                                               Robin Coe-Hutshing, Perfumer & Founder Mémoire Liquide Perfumery:

The other night I was sitting in a charming restaurant while visiting New York. It was a particularly cold evening and the restaurant was warmly aglow with the yellow light of candles and decorated for the holidays with simple boughs of Atlas Cedar. The occasional wafts of its resinous scent took me on an odyssey of holidays past, to a house I grew up in, in a small coastal town in Massachusetts.

Early each holiday season my parents would hide our gifts in a large cedar lined closet for a couple of weeks - before the Christmas tree was decorated. 

Every time my parents left the house, against my better instincts I would sneak away from the baby sitter and make my way into the dark recesses of the fragrant cedar closet, whose aroma smelled of magic and Christmas. There, I would shake wrapped boxes, and my imagination and excitement would go wild as only a five year old can. As I grew older, the cedar closet was always my favorite hiding place. A refuge from disappointment, a hide-and-go-seek spot, a place to giggle on the telephone....

During the holidays now, I realize how very fortunate I am, and that the truest gifts do not come in gift wrapped boxes. But, I will always equate the scent of cedar with well being and exhilaration - and I love to share that  feeling with friends and family during the Holiday season by lightly misting my home with Bois Sec Eau de Parfum Spray from my Mémoire Liquide Bespoke Perfumery collection.

Robin Coe-Hutshing, United States

Ulrich Lang, Founder Ulrich Lang Perfumes, New York:

I am very traditional and always go home to South Germany to celebrate 
the Holidays with Family.

Traditions include going to the Stuttgart Christmas Market to have a glass of mulled wine with friends and most of my holiday smells/scents are closely associated with food - Mulled Wine, Oranges, Clove, Chestnuts, Cinnamon, traditional Christmas bakery and cooking. And the smell of the fireworks we burn in the countryside on New Year's Eve!            Ulrich Lang, New York
  

Vero Kern, Perfumer:
  

My precious companions over the Christmas holidays are the scents  of my childhood. I am touched by the unique scent of burning natural beeswax candles. Smelling this, I feel like crawling into warm golden honey water spiced up with the balsamic, resinous odour of the fir tree, which is finally crowned with delicious tangerines – a sublime, divine paradise perfume.
 
For celebrating the holidays with my family and my friends I usually wear heavy erotic perfumes such as NUIT DE NOEL by Caron (vintage) or ONDA by veroprofumo; they heat up beautifully on cold winter days and I feel so irresistible wearing  them...


Yosh Han, Perfumer & Founder Yosh:

The holiday season is always full of energy and mixed emotions. I love the twinkling lights on window sills and store fronts but trying to get anything done is maddening - people can't drive very well this time of year. Why is that? Can someone make a holiday car smell that improves driving? When all the packages are sent out and I can finally sit down and relax, it's fun to visit with friends and family. 

I have spent many holidays in the Mountains. Aspen and Banff are both special places for me. The douglas fir is so crisp it burns my nose. Sledding by moonlight is a fond memory. Lately, I've been visiting family in the Sonoran Desert for the holidays. The winter air is dry and kind of powdery. The vista is seemingly spare but with focus and patience, the desert is lush in a subtle way. Even though it's not snowing, it's very chilly in the evening and chimney stacks are puffing with sage and pinon. One remarkable olfactive memory has nothing to do with either place. It has more to do with missing America during the holidays when I was living in Holland. 

I wanted to make a spiked egg nog for my Dutch friends but didn't have a proper recipe for it. I didn't know how much cognac or whisky to put tin, so I emptied full bottles of each into the punch bowl. It was potent, for sure.

Nowadays, I can't smell or drink egg nog without feeling slightly nauseous. I'll always remember the smell of that bowl of heavily spiked egg nog - thankfully it's a seasonal drink.

Yosh Han, United States

Michelyn Camen is a New York City based writer and consultant who is a former Brandweek Marketer of the Year and Ad Age 100 recipient. She slipped off her power suit to pursue her passion for beauty and fragrance. Camen is a fragrance specialist and the owner of FifthSense N.Y.C., where she consults for niche luxury, fashion, beauty and fragrance companies.