Six months.
Six new concepts.
None are ready.

Zur Struktur

Traditional perfumery aims for smoothness and harmony. I am more interested in preserving friction. Sweetness turning earthy. Freshness becoming humid. Darkness suddenly opening into green light. Nothing should remain static for long.

I don't want to create perfumes to smell "beautiful." I want to sculpt tactile dimensions out of thin air, using heavy contrasts to create a visceral, physical sensation on the skin. Emotional connection comes from instability, not perfection.

It doesn't matter if the masses don't get it. I don't want them to.

Notizen vom Labortisch — Das lebende Atelier

Six months. Six new concepts. None of them are ready. They might not be ready for months. It could be longer. They may not even make it past this stage. I have to truly love these fragrances if they are to survive.

True to the friction in our studio, these ideas have completely drifted from where they started. I've put them down, walked away in frustration, and picked them up again. They are volatile, messy, and currently undergoing aggressive testing. Here is what I'm playing with right now.

Concept 012.1A

I wanted something with massive velocity and a violent lift. Right now, it's an overbalanced, bright citrus and sharp bitter accord built on a heavy base of synthetic woods and moss. I'm forcing those crisp top notes to collide with a clean green tea extraction.

To keep it from being polite, I'm driving the background with clean aldehydes, sharp floral diffusers, and a heavy-duty synthetic fixative engine of Ambroxan, Ambrocenide, and deep Oakmoss absolute. It's intense, but it is still evolving. I'm currently thinking of adding lactones to the formula to see how that shifts the texture. Right now it's feeling very metallic — like cold air on a stainless steel work top. One thing I hate in perfumes is that metallic edge so many seem to have these days.

Concept 021.1A

This one is a structural experiment in drama. It's built in hyper-specific blocks to force a multi-stage narrative on the skin. It opens like an effervescent, sparkling candy shop — a juicy collision of a custom Pear Accord, bright citrus accords, and sharp aldehydes balanced with leafy greens.

Then the story twists. It collapses into a dark vanilla heart of vanillin and rich coumarin, before dropping into a smooth wood-cream of Ebanol and Cashmeran. The whole thing finishes in a sticky, ancient base of Tolu Balsam, Frankincense, and a lingering trail of luxury musks.

It needs the same aggressive treatment as the others to get the balance right. I'm aiming for bourbon vanilla in champagne. But it's not even close right now.

Concept 035.1A

This one is a total work in progress. It started its life on the bench as a straightforward cherry fragrance, but the initial cherry accord I made felt heavy and thick. I hated it. It was like electric marzipan — shrill and completely wrong. I had to put it down.

Since picking it up again, I've completely rebuilt the foundation, crafting a cheeky base that smells like maraschino cherries dripping in deep, dark juice. It is currently morphing into a much more shadowed, bittersweet clash of tonka, rose, and dry, sun-baked hay. It's a mess right now, but the friction is exactly where it needs to be. I'm torn between three directions with this beauty.

Concept 043.1A

This log entry is proof of how easily a formula can get away from you when you are chasing a feeling. I wanted to build an incredibly complex, high-velocity narrative — a bright, bitter citrus opening and a clean green tea extraction clashing against a massive background of sharp aldehydes, intense floral diffusers, heavy woods, and a deep moss base.

I've been trying to shift the texture, but looking at the notebook, I went completely overboard on the lactones. Instead of the sharp, vibrating friction I wanted, it turned too creamy and heavy. It suffocated the spark.

I've picked it up again to fix it: pulling back the creaminess, dialling down the lactone weight, and re-injecting a sharp dose of anise tones, green leaf, and crisp floral fixatives. It needs to be brighter, sharper, and far less polite. At the moment it's just too soft and bouncy. Dense intact.

I made the first iteration of this around four months ago and really loved it. But it needed to hang around on the skin longer, hence the lactonic direction. I'm not sure what I was thinking. The fragrance is fundamentally the same. It's still gorgeous. But it's just too heavy. It needs to breathe or it will become sickly.

Concept 051.1B

This one has been a brutal struggle. It's an ambitious engineering project: a 30% Extrait concentration designed to smell like a cold gin cocktail, inspired entirely by the friction between sharp angles and ultra-smooth finishes.

To pull this off, I had to completely step out of my comfort zone. The architecture required massive, rare components — specialty oils and distinct botanical materials I don't normally keep on the bench. Tracking them down, securing them within Europe, and importing them into the lab has been an incredibly difficult, expensive logistical nightmare.

But the friction is paying off. The opening is a sharp, biting smash of a bright botanical accord — heavy on Italian citrus bases, bitter peel, bone-dry bergamot, cracked black pepper, and cold cardamom spice. It immediately dives into a deeply luminous, green heart built on crisp green tea CO2 extraction, sharp aldehyde-fuelled florals, and wet, leafy stems. Underneath, I've constructed a dense moss and heavy wood structure using Haitian vetiver, deep cedar, and crystal-clear wood molecules to anchor the liquid.

The entire fragrance is pushed into the air by a nuclear diffusion engine of high-powered ambers and an ultra-luxurious, persistent musk trail. It's sharp, it's smooth, and it's a massive headache to source — but it refuses to be ignored. I'm really excited for this one. So excited that it already has a name.

Concept 062.1B

This one is a beautiful, frustrating contradiction. On the bench, the composition is an absolute monster — a high-velocity engine that hits the skin like a truck. I'm forcing an explosive botanical opening of crisp lemon and a massive dose of green Kaffir leaf to collide with a clean green tea extraction. Right now, it is a fierce, slightly herbal citrus bomb, and I am completely in love with it. It is entirely different from anything else I have ever built.

But skin testing exposed the real problem. While it is complex and beautiful, it stays completely static. The heavy synthetic base is holding onto the bright top notes, forcing the entire perfume to play at maximum volume all at the same time. It lacks the cinema. It doesn't have that dramatic transition or the hidden chapters that I usually demand from my work.

I don't want to strip it back or reduce the nuclear diffusion engine yet — I like the raw power where it is. Instead, I need to give it more heart. I'm going back into the formula to aggressively increase the Clary Sage and tarragon, forcing a deeper, more medicinal mid-note bridge right into the centre of the storm. It needs that herbal depth to ground the velocity, but until it learns how to transform on the skin, it stays on the bench.