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August 11, 2025 • 13 mins

The fragrance deep dive continues! In Part 2 with Ethan Archer from Agence De Parfum, we're uncovering the luxury secrets the perfume world doesn't want you to know. What makes a perfume cost £4,800? Why does the same scent smell incredible on your friend but terrible on you? And is there really a "universal" fragrance that works on absolutely everyone?

Ethan reveals the most expensive perfume in his collection, the weirdest fragrance notes he's ever encountered (hint: one involves blood), and the shocking science behind why your skin chemistry can make or break a scent. Plus, he attempts the ultimate challenge - matching Kelly with her perfect fragrance based on her personality alone.

From the trillion scents your nose can detect to the survival instinct that makes us all love the smell of rain, this episode is packed with fragrance secrets that'll completely change your perfume game!

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CREDITS:

Hosts: Kelly McCarren

Guest: Ethan Archer, (Perfume Aficionado & National Training Manager at Agency De Parfum) 

Producer: Sophie Campbell

Audio Producer: Tegan Sadler

Mamamia's studios are furnished with thanks to Fenton & Fenton. For more head to their website here.

Just so you know — some of the product links in these notes are affiliate li

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to Amma Mia podcast. Mama Mia acknowledges the
traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is
recorded on Makeup is My Therapy.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm obsessed and I don't even feel guilty a body.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, and welcome back to you beauty. I'm Kelly McCarran
and this is part two with the brilliant Ethan Archer
from Agency to Pop arm which he you know words,
much nicer than I do. As you would have heard
last week, we had such an epic chat that we
couldn't fit it all into one episode, Like there was
just too much good stuff. We didn't want to cut it.
So if you did miss part one, go back and

(00:50):
have a listen. We covered so much like seasonal switching
and fragrance layering without smelling like David Jones exploded on you. Now, Ethan.
We did end last episode talking about joops, but I
want to go completely the other direction. What is the
most expensive perfume you've ever encountered? Like? What are we
talking price wise for the real fancy stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
You are such beautiful skilled.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
But how what is the most expensive perfume that you
own or have seen?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
The most expensive that I own is twelve hundred dollars
for one hundred mil bottle, which is honestly not that
insane given some fragrances around the place. So that's a
beautiful one by this brand called Roger Roja, so Roger Dove.
He's based in London, but we actually at Libertine Perfumery.
We've also got one by him called oat Luxe as
in like oad Couture Haut. That one is four thousand,

(01:43):
eight hundred dollars I think, but it's that perfume as
a sense of humor. It has gold flakes floating in it,
which normally would be.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
For our rich people that have money to burn.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Kind of, but the gold in it plays a funny role,
which is normally when you'd add gold to something, it's
just to make it more expensive. But with him, he
added it because by weight the gold is one of
the least expensive ingredients in the bottle.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Ah, that's quite fe.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
So it's kind of, you know, just adding something to
almost reduce the cost of it a little bit, rather
than just having the things like Florentine iris for example.
It's a very expensive ingredient, can cost over one hundred
thousand dollars a quile for the oil. Wow, well over
one hundred thousand.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Dollars and that's in there as well.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, there's some of that in there. There's all sorts
of beautiful things. There's like French rows in there. It's
an incredible fragrance.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Oh my goodness. I want to go into. I'm not
going to be able to afford it, obviously, but I
want to go in.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's smellish, it's very nice. Yeah, we don't have testers
of it everywhere, and they're usually locked up in a
covered out the back somewhere.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Fair enough, because you don't want someone to go in
and just.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Douse themselcisely precisely.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
I did that at an airport once actually, when I
got off a plane because I felt like there'd been
someone stinky me, So did I go and use the
tom Ford? Indeed I did, which also probably just like
layered over the stinkiness of the person.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Perhaps.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yeah, you know, is there such thing do you believe
as a scent that would suit absolutely everyone?

Speaker 2 (03:02):
That's a tricky one, but I think the closest thing
to that would be the rather oddly named not a perfume.
It has a gun precisely. Yeah, so it's a single ingredient.
It's called sea to locks. It's kind of like musky amberry,
a little bit woody on some people, a little bit
floral on some people. It's literally a single ingredient. And
I've never smelled it not work on someone's skin, So yeah,

(03:26):
if it's ultra minimalistic, it probably works for everybody.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Okay. See, And the funny thing is, I've tried that
one and it didn't smell like anything on me.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
I thought it is super subtle, So it's one where
you're almost instantly going to stop smelling it, but it
projects really well around you, so other people will smell
it on you, but in kind of a subtle way.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
It's like a mood rather than people layer it as well.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
You can layer it with it definitely, so it often
makes other sense last longer. That's one way you can layer,
like physically, one on top of the other.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Speaking of layering it physically, when you just did that
people playing long at home, Oh.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Sorry, yeah, this is a podcast.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
So if you put it on your wrist and then
gosh and rub.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
In two perfumes and you wish that is a hotly
contested one. But as I mentioned before, I'm a perfume nerd,
so I try everything out to work out whether it's
true or not. I have tried various perfumes, like rubbing
them with my wrists to see if I can warn
them up or kill the top notes or whatever. It's
really not a thing, honestly, as far as I'm convinced,
it's a myth. If you want to dub your wrists together,

(04:28):
rub your wrists together, all you're going to do is
halve the amount of perfume, because you know you've got
half on one wrist half on the other wrist. But
otherwise there's no real issue with it, because I think it's.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Probably something that people started doing when they were using
just a perfume oil to sort.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Of like you dub the little last thing on your wrists.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yet it's also you're kind of unnecessary to do it
with the sprits.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
I want to talk about something a little bit nerdy.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Go for it.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Why don't some fragrances suit certain people? What is happening
on a chemical level when a perfume just doesn't work
on you? And I'm going to give you an example
that is specific to me. When I was at university,
I smelt this girl and she smelt so beautiful, and
I asked her what she was wearing, and she was
wearing Sarah Jessica Pucker Lovely. It's very popular for the

(05:18):
Uni girls back in the day. And that fragrance smelt
awful on me, like it smelt off on me. What happened?
Why do some things work on some people and not
on other people.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
So there's generally two main factors in that. It's the
moisture level of your skin, how dry it is versus
how oily it is, combined with the pH of your skin,
how alkaline versus how acidic it is. So those will
have chemical effects on the fragrance that you spray on
top of there, other things like medication and whether or
not you smoke can have an impact on that diet

(05:53):
as Well's honestly, there's a lot of things that go
into it, but it's mostly moisture and pH of your skin.
Sometimes things will smell really metallic on certain people, or
you might just lose like citrus notes a little bit,
or they might not last as long. There's a lot
of things that can happen there, but that's why it's
always in important to actually try out sense on your.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Sin without on one of those papery things.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Exactly if you try it on the paper blott a
and then buy it without spring it on skin, I mean,
it's probably fine, but it is going to smell at
least a little different on your skin.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, okay, thank you. What's the weirdest note that you've
ever come across in a perfect because I have the
first time someone said that something had the smell of leather,
like it had leather in it, I was like, Oh,
I thought it was the sexiest thing ever. Leather, tobacco,
Oh my god, so hot, so gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Definitely so with something like leather, they're not actually extracting
the scent from leather. It's just recreated using various other things.
And in fact, leather when you smell leather, that's not
actually the smell of the leather. That's the smell of
various other things I've been added during the tanning process,
because leather doesn't smell very good by itself.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
No, it wouldn't. It would smell like a dead cow.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, pretty much like leather. Tannery is are meant to
smell horrible, but that's why they add perfume to leather,
so weirdest notes I've ever come across. Some you get
really stupid ones, like gold or diamonds that are literally inert.
They don't have a smell or pearls or whatever like that.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Doesn't make any marketing thing though, right, They just like
it's got pearls in.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
It, or yeah, like andger our friend, Yeah, he's got
the gold in there. The gold doesn't have a smell,
but it's there as like a fun little addition. But
he wouldn't list gold as one of the notes because,
like he knows as well as anyone, there is no
smell to gold. But occasionally you'll see something like blood
in a perfume or wet concrete. Again not actual blood
in the perfume and not actual wet concrete.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
But other things blood in a perfume. I actually can't
get the wet concrete thing because it doesn't smell bad.
It's still not something I would want to smell like.
But I get like the rain on wet grass or
that's yeah, of course it's wet if it's raining, but yeah, yuck.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah yeah, or something like ink is actually surprisingly popular
that's used in a lot of things, but it's kind
of hard to kick in a perfume.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Petrol.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, you hear about petrol and perfumes occasionally, again not
physically in the perfume. Not really. My thing. Ink's a
funny one because there's so many types of ink and
they never specify which one it is, so it's hard
to pick the actual ink. Note when you're smelling a scent, okay, inside,
I'm sure there's something, but none that come to mind,

(08:25):
and certainly not in our collection.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Bad enough, when I use vitamin scene it smells like
old bacon on my face.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
No, you wouldn't like that perfume.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
No, what's a strange like note that you actually love?

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Oh? Good question? The smell of rain or storms, like
that kind of dusty, earthy rain smell, like when when
you're out somewhere really dry.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Everyone loves that smell.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
I mean, it's weird that you can bottle it, though.
Like there's something there's this thing called mitti, a tar
which has been produced in India for centuries out of
actual clay. They dig up clay and extract the scent
from the way. Or there's something called geosmine which humans
can smell. It's something like three parts per trillion it's
like a survival instinct that somehow like grew in our brain,
so we can smell when rain is approaching. But yeah,

(09:13):
I guess it's not such a weird smell. But I
just love that the smell of rain can be bottled
and put into a perfec Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Because it is such a beautiful, unique fragrance.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
How many cents can the average human nose actually distinguish?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
So interesting question. I've got two totally opposite sounding answers
to that. So perfumers typically they can name between five
hundred and a thousand different ingredients. They pick up a perfume,
they smell the perfume and they can name, you know,
like the ten or twenty main ingredients in that and
sort of recreate it more or less that way. But

(09:54):
that's just ones that they can name. So the human nose,
because we've got four hundred cent receptors in the nose,
there's various combinations of sense available.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
I've had a nose job, so mine probably doesn't work
the same as a once do.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
You who knows?

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Who knows my nerves and receptors?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
I don't know. I'm not a surge and I don't know
how that side of things works. But I know that
the humanos can detect about a trillion different sense couldn't
name all of them, but like numbering from one to
a trillion, I could write down a number in there
and you could tell me what the number is. It
doesn't mean that you could, you know, come up with
the name of it from memory, had a trillion different
sense Basically to the human nos, I plain it.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
All, and I'm not just telling you random fun facts.
But I have like this skill where I because I
love and playing it ball so much, I look at
a person and I'll be like, you're a ga or
just because of their vibe and personality. I'm assuming that
you can do that with perfumes. You can assign a
perfume to a person.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
I think I need to get to know a person
a little bit, So for me, I need to know
what someone's ideal life is or what they do in
their spare time. Because you want a scent that actually
reflects who you are outside of the moment when you're
meeting somebody. So if you want like a leathery petroley
kind of a smell, like you own horses and you
repair your own car, great that's going to as a perfume.

(11:10):
But if you don't have lifestyle like that at all,
it's going to clash. It's just not going to smell
quite right. If you smell like a florist but you're
never around flowers, it might just smell kind of odd.
Everyone wears floral sense, but like I'm talking about that
green sap, kind of a proper florist smell. Yeah, sometimes
I can get a vibe based on what a person's wearing.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay, I want you to try me. I'll tell you
a few more. Okay, So I'm a mum of a
three year old. Yeah, I work in beauty, so I
get to try a lot of things. I love my netball.
I like to smell clean, yeah most of the time,
but then something a little bit extra some of the time.

(11:51):
Love your langu lang and love like jasmine and white flowers.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Okay, I reckon you would probably enjoy this one by
the brand Clive Christian. It's called it's a very long name,
jump up and kiss me ecstatic. So it's the strong
tubero's perfume i've ever come across. It's not sweet in
any way, but it's a bold scent and if you
only spray one spray of a fragrance, I think that

(12:18):
one will work really well because you only need one
spray of something like that.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
I'm going to go and smell it really good and
then report back if you've nailed me in a fragrance right,
Because people that know fragrance you just like get it.
I think you probably better at it than you even
give yourself credit for.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Maybe maybe you can.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Start a little side hustle. Come on, I'll meet you, yeah,
and start consultations to start charging by the hour phone.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
I'll tell you what the number of friends who ask
me for fragrance recommendations though, I will literally just say,
all right, let's just meet up in the city and
we'll just go perfume.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, we'll just go perfume shopping.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
That's not fun.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Well, thank you so much for joining us to I
could chat you're off about perfume.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
All day same.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
I have loved this chat more than I can even say.
And thank you so much for sharing all of your
beautiful brain for this incredible fragrance wisdom.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Ubius.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
You can check out a need to pop up online
for these amazing niche fragrances. We've been talking about. And
that's a wrap. Make sure you're following us on TikTok
and Instagram, subscribe to our newsletter, and we'll be back
in your ears and eyes next week
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