August 4, 2025 • 26 mins
What secrets does someone who works with the world's most exclusive perfume brands and has 76 fragrances in their personal collection actually know that the rest of us don't?
In this week's episode, Kelly gets the ultimate fragrance education from Ethan Archer from Agency De Parfum! We're getting mind-blowing facts like why there are fewer professional perfumers than astronauts, the 800-year-old perfume house still making bestsellers, and which 500-year-old fragrance from 1533 is still flying off shelves. Plus, Ethan reveals he's wearing EIGHT sprays of perfume right now, why your nose goes blind to your own scent, and the real reason some people can't smell that they stink.
We dive into whether seasonal fragrance switching is marketing or psychology, why dupes are like polyester couture, the truth about fragrance storage and expiration dates, and whether you need one signature scent or an entire fragrance wardrobe. From wedding day fragrance consultations to proper layering techniques, this episode will change how you think about scent forever.
There's so much more fragrance wisdom coming in part 2 next week...
LINKS TO THE PRODUCTS MENTIONED:
- Chanel No. 5 $210
- Jicky by Guerlain $275
- Shalimar by Guerlain $176
- Acqua Colonia by Santa Maria Novella (from 1533) $249
- Green Irish Tweed by Creed $499
- Eladaria by Creed $489
- Torino 21 by Xerjoff $359
- Guidance by Amouage $599
- Aventus by Creed $539
- Outlands by Amouage $759
- Do Son by Diptyque $191
- Amouage Reflection Woman $499
- Elizabeth Arden Green Tea
Brands mentioned:
FOR MORE WHERE THIS CAME FROM:
Watch & Subscribe on YouTube – Part 1 of our chat with Ethan drops tonight at 7pm! Catch it here.
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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:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Makeup is My Therapy.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I'm obsessed and I don't even feel guilty about it.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hello, this is you Beauty, and welcome back to the
formula where we deep dive into science, expert insights and
beauty trends that everyone are talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm Kelly McCarran, and today we have such a special episode.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
If you're a longtime UBI, you know how much I
love fragrance and I'm so passionate about it and today's
episode it's all about it, and I'm talking to someone
who knows a lot more than me. They know absolutely
everything about fragrance and what makes a scent and must
have and what makes things work.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
He's just, Oh my goodness, you're going to love him
as much as we did. We have been getting overloaded.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
With questions from you about fragrance trends, what notes are dominating,
and so I just thought we need to bring in
the ultimate expert, Ethan Archer from Agency Depofarm, which he
is going to pronounce much nicer than me later in
the episode. It's Australia's most esteemed niche perfume distributor company.
So they're the masterminds behind bringing us the most original
(01:31):
crafted perfumes from around the world, working with brands steeped
in history and know how there is a company that
Ethan talks about that has been around for eight hundred years.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You are such beautiful skill But how Ethan, welcome to
the formula.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
We're going to dive strating because I'm just so excited,
Like I am such a fragrance nerd, so I am
just thrilled to have another fragrance nerd here to geek
out over a smelliness. Before we dive into anything technical,
I want to know what drew you to the world
of fragrance in the first place. What is it about
perfume that makes it so special to you and how
(02:14):
did you evolve into you Ethan?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, for me, it started off as a love of
scent that turned into a love of perfume eventually. So
like whether it's my grandmother taking me on little tours
around a rose garden in a backyard, or the fact
that I lived in Kathmandu for a couple of years
because my parents were running an NGO over there. Just
the smells of a place like that are just incredible.
The spices, the food, the incense, the pollution, the clean
(02:39):
mountain air, like it all just blends together. I love scent,
and I just sort of naturally fell into perfume through that.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Did you want to become a nose by any chance?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Though I sort of did for a while.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I don't if you're playing along at home, there's only
there's not that many, not.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
That many in the world. There's less professionally trained perfumers
in the world than there are astronauts, which is wild. Yeah.
I mean, obviously it's harder to become an astronaut, but
it's still it's a competitive industry.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, yeah, but you do decided, I don't know, I
could totally see you as one.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Actually, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see. I'm in
the education side of perfumery at the moment, which is
honestly great, amazing about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Exactly, and great for us because we get to pick
your brain, so for anyone that might not be familiar.
So Agency de Popum I said before started recording, I
was like, oh my god, I hate having to pronounce
like French words, I just sound silly.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So as someone who works with a lot of French people,
with the closest I can get is agen. That's the
closest I can get, which is still so far off.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
That I thought that I actually pronounced it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Probably means it means Perfume Agency, I know.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
But the way that you just said that that is beautiful.
So you work with incredibly niche brands. So you've got NIH, yeah,
b DK, Santa Maria Novella and Mattier Premiere.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
You say that better than me.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
On here we go Mattier Premiere.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Oh my you I'm so far that is? Would you
speak French?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I tried. I can underst bits of it.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
What draws you to those particular brands?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Like when perfumations you can just say ADP.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
If you're ADP is thinking about bringing a different perfume on.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Board, what do you look for?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
So I'm not the one who makes the final decisions
on anything, but Nick Smart, the founder and CEO. I
think what really draws us is at business towards perfume brands,
is is quality, heritage and just real creativity in perfume.
You know people that are doing things differently.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So not mass market.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, not generally mass market. No. I mean some of
the fragrances sell really well, but they're of a different caliber.
I would say.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
What does that mean though, is how they're made.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
So a lot of it is to do with raw materials,
and also just like a lower number of launches being
done each year, I mean, so that the perfumers can
spend a lot more time creating them. You know, they
might spend six months or whatever on an idea rather
than just sort of two days here, two days there.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You need to do one every single month.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, exactly. But I think raw materials really are the
big one there. So if you're using those really beautiful
naturals from maybe frankincense from Oman or rose from grass
in the south of France, if you're using a lot
of those materials, you can smell them in the perfume
and they give a real intensity and theft and beauty
to the scent that you wouldn't get if you were
(05:30):
using synthetic re creations of those, although there's a place
for that as well, But anyway, it's it's a it's
a big complicated world of scent.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, when we're talking about classics. What would you say,
are the most iconic fragrances of all times. So they've
stood the test of time and they're not going anywhere.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, so that, Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, obviously
the cliche like let's not talk about okay, I mean
obviously of course. But yeah, so like the obvious ones,
SHD not number five. Of course, everybody knows that it
still sells amazingly. It's a great scent, not everyone loves it.
A slightly more underappreciated one would be like by Gerlan
(06:11):
that is a beautiful scent from late eighteen hundreds, or
Shalimar they did that in the I think it was
the nineteen twenties, really beautiful amberycent.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So it hasn't changed the formula.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
They've probably done some tweaks like removing animal musks and
things from there, just so that they don't have to
kill deer to create the perfume. I don't know if
they ever did, but that's that's one ingredient that doesn't
really get used in perfume anymore.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Wow, So something that's been around for over one hundred
years still sells really well.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Or yeah, we've got one from Santa Marinavella that you
mentioned before. So they've been around since twelve twenty one,
but they made apparent well it's twenty one, twelve twenty
one exactly. Yeah, so just over eight hundred years one
of the oldest businesses in the world already.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
My goodness, it's.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Wild like the fact that, I mean, they make good products,
that's why they still exist.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, eight hundred years exactly. Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Yeah. So they made a fragrance in fifteen thirty three
for the wedding of Catherine de Medici to King Henry
of France and they still make it. So that's that's
the oldest perfume I'm aware of that still is around.
Ota Colonna I should say, it's not technically a perfume,
but something like green Irish tweed by Creed is iconic
that's been around for decades as well. I wear that
(07:19):
one a lot. So Creed was founded back in seventeen sixty.
It's a British and French perfume house.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I there's a lot of great books that they had
been around for that long.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, Like that's just incredible.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
How many people are still buying the oldest perfume that's
still around.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So quite a few. I host a lot of events
at the Santa Maria a Vela boutique here in Sydney,
and I always have that one, like it's one of
the ones that we talk about because it's the first
perfume that they have, the oldest one that they have.
I'd say we usually sell one or two bottles of
that at every event, so people people buy a lot
of that.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
What are the primary notes in it?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So there's a lot of citrus notes in it, which
is pretty typical back in those days. Yeah, So you've
also got like orange blossom in there as well, or
neurole it's called. It's the essential oil distillation of that flower.
There's petti grain in there as well, which is from
the bit of orange tree, but it's actually taking from
the branches from the wood they extracted from there.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So it's a little bit heavier than a true citrusy exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
So it's a little bit woody. It's quite green, it's
very floral, it's citrusy, it's bright. There's a lot going on.
But yeah, five hundred years old, gorgeous. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Diving straight in, we are always bombarded with questions about
seasonal fragrance.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Switching.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Is this necessary or are we being played by clever marketing?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Do I need a winter perfume?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Like?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Explain your thoughts on winter perfume versus summer perfume and
signature scent versus having a beautiful fragrance wardrobe.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah. Yeah, So I was actually having a chat with
some colleagues about this the other day. We were sort
of debating the idea back and forth a bit. But
I think essentially what it boils down to is when
it's snowing outside, do you crave a pinacolata? Like? Or
when it's.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Forty this analogy?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, are you? Are you just waiting as you sweat
drenched in your own sweat out in the summer sunner
You're like, I just really want a hot chocolate right
now or a deep bread. Yeah. Like, there's just certain
things that you don't crave in certain seasons. So I
think it's built around that. It's what people are really
attracted to in those times. If you want to consume
something as far as food goes, those no it'es are
(09:27):
probably good ways to go. But other than that, honestly,
there's fragrances you could wear year round pretty easily. You
could probably wear anything year round, but it might just
smell a bit strange if it's in the wrong season.
I think, like, if you smell like caramel on a
really hot day, it's going to be weird.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah yeah, what about like, obviously because of your job,
I'm guessing that you're more of a fragrance wardrobe Yeah
type person. I think that I love someone that has
his signature scent because it then.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Evokes so many memories when you think of that person.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
But I think that there's just too many fun and
beautiful fragrances in the world to ever just wear one.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, exactly. For a long time, people thought about scent
like a life partner. You get your one fragrance and
you wear that forever. But I think fragrances make more
sense to think of as friends. You know, you've got
friends that you had in primary school that you don't
really where, you don't really spend any time with anymore.
Maybe you're still friends with them on Instagram whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Oh you've got one that you still.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, something like that exactly. But if you saw them again,
you'd still be like, Hey, how's it going great to
see you. There's perfumes like that there's fragrances in my
collection that I haven't worn in years, but I still
love going back to them occasionally. But you sort of
change them over time. And you've got a group of friends,
you don't just have that one friend. Yeah, nothing wrong
with just having one friend, I guess. But you know why,
great people exactly, and so many great perfumes, so good
(10:46):
to branch out and try a few different things, So
a lot of different things.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, why not, You've got to try everything twice. On
that note, you just mentioned that some of you don't
touch for a couple of years. We often get asked
about fragrance is going off and like how long a
fragrance lasts. I'm always of the opinion that if you
store them correctly, like in a dark, cool place, that
(11:10):
unless it smells bad, doesn't really matter, Like you can
sort of have it forever.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Do you agree, or not forever.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
But more or less yes, So if you store them
in a dark cupboard where the temperature doesn't change too much,
like as long as the cupboard is an indirect sunlight,
it's not going to change temperature much during the day. Yeah,
you can store them for years. Officially, the life span
of a fragrance is three years after you open it.
But I think that's more of like a safety thing,
just to make sure that you know, people don't have
expired fragrances that they spring on.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Also, like for brands to if a fragrance does expire,
you don't want someone to be like, I'd like a
refund on this precise. I've worn it every day, but
it's still like a refund.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The other way too, is because they'll
change slowly. If they do change, you can just spray
it on and then compare it with a new tester
of that from like David Jones or whatever, and just
see side by side. Do they smell the same. If
they do, good, your bottle hasn't gone off. If they
smell really different, it's not that the formula has changed. Probably,
it's just that your bottle's gone bad. So that's that's
a good way to think of that.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
What's the like, how long if you had one of them?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
So I've only ever had one bottle go bad, and
that's because I got down to about five percent of
the perfume that was left and then just sort of
left it there for you know, memories, but because there's
so much oxygen in the bottle, it oxidized way faster
than if it had been ninety five percent full. That one,
I think that one's about six years, seven years old now,
(12:33):
But yeah, I've got sense that I've had for longer
than that that still haven't gone off.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, so do I Yeah, I've got one.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeslus doesn't exist anymore. I've had it for fourteen years.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I'm sure it's probably like.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I'm sure it changed exactly the same as it did originally,
but it doesn't smell bad, and I've still got a
bit and they don't make it anymore, so I want
to keep it.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah. Nice. Nice.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Speaking of signature sense or lack thereof, what about someone
that wants to change their signature sent for their wedding day?
I didn't realize that this was a thing people overthinking things.
Should you just wear something that you love or should
you find a new fragrance that you will then remember
the wedding day forever when you smell it or wear it.
(13:15):
So given that it's such a big, pivotal special day
to a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
So yeah, I would say, if you would wear a
dress that you already have in your collection to the wedding,
or a suit that you already have in your collection
to the wedding. Then yeah, maybe wear a fragmance. You
already have nothing wrong with wearing a fragmance. You already have.
But I know with Libertine Perfumery, which is our like
Agonstapa Fum's retailer, we actually do bridal fragrance consultations and
(13:41):
they're really popular. So we have yeah, so fun. Yeah,
we have like brides to be come in and have
like the whole bridal party there as well, and make
a whole event out of it, champagne and whatnot, and
to find that scent, because that scent then is something
that you remember forever when you look back at wedding photos.
If you can smell the exact same smell as well,
it becomes so much more magical.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yes, I agree. What does my scent that I chose
for my wedding day say about me? Tell me give
me your worst I chose dip teak dose on.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Okay, okay, customers, you can be brutal. I can tell you.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I'm just trying to remember that's a sandalwood one, right,
I haven't smelled the full dipty collection in a little while.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It definitely has tuberos and jasmine it as well as white.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Flowers of course, of course, yeah, I'm thinking more the
base of the scent. Yeah, okay, no beautiful. So white
florals and white dresses a classic way to go together.
So On a Woman by Amoage is another classic white
floral that a lot of people choose to wear on
their wedding day because it's got that really pungent white
floral thing, but in a really beautiful, delicate kind of
a not too yeah exactly, but things like tube burrows
(14:44):
jasmine orange blossom have a centuries long tradition with weddings,
so yeah, perfect spot.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Okay, I love a white flower just in general.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, not a huge fan of other ones, but yeah,
a lot of people want to know why they can't
smell their own fragrance on them after they have spritted
in the morning.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, it's a pretty common question I get asked, actually,
So basically it's known as nose blindness. So when you
smell the same scent all the time, your nose tends
to just sort of get used to it and accept
that as like a neutral smell.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So is that why some people that always stink but
they can't smell it.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
That is exactly the reason. Yes, I have.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Never thought about it like that, because I've always wondered,
can that person not smell themselves or can not smell
that they stink?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, wow, Or you've actually just blown my mind.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
It's something like washing powder or something as well, right,
Like you can smell it when you change your washing
liquid and powder whatever people use.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Or if you go to someone else's house exactly as
a towel.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, precisely. So if someone doesn't use a home fragrance
in their scent, the default smell of the house is
probably going to be a mix between their kitchen and
whatever are like washing detergent they use.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Or their dog if they've got one.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Or their dog. Love a dog, they do too.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
But I don't like when houses smell like.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
A dog exactly. So basically, your nose just gets used
to the smell of something and just accepts it as normal.
So your own body odor or the smell of your
own home. If you leave home and then come back
a month late, you're going to smell your home and
you'll be like, that's familiar. But I didn't realize it
was there.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, Yeah, what about though, so you can just confirm
to everyone that they don't need more than how many
sprays do you say?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
It depends on the scent. I'm curious how many sprays
of perfume do you do?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
One?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Okay? Interesting, I mean depends on the scentry.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Actually I say one.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
But I really love it's a cologne that Elizabeth Arden
Green Tea just oh yeah, going to the gym, going
to just it is the most inoffensive, fresh clean smell
to me. I love it that I do a couple like.
It's not because it's a cologne, but a perform or
a perfume I would use one.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Interesting. So I today, just as an example, I'm wearing
this beautiful scent called Outlands by the brand Amoage that
I've probably already mentioned. It's a beautiful perfume house based
out of Muscat. You know, mom, I sprayed on let
me count one, two, three, four. I did eight sprays today, one, two, three,
four eights phrase because they're not even smell it. That
(17:13):
would have been I don't know, three four hours ago
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, but you've got to st shocked that you're not
offending my nostrils though because I had a baby a
couple of years got ever, since I can't tolerate fragrance
away used to okay, And so if my husband does
more than one right like in, I'm.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Just like yeah, okay, like right after me.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Maybe it's because we've got a bit of distance here
for a place, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
But I could you were wafting as you come in.
But it was beautiful. It was not overpowering at all. Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And like I'm imagining that the homage is a perfume.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Technically it's an essence to pathum, they call it. So
it's thirty percent perfume oil, whereas like an odor colone
would be sort of three four percent, an out of
toilet might be like ten percent. From fifteen to twenty percent, Yeah,
there's like a whole spectrum, and then what's the highest,
So the highest the highest would be an extraight apart
from depending on the brand, sort of between thirty and
fifty percent perfume oil. Then you've got a tars, which
(18:11):
literally don't even have alcohol in them. They're just oil.
They're not super common, but they're really beautiful and honestly.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I quite popular in Middle Eastern countries.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Absolutely, That's that's where they first arose, because that's where
the technology was perfected to even make those things. Going
back five hundred years, I'm really rambling on a tangent here,
but they didn't have the technology to create the pure
perfume oils. They had to create them as a byproduct
of other distillation techniques.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Oh okay, but with that, you just use a.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Drop, right, Yeah, Like I'm wearing a little bit of
that today on my jumper and in my hair. You
put a couple drops on your hands.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So you put eight sprays of one perfume on and
then you've got drops of Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
The other one that I'm wearing it it's got Nepoli's
sandwored in it.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It's really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Oh that sounds so nice. How many do you have
in your own personal collection at home?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Probably too many. I mean, you can never have too many.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
We need to put a photo up in the group
of all of your perfumes.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, Honestly, it's not like a glamorous display or anything,
because I'm all about like protecting them from light, so
they're just touching me.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Don't have them under it.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Like all of the beautiful bottles in the sun so
that the lights in.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
The staff fle through. No, not quite No, they do
look very good when you've got light going through them.
But I wouldn't normally have more than one or two
bottles anywhere visible because they're just the ones.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
That I'm rot rotating the same.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, I counted it the other day. I've got seventy
six perfumes. Okay, so it's not unreasonable. Well, it depends
who you are, but I know people have like six
hundred cents. I know one, Michael Edwards, he used to
have tens of thousands.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Well he would because he'd probably have every single one
that he pops in his book.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Well exactly, yes, getting.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Into trends, what sense are you seeing flying off the
shelves right now?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
What are people obsessing over?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
So some of them are like recent launchers, like Elidaria
by Creed is doing really well. That's just this beautiful
soft French rose smell, fantastic scent. It's got some citrus
in there as well, really beautifully balanced. Then there's some
other ones I've been around for a few years. So
this one called to Reno twenty one by the Italian
Brann deserzof has been doing really well. They sponsor the
(20:15):
there's a tennis final in two in each year, so
they do like a collaboration Perfume with them. That was
their twenty twenty one bottle. It's like lime and just bright,
zingy citrus. Smells like the intensity of a tennis match.
I love it. What else has been doing really well?
Guidance another amoage one actually that's been doing amazingly, but
that one came out two three years ago and just
never stopped selling. Everyone loves it. I love it. It's incredible.
(20:38):
There's a lot of sense that do really well. Predaventus
is one that always does well, like just regardless of
season or anything. People love it. It's it's funny, iconic.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Perfume's one category that like, of course there are trends,
but it's not really like makeup, I should say, or
skincare where they're like peptids or gray Marle or something like.
You know, if it's a beautiful smell, it's a beautiful
smell regardless of what's.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
In it, precisely. Yeah, Like there are cycles of trends
over the years. So for example, Inch Noel number five,
there's a family of ingredients called aldehydes not related to formaldehyde.
Don't worry, they're very much non toxic. But those ingredients
don't get used much in perfume anymore. Occasionally they do
in a really artistic way. They kind of smell a
bit soapy, floral something like that. Yeah, I mean it's
(21:25):
not for everybody, right, Like it's sort of a strange
scent or elangy lang flowers.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Oh, I love. I don't understand how that's not more popular.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Because yeah, it's like buttery tropical.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Oh my goodness, I'm quite like a basic bitch when
it comes to a tropical scent though, Japan or give
me the forrange Japanny, or like a lime coconut and
basil or something.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Oh beautiful, I love.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Like very basic when it comes to that. People talk
about perfume laring a lot on TikTok and then a
lot of people if you're playing long at home, you
might be like, ooh, I don't really know about putting
that perfume on and then putting that one on. Can
you talk to us about how to do it properly
and not sort of confuse different frances.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
So the way I would talk about it, is you
kind of Well, you can layer things directly on top
of each other, but I prefer to do like scent
scaping rather than sense stacking. So if you spray one
perfume and then spray another one on top of it,
you're going to get some like blends of things that
may or may not work. So it's safer to do
like one spray on your wrists, one spray on your neck,
(22:31):
something like that. So you have those sens intertwining through
the day, but they're not actually physically mixing with each other.
That way you can play around with it a bit
more and there's less chance of clashing. But also I
would just say combine similar sense or opposite sense, but
not sort of vaguely similar, but in different ways. So
if you've got two woody scents, great together. If you've
(22:52):
got like a woody and a citrus, probably great. But
if you have something like a floral citrus and like
a floral woody scent, that's just going to be too
many things going on at the same time, or.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Like something woody with something gormand might be.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Just yeah, it could clash a bit, particularly if they're
really complex. Sense. Yes, so there's this beautiful perfume brand
called Clive Christian and they use like one hundred and
fifty plus ingredients up to close to three hundred in
each of their perfumes, which is well above what most
other brands do. Way too complex to layer with though,
like their works of art that have to be worn
by themselves.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, that would be that three hundred Yeah yeah, wow,
wild average on average in the industry.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
It's hard to say for sure, but I think most
brands would be doing between maybe thirty and seventy ingredients.
That's kind of guesswork, but yes, it's certainly a lot
like such an.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Art, isn't it like getting that land so perfect? Speaking
of it as an art? What are your thoughts on
dupe culture with perfuse?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Good question, so, Jupes, I think smells like yeah, exactly.
It's kind of like photocopying a painting. So if you
go to the art gallery of New South Wales and
you find a beautiful oil painting there, you could take
a photo of it and print it out of your
inkjet printer at home, and from a distance it'd looked
(24:12):
pretty similar, but if you go up close to it,
it's got no soul. It's got no carriacter, it's got
no texture, the light hits it wrong, it's just not
the right vibe. I think dupes are kind of like
that as a general rule. Or it's like recreating a
mature piece out of polyestera like, sure it might be
kind of similar, but it's going to fall apart and
(24:32):
it doesn't look as good but kind of similar. So hey,
I guess people go for those, but it's certainly not
something I would recommend. There isn't the same like medical
testing and all those requirements that in them.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
That's a really good point, actually, because sometimes I have
like I'll get sent one and I'll smell it and
I'll be like, wow, that really is similar to whatever
it was replicating.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
But they don't last. They turn quite quickly.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, Like if you stole them, they can sort of
go a bit weird within you know, a couple of years,
whereas the original just isn't going to have that same
problem because there was so much more research and development
that went into making I think.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
The polyester is a very good analogy.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
It's like, yeah, if you can't afford the ten thousand
dollar dress, fair enough, fair enough, by the forty dollar
dress and do with it what you will.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
But yeah, but it's never going to be even close
to the same thing.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, that's a really good point. So it's probably better
if you really love something to save up.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yeah. Yeah, Like for me, I would rather have one
really nice fragrance, the original one, than ten dupes of
various Yes, just because.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It alf so feels special when you put it, because
you think of the artistry that's gone in, the magic
that's gone into making it.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, precisely, Ethan.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
This has been incredible, but we've got so much more
to cover that I'm kidnapping you for a part two.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Next week.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
We're going to dive into the really good stuff, the
most ridiculously expensive perfume money can buy, how to actually
apply fragrance properly, and why some sense smell rank on
certain people. Plus Ethan's revealing the weirdest notes he's ever encountered.
Think blood and wet concrete. Make sure to tune into
next week because we had way too much good content
(26:16):
to squeeze into one episode.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Makeup is My Therapy.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
I'm obsessed and I don't even feel guilty about it.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hello, this is you Beauty, and welcome back to the
formula where we deep dive into science, expert insights and
beauty trends that everyone are talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm Kelly McCarran, and today we have such a special episode.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
If you're a longtime UBI, you know how much I
love fragrance and I'm so passionate about it and today's
episode it's all about it, and I'm talking to someone
who knows a lot more than me. They know absolutely
everything about fragrance and what makes a scent and must
have and what makes things work.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
He's just, Oh my goodness, you're going to love him
as much as we did. We have been getting overloaded.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
With questions from you about fragrance trends, what notes are dominating,
and so I just thought we need to bring in
the ultimate expert, Ethan Archer from Agency Depofarm, which he
is going to pronounce much nicer than me later in
the episode. It's Australia's most esteemed niche perfume distributor company.
So they're the masterminds behind bringing us the most original
(01:31):
crafted perfumes from around the world, working with brands steeped
in history and know how there is a company that
Ethan talks about that has been around for eight hundred years.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You are such beautiful skill But how Ethan, welcome to
the formula.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
We're going to dive strating because I'm just so excited,
Like I am such a fragrance nerd, so I am
just thrilled to have another fragrance nerd here to geek
out over a smelliness. Before we dive into anything technical,
I want to know what drew you to the world
of fragrance in the first place. What is it about
perfume that makes it so special to you and how
(02:14):
did you evolve into you Ethan?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, for me, it started off as a love of
scent that turned into a love of perfume eventually. So
like whether it's my grandmother taking me on little tours
around a rose garden in a backyard, or the fact
that I lived in Kathmandu for a couple of years
because my parents were running an NGO over there. Just
the smells of a place like that are just incredible.
The spices, the food, the incense, the pollution, the clean
(02:39):
mountain air, like it all just blends together. I love scent,
and I just sort of naturally fell into perfume through that.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Did you want to become a nose by any chance?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Though I sort of did for a while.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I don't if you're playing along at home, there's only
there's not that many, not.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
That many in the world. There's less professionally trained perfumers
in the world than there are astronauts, which is wild. Yeah.
I mean, obviously it's harder to become an astronaut, but
it's still it's a competitive industry.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, yeah, but you do decided, I don't know, I
could totally see you as one.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Actually, I don't know. We'll see, we'll see. I'm in
the education side of perfumery at the moment, which is
honestly great, amazing about it all the time.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Exactly, and great for us because we get to pick
your brain, so for anyone that might not be familiar.
So Agency de Popum I said before started recording, I
was like, oh my god, I hate having to pronounce
like French words, I just sound silly.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So as someone who works with a lot of French people,
with the closest I can get is agen. That's the
closest I can get, which is still so far off.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
That I thought that I actually pronounced it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Probably means it means Perfume Agency, I know.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
But the way that you just said that that is beautiful.
So you work with incredibly niche brands. So you've got NIH, yeah,
b DK, Santa Maria Novella and Mattier Premiere.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
You say that better than me.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
On here we go Mattier Premiere.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Oh my you I'm so far that is? Would you
speak French?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
I tried. I can underst bits of it.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
What draws you to those particular brands?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Like when perfumations you can just say ADP.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
If you're ADP is thinking about bringing a different perfume on.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Board, what do you look for?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
So I'm not the one who makes the final decisions
on anything, but Nick Smart, the founder and CEO. I
think what really draws us is at business towards perfume brands,
is is quality, heritage and just real creativity in perfume.
You know people that are doing things differently.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So not mass market.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, not generally mass market. No. I mean some of
the fragrances sell really well, but they're of a different caliber.
I would say.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
What does that mean though, is how they're made.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
So a lot of it is to do with raw materials,
and also just like a lower number of launches being
done each year, I mean, so that the perfumers can
spend a lot more time creating them. You know, they
might spend six months or whatever on an idea rather
than just sort of two days here, two days there.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You need to do one every single month.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, exactly. But I think raw materials really are the
big one there. So if you're using those really beautiful
naturals from maybe frankincense from Oman or rose from grass
in the south of France, if you're using a lot
of those materials, you can smell them in the perfume
and they give a real intensity and theft and beauty
to the scent that you wouldn't get if you were
(05:30):
using synthetic re creations of those, although there's a place
for that as well, But anyway, it's it's a it's
a big complicated world of scent.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, when we're talking about classics. What would you say,
are the most iconic fragrances of all times. So they've
stood the test of time and they're not going anywhere.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, so that, Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, obviously
the cliche like let's not talk about okay, I mean
obviously of course. But yeah, so like the obvious ones,
SHD not number five. Of course, everybody knows that it
still sells amazingly. It's a great scent, not everyone loves it.
A slightly more underappreciated one would be like by Gerlan
(06:11):
that is a beautiful scent from late eighteen hundreds, or
Shalimar they did that in the I think it was
the nineteen twenties, really beautiful amberycent.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
So it hasn't changed the formula.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
They've probably done some tweaks like removing animal musks and
things from there, just so that they don't have to
kill deer to create the perfume. I don't know if
they ever did, but that's that's one ingredient that doesn't
really get used in perfume anymore.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Wow, So something that's been around for over one hundred
years still sells really well.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Or yeah, we've got one from Santa Marinavella that you
mentioned before. So they've been around since twelve twenty one,
but they made apparent well it's twenty one, twelve twenty
one exactly. Yeah, so just over eight hundred years one
of the oldest businesses in the world already.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
My goodness, it's.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Wild like the fact that, I mean, they make good products,
that's why they still exist.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Yeah, eight hundred years exactly. Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Yeah. So they made a fragrance in fifteen thirty three
for the wedding of Catherine de Medici to King Henry
of France and they still make it. So that's that's
the oldest perfume I'm aware of that still is around.
Ota Colonna I should say, it's not technically a perfume,
but something like green Irish tweed by Creed is iconic
that's been around for decades as well. I wear that
(07:19):
one a lot. So Creed was founded back in seventeen sixty.
It's a British and French perfume house.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I there's a lot of great books that they had
been around for that long.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, Like that's just incredible.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
How many people are still buying the oldest perfume that's
still around.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So quite a few. I host a lot of events
at the Santa Maria a Vela boutique here in Sydney,
and I always have that one, like it's one of
the ones that we talk about because it's the first
perfume that they have, the oldest one that they have.
I'd say we usually sell one or two bottles of
that at every event, so people people buy a lot
of that.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
What are the primary notes in it?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So there's a lot of citrus notes in it, which
is pretty typical back in those days. Yeah, So you've
also got like orange blossom in there as well, or
neurole it's called. It's the essential oil distillation of that flower.
There's petti grain in there as well, which is from
the bit of orange tree, but it's actually taking from
the branches from the wood they extracted from there.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So it's a little bit heavier than a true citrusy exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
So it's a little bit woody. It's quite green, it's
very floral, it's citrusy, it's bright. There's a lot going on.
But yeah, five hundred years old, gorgeous. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Diving straight in, we are always bombarded with questions about
seasonal fragrance.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Switching.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Is this necessary or are we being played by clever marketing?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Do I need a winter perfume?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Like?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Explain your thoughts on winter perfume versus summer perfume and
signature scent versus having a beautiful fragrance wardrobe.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah. Yeah, So I was actually having a chat with
some colleagues about this the other day. We were sort
of debating the idea back and forth a bit. But
I think essentially what it boils down to is when
it's snowing outside, do you crave a pinacolata? Like? Or
when it's.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Forty this analogy?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, are you? Are you just waiting as you sweat
drenched in your own sweat out in the summer sunner
You're like, I just really want a hot chocolate right
now or a deep bread. Yeah. Like, there's just certain
things that you don't crave in certain seasons. So I
think it's built around that. It's what people are really
attracted to in those times. If you want to consume
something as far as food goes, those no it'es are
(09:27):
probably good ways to go. But other than that, honestly,
there's fragrances you could wear year round pretty easily. You
could probably wear anything year round, but it might just
smell a bit strange if it's in the wrong season.
I think, like, if you smell like caramel on a
really hot day, it's going to be weird.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah yeah, what about like, obviously because of your job,
I'm guessing that you're more of a fragrance wardrobe Yeah
type person. I think that I love someone that has
his signature scent because it then.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Evokes so many memories when you think of that person.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
But I think that there's just too many fun and
beautiful fragrances in the world to ever just wear one.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, exactly. For a long time, people thought about scent
like a life partner. You get your one fragrance and
you wear that forever. But I think fragrances make more
sense to think of as friends. You know, you've got
friends that you had in primary school that you don't
really where, you don't really spend any time with anymore.
Maybe you're still friends with them on Instagram whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Oh you've got one that you still.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, something like that exactly. But if you saw them again,
you'd still be like, Hey, how's it going great to
see you. There's perfumes like that there's fragrances in my
collection that I haven't worn in years, but I still
love going back to them occasionally. But you sort of
change them over time. And you've got a group of friends,
you don't just have that one friend. Yeah, nothing wrong
with just having one friend, I guess. But you know why,
great people exactly, and so many great perfumes, so good
(10:46):
to branch out and try a few different things, So
a lot of different things.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, why not, You've got to try everything twice. On
that note, you just mentioned that some of you don't
touch for a couple of years. We often get asked
about fragrance is going off and like how long a
fragrance lasts. I'm always of the opinion that if you
store them correctly, like in a dark, cool place, that
(11:10):
unless it smells bad, doesn't really matter, Like you can
sort of have it forever.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Do you agree, or not forever.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
But more or less yes, So if you store them
in a dark cupboard where the temperature doesn't change too much,
like as long as the cupboard is an indirect sunlight,
it's not going to change temperature much during the day. Yeah,
you can store them for years. Officially, the life span
of a fragrance is three years after you open it.
But I think that's more of like a safety thing,
just to make sure that you know, people don't have
expired fragrances that they spring on.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Also, like for brands to if a fragrance does expire,
you don't want someone to be like, I'd like a
refund on this precise. I've worn it every day, but
it's still like a refund.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The other way too, is because they'll
change slowly. If they do change, you can just spray
it on and then compare it with a new tester
of that from like David Jones or whatever, and just
see side by side. Do they smell the same. If
they do, good, your bottle hasn't gone off. If they
smell really different, it's not that the formula has changed. Probably,
it's just that your bottle's gone bad. So that's that's
a good way to think of that.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
What's the like, how long if you had one of them?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
So I've only ever had one bottle go bad, and
that's because I got down to about five percent of
the perfume that was left and then just sort of
left it there for you know, memories, but because there's
so much oxygen in the bottle, it oxidized way faster
than if it had been ninety five percent full. That one,
I think that one's about six years, seven years old now,
(12:33):
But yeah, I've got sense that I've had for longer
than that that still haven't gone off.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, so do I Yeah, I've got one.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeslus doesn't exist anymore. I've had it for fourteen years.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I'm sure it's probably like.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I'm sure it changed exactly the same as it did originally,
but it doesn't smell bad, and I've still got a
bit and they don't make it anymore, so I want
to keep it.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah. Nice. Nice.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Speaking of signature sense or lack thereof, what about someone
that wants to change their signature sent for their wedding day?
I didn't realize that this was a thing people overthinking things.
Should you just wear something that you love or should
you find a new fragrance that you will then remember
the wedding day forever when you smell it or wear it.
(13:15):
So given that it's such a big, pivotal special day
to a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
So yeah, I would say, if you would wear a
dress that you already have in your collection to the wedding,
or a suit that you already have in your collection
to the wedding. Then yeah, maybe wear a fragmance. You
already have nothing wrong with wearing a fragmance. You already have.
But I know with Libertine Perfumery, which is our like
Agonstapa Fum's retailer, we actually do bridal fragrance consultations and
(13:41):
they're really popular. So we have yeah, so fun. Yeah,
we have like brides to be come in and have
like the whole bridal party there as well, and make
a whole event out of it, champagne and whatnot, and
to find that scent, because that scent then is something
that you remember forever when you look back at wedding photos.
If you can smell the exact same smell as well,
it becomes so much more magical.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yes, I agree. What does my scent that I chose
for my wedding day say about me? Tell me give
me your worst I chose dip teak dose on.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Okay, okay, customers, you can be brutal. I can tell you.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I'm just trying to remember that's a sandalwood one, right,
I haven't smelled the full dipty collection in a little while.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It definitely has tuberos and jasmine it as well as white.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Flowers of course, of course, yeah, I'm thinking more the
base of the scent. Yeah, okay, no beautiful. So white
florals and white dresses a classic way to go together.
So On a Woman by Amoage is another classic white
floral that a lot of people choose to wear on
their wedding day because it's got that really pungent white
floral thing, but in a really beautiful, delicate kind of
a not too yeah exactly, but things like tube burrows
(14:44):
jasmine orange blossom have a centuries long tradition with weddings,
so yeah, perfect spot.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Okay, I love a white flower just in general.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, not a huge fan of other ones, but yeah,
a lot of people want to know why they can't
smell their own fragrance on them after they have spritted
in the morning.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yeah, it's a pretty common question I get asked, actually,
So basically it's known as nose blindness. So when you
smell the same scent all the time, your nose tends
to just sort of get used to it and accept
that as like a neutral smell.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So is that why some people that always stink but
they can't smell it.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
That is exactly the reason. Yes, I have.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Never thought about it like that, because I've always wondered,
can that person not smell themselves or can not smell
that they stink?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, wow, Or you've actually just blown my mind.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
It's something like washing powder or something as well, right,
Like you can smell it when you change your washing
liquid and powder whatever people use.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Or if you go to someone else's house exactly as
a towel.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, precisely. So if someone doesn't use a home fragrance
in their scent, the default smell of the house is
probably going to be a mix between their kitchen and
whatever are like washing detergent they use.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Or their dog if they've got one.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Or their dog. Love a dog, they do too.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
But I don't like when houses smell like.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
A dog exactly. So basically, your nose just gets used
to the smell of something and just accepts it as normal.
So your own body odor or the smell of your
own home. If you leave home and then come back
a month late, you're going to smell your home and
you'll be like, that's familiar. But I didn't realize it
was there.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, Yeah, what about though, so you can just confirm
to everyone that they don't need more than how many
sprays do you say?
Speaker 3 (16:21):
It depends on the scent. I'm curious how many sprays
of perfume do you do?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
One?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Okay? Interesting, I mean depends on the scentry.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Actually I say one.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
But I really love it's a cologne that Elizabeth Arden
Green Tea just oh yeah, going to the gym, going
to just it is the most inoffensive, fresh clean smell
to me. I love it that I do a couple like.
It's not because it's a cologne, but a perform or
a perfume I would use one.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Interesting. So I today, just as an example, I'm wearing
this beautiful scent called Outlands by the brand Amoage that
I've probably already mentioned. It's a beautiful perfume house based
out of Muscat. You know, mom, I sprayed on let
me count one, two, three, four. I did eight sprays today, one, two, three,
four eights phrase because they're not even smell it. That
(17:13):
would have been I don't know, three four hours ago
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, but you've got to st shocked that you're not
offending my nostrils though because I had a baby a
couple of years got ever, since I can't tolerate fragrance
away used to okay, And so if my husband does
more than one right like in, I'm.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Just like yeah, okay, like right after me.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Maybe it's because we've got a bit of distance here
for a place, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
But I could you were wafting as you come in.
But it was beautiful. It was not overpowering at all. Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And like I'm imagining that the homage is a perfume.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Technically it's an essence to pathum, they call it. So
it's thirty percent perfume oil, whereas like an odor colone
would be sort of three four percent, an out of
toilet might be like ten percent. From fifteen to twenty percent, Yeah,
there's like a whole spectrum, and then what's the highest,
So the highest the highest would be an extraight apart
from depending on the brand, sort of between thirty and
fifty percent perfume oil. Then you've got a tars, which
(18:11):
literally don't even have alcohol in them. They're just oil.
They're not super common, but they're really beautiful and honestly.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I quite popular in Middle Eastern countries.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Absolutely, That's that's where they first arose, because that's where
the technology was perfected to even make those things. Going
back five hundred years, I'm really rambling on a tangent here,
but they didn't have the technology to create the pure
perfume oils. They had to create them as a byproduct
of other distillation techniques.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Oh okay, but with that, you just use a.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Drop, right, Yeah, Like I'm wearing a little bit of
that today on my jumper and in my hair. You
put a couple drops on your hands.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So you put eight sprays of one perfume on and
then you've got drops of Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
The other one that I'm wearing it it's got Nepoli's
sandwored in it.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It's really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Oh that sounds so nice. How many do you have
in your own personal collection at home?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Probably too many. I mean, you can never have too many.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
We need to put a photo up in the group
of all of your perfumes.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, Honestly, it's not like a glamorous display or anything,
because I'm all about like protecting them from light, so
they're just touching me.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Don't have them under it.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Like all of the beautiful bottles in the sun so
that the lights in.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
The staff fle through. No, not quite No, they do
look very good when you've got light going through them.
But I wouldn't normally have more than one or two
bottles anywhere visible because they're just the ones.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
That I'm rot rotating the same.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, I counted it the other day. I've got seventy
six perfumes. Okay, so it's not unreasonable. Well, it depends
who you are, but I know people have like six
hundred cents. I know one, Michael Edwards, he used to
have tens of thousands.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Well he would because he'd probably have every single one
that he pops in his book.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Well exactly, yes, getting.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Into trends, what sense are you seeing flying off the
shelves right now?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
What are people obsessing over?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
So some of them are like recent launchers, like Elidaria
by Creed is doing really well. That's just this beautiful
soft French rose smell, fantastic scent. It's got some citrus
in there as well, really beautifully balanced. Then there's some
other ones I've been around for a few years. So
this one called to Reno twenty one by the Italian
Brann deserzof has been doing really well. They sponsor the
(20:15):
there's a tennis final in two in each year, so
they do like a collaboration Perfume with them. That was
their twenty twenty one bottle. It's like lime and just bright,
zingy citrus. Smells like the intensity of a tennis match.
I love it. What else has been doing really well?
Guidance another amoage one actually that's been doing amazingly, but
that one came out two three years ago and just
never stopped selling. Everyone loves it. I love it. It's incredible.
(20:38):
There's a lot of sense that do really well. Predaventus
is one that always does well, like just regardless of
season or anything. People love it. It's it's funny, iconic.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Perfume's one category that like, of course there are trends,
but it's not really like makeup, I should say, or
skincare where they're like peptids or gray Marle or something like.
You know, if it's a beautiful smell, it's a beautiful
smell regardless of what's.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
In it, precisely. Yeah, Like there are cycles of trends
over the years. So for example, Inch Noel number five,
there's a family of ingredients called aldehydes not related to formaldehyde.
Don't worry, they're very much non toxic. But those ingredients
don't get used much in perfume anymore. Occasionally they do
in a really artistic way. They kind of smell a
bit soapy, floral something like that. Yeah, I mean it's
(21:25):
not for everybody, right, Like it's sort of a strange
scent or elangy lang flowers.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Oh, I love. I don't understand how that's not more popular.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Because yeah, it's like buttery tropical.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Oh my goodness, I'm quite like a basic bitch when
it comes to a tropical scent though, Japan or give
me the forrange Japanny, or like a lime coconut and
basil or something.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Oh beautiful, I love.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Like very basic when it comes to that. People talk
about perfume laring a lot on TikTok and then a
lot of people if you're playing long at home, you
might be like, ooh, I don't really know about putting
that perfume on and then putting that one on. Can
you talk to us about how to do it properly
and not sort of confuse different frances.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
So the way I would talk about it, is you
kind of Well, you can layer things directly on top
of each other, but I prefer to do like scent
scaping rather than sense stacking. So if you spray one
perfume and then spray another one on top of it,
you're going to get some like blends of things that
may or may not work. So it's safer to do
like one spray on your wrists, one spray on your neck,
(22:31):
something like that. So you have those sens intertwining through
the day, but they're not actually physically mixing with each other.
That way you can play around with it a bit
more and there's less chance of clashing. But also I
would just say combine similar sense or opposite sense, but
not sort of vaguely similar, but in different ways. So
if you've got two woody scents, great together. If you've
(22:52):
got like a woody and a citrus, probably great. But
if you have something like a floral citrus and like
a floral woody scent, that's just going to be too
many things going on at the same time, or.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Like something woody with something gormand might be.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Just yeah, it could clash a bit, particularly if they're
really complex. Sense. Yes, so there's this beautiful perfume brand
called Clive Christian and they use like one hundred and
fifty plus ingredients up to close to three hundred in
each of their perfumes, which is well above what most
other brands do. Way too complex to layer with though,
like their works of art that have to be worn
by themselves.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, that would be that three hundred Yeah yeah, wow,
wild average on average in the industry.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
It's hard to say for sure, but I think most
brands would be doing between maybe thirty and seventy ingredients.
That's kind of guesswork, but yes, it's certainly a lot
like such an.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Art, isn't it like getting that land so perfect? Speaking
of it as an art? What are your thoughts on
dupe culture with perfuse?
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Good question, so, Jupes, I think smells like yeah, exactly.
It's kind of like photocopying a painting. So if you
go to the art gallery of New South Wales and
you find a beautiful oil painting there, you could take
a photo of it and print it out of your
inkjet printer at home, and from a distance it'd looked
(24:12):
pretty similar, but if you go up close to it,
it's got no soul. It's got no carriacter, it's got
no texture, the light hits it wrong, it's just not
the right vibe. I think dupes are kind of like
that as a general rule. Or it's like recreating a
mature piece out of polyestera like, sure it might be
kind of similar, but it's going to fall apart and
(24:32):
it doesn't look as good but kind of similar. So hey,
I guess people go for those, but it's certainly not
something I would recommend. There isn't the same like medical
testing and all those requirements that in them.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
That's a really good point, actually, because sometimes I have
like I'll get sent one and I'll smell it and
I'll be like, wow, that really is similar to whatever
it was replicating.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
But they don't last. They turn quite quickly.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, Like if you stole them, they can sort of
go a bit weird within you know, a couple of years,
whereas the original just isn't going to have that same
problem because there was so much more research and development
that went into making I think.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
The polyester is a very good analogy.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
It's like, yeah, if you can't afford the ten thousand
dollar dress, fair enough, fair enough, by the forty dollar
dress and do with it what you will.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
But yeah, but it's never going to be even close
to the same thing.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, that's a really good point. So it's probably better
if you really love something to save up.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yeah. Yeah, Like for me, I would rather have one
really nice fragrance, the original one, than ten dupes of
various Yes, just because.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It alf so feels special when you put it, because
you think of the artistry that's gone in, the magic
that's gone into making it.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, precisely, Ethan.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
This has been incredible, but we've got so much more
to cover that I'm kidnapping you for a part two.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Next week.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
We're going to dive into the really good stuff, the
most ridiculously expensive perfume money can buy, how to actually
apply fragrance properly, and why some sense smell rank on
certain people. Plus Ethan's revealing the weirdest notes he's ever encountered.
Think blood and wet concrete. Make sure to tune into
next week because we had way too much good content
(26:16):
to squeeze into one episode.
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