Christophe Laudamiel

The love for pure essence

“There’s too much confusion, too much secrecy,” says French-born perfumer Christophe Laudamiel. “I think perfumery should be raised to the same level as music and painting and architecture. When you’re educated, you can determine the true value of things, and you can make better choices. It’s time for that same level of education to occur with scent.”

Laudamiel feels that more people should be made aware that perfumes may consist of more than 100 different elements. That is why he speaks openly about his vocation, much to the horror of some of his peers. He developed his love for the pure essence of flowers, herbs, fruit and other natural products while growing up in the French countryside and in New Caledonia. Laudamiel later supplemented these early experiences by studying chemistry.

Having lectured at Harvard and MIT, he obtained his diploma in perfume design and went on to gain renown as an ingenious designer of perfumes for Abercrombie & Fitch, The Estee Lauder Companies, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Thierry Mugler, Harvey Nichols, The Kew Botanical Gardens in London and Slatkin & Co. His former employer, International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. in New York, referred to him as a designer who thinks ‘outside the bottle’. Today, he is Master Perfumer and President of DreamAir LLC working in exclusivity with Firmenich designing Fine Fragrances and Air Sculptures ® for large brands.