Interview with Perfumer Maurice Roucel {Fragrant Reading}

 

Highly recommended read. It is especially illuminating on the kind of balance a great (and successful) creative perfumer attempts to strike between (needed) commercialism and his reflection on art. After discovering Maurice Roucel's perfumes such as Tocade, 24 Faubourg, L'Instant, Insolence, Musc Ravageur and many more you can also discover his sense of humor, earthiness, and intelligence in this interview given to Symrise,

"Monsieur Roucel,
Perfumes classically consist of smells from meadows and forests, fruits and flowers, water and wood. But traditional perfumery has moved into the 21st century. What new challenges does this bring to perfumers?

That’s not at all true! Since aldehydes were first used in perfumery in the 1920s in Chanel No. 5, perfumes have become much more abstract and are full of ingredients that cannot be found in nature......

 

Other than in art, where everything started with figurative paintings and cubism and more abstract ways of painting came much later, in perfumery abstract scents like Jicky and Chanel No 5 marked the beginning of modern perfumery. Today, consumers wish to “recognize” scents, they want “figurative” perfumes which remind them of something familiar. Nature gives us an endless number of well-known role models for perfumes, and food influences are once again becoming more important in creating fragrances. One way or another, abstract fragrances are always a challenge, because consumers have not “learned” them and have a hard time categorizing and recognizing them. People are generally afraid of the new and unfamiliar …...."

Read more in Symrise......

(via 1000 Fragrances) 

You can also read an older interview on the Société Française des Parfumeurs, in French:

"Puis-je vous demander quel est votre signe astrologique ?
Je suis Vierge ascendant Vierge et la St Maurice se situe dans la période de la Vierge. Je suis donc un concentré de virginité. Dernière précision : je suis Tigre dans l’astrologie chinoise.

Pouvez-vous définir votre personnalité en 3 mots ?
Déterminé, curieux et passionné.

Quel a été votre parcours avant de vous consacrer à la Parfumerie ?
J’ai débuté mon activité professionnelle au CNRS dans la recherche et la synthèse organique. Puis, j’ai intégré Chanel en tant que Chimiste et spécialiste de la chromatographie gazeuse. J’y ai côtoyé Henri Robert et François Demachy. J’ai ensuite rejoint IFF où j’ai travaillé 6 ans. Je suis donc arrivé à la Parfumerie par l’analyse.

Read more......