▲ Consumers choose products from one in a hundred to one in a thousand, which brings challenges to the work of perfumers Photo/Visual China
Fragrances contain the inspiration and memories of perfumers, as well as their insights and compromises in the market.
This article was first published in Southern People Weekly
Text / Southern People Weekly reporter Liu Luming
This is a nose that cannot catch a cold.
Since entering the industry in 2002, this nose has memorized the smell of thousands of spices. In fact, even if you have a cold, the work will not stop, because it is too familiar with the smell and ratio of raw materials, and it can also be mixed with memory to prepare a sample, and finally confirmed by the help of an incense evaluator.
Relying on this nose, Yu Guang has been in the fragrance industry for 20 years, and is currently working as a senior perfumer in The "big factory" in the international fragrance field. To become a perfumer, a talent for smell is key, but it is also about having imagination, aesthetics and passion.
In Tom Tikwe's film Perfume, Grenouille embarks on a frantic journey of incense-making guided by a gifted sense of smell, and the one-of-a-kind perfume he pursues is given the symbolism of desire, greed and beauty at the same time.
▲ Stills of "Perfume"
Rich metaphors are footnotes to scents and make the profession of perfumer more artist. As the well-known perfumer Elena said in the Perfumer's Diary: "Once the smell is integrated into the mind, I am a perfumer." "But in today's tens of billions of fragrance market, fragrance is also involved in a capital competition." Fragrances contain the inspiration and memories of perfumers, as well as their insights and compromises in the market. Those symbols floating in the air are mixed with the smoke of the economic war.
Incense hunting
A faint fragrance wafted in from all around. Yu Guang leaned closer to smell it, surprised by this strange and unique fragrance, "Be sure to remember this smell." He took a deep breath and began to think about how to present this taste, what raw materials need to be copied, decomposed, and combined...
"That's a mandala, you must not smell it, it is dangerous!" A passing retired college professor shouted at him. Immersed in his own world, the afterglow "woke up".
The mandala is gorgeous in appearance, the floral fragrance is quiet but toxic, and when severe, it can cause people to fall into a coma. "Because of the poison, many people dare not smell the mandala. But for perfumers, when they smell a new smell that seems to open a window, they will rush to pounce. Later, Yu Guang bias "copied" this taste, and the product also received good feedback after it was launched.
Most consumer goods are labeled as illusions created by consumerism. Fragrance is between goods and works of art, people deal with smell every day, and smell connects people's emotions and memories.
French perfumer Olivia Giacobetti, known as the "Poetess of Fragrances", has created very well-known perfume works for perfume brand Artixan. Among them, "Artisan fig" is also known as the first perfume in history to use figs as the main fragrance. The huge fig tree in the courtyard was a memory of her childhood, "and the smell swallowed everything." After 20 years, I want to rediscover the feeling of this green, milky smell that obscures everything. To be honest, I created something so personal that I never expected it to bring so much joy to so many people. Olivia Giacobetti recalled.
Growing up in the countryside, Yu Guangyi also liked the fragrance of flowers and plants in his childhood memories. In his perfumes, he often uses green, natural elements that bring a sense of ease and freedom.
Finding inspiration is a very important job for perfumers. In addition to memories, they also have to dig for "aromas" in travel, movies, books, food, clothing, and even colors and moods.
▲Perfumer Afterglow Bias Photo/Provided by Interviewee
Afterglow's favorite thing is travel. Whenever he goes to a city, he will definitely go to two places, the local botanical garden and the vegetable market. In his opinion, "the same plant tastes very different in different places and at different points in time." ”
For example, he said that the figs in Kunming and Chengdu are different from other places, the mangoes in Guangzhou are different from those in Shanghai, the gardenia in Tibet is different from the mainland, and the local wild vegetables and spices also emit unique aromas. Yu Guangwei had twice gone to Tibet to find creative inspiration, and what excited him was that "plants that have no taste in memory will become very obvious there."
Inspiration will appear at any time, even in the elevator room, for the scent that just passes by, he will follow a few steps and store the smell in his brain.
Of course, in today's highly competitive fragrance market, in addition to self-expression, fashion trends have become more important.
Become a perfumer
Before becoming a perfumer, Yu Guang bias did 3 years of procurement.
In college, Yu Guangwei took the flavor and fragrance technology course, and after graduation, he entered a flavor and fragrance company in Guangzhou as a purchaser, and had the opportunity to help perfumers find samples. Through this process, two foreign perfumers at the time discovered his talents in the field of perfume: excellent learning ability, super sense of smell and imagination. After they were introduced to the company, Yu Guangwei began his career as a perfumer.
Before joining Givaudan, Yu Guangbian was already the chief perfumer in China, a German flavor and fragrance company at that time.
But becoming a perfumer is not easy. There are very few colleges and universities in China that offer related majors, and it is even rarer that they can directly become perfumers after graduation, or change from other positions to perfumers. Most people need to study in a french professional college for three years after graduating from university, and then apply for an apprentice perfumer from a flavor company.
In addition to the high threshold and long time spent, there are not many perfumer positions worldwide. "One turnip and one pit, these flavor and fragrance companies recruit very few people every year, so many people to compete for one or two positions, the probability of being selected is very low." Yu Guang said.
In foreign countries, the popularity of fragrance is higher, but it is not easy to become a perfumer.
Alesia, a Singaporean perfumer from Givaudan, saw working in the perfume field as her ideal at the age of 16 and later studied perfume and cosmetics science at the Singapore Polytechnic. "It was during this time that I decided I wanted to become a perfumer. It brings together my love of chemistry, the idea of capturing moments and memories and telling stories through perfume. Althea said.
She had several internships in the perfume field, but was not accepted to the Givaudan Perfume School when she graduated. A professional degree is an important hurdle, and after continuing her studies to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry, she applied again and was admitted.
Currently, Alesia works as a junior perfumer in Givaudan, "Becoming a perfumer is not easy, many people (myself included) have waited for many years, timing is important, depending largely on when perfume companies recruit and where they want to hire perfumers from." ”
Most people continue their training in schools within large flavor and fragrance companies after they are hired. It usually takes them three to five years to familiarize themselves with thousands of spices, learn the classic, popular products on the market, and become junior perfumers after graduation. "This process is difficult and long, you must be liked from the heart, only in this way, can you withstand loneliness to precipitate." Such a journey is not something that everyone is willing to endure. Afterglow bias indicated.
Whether a more popular product can be made is not completely linked to whether the perfumer is junior or advanced, and the fragrance is personalized, meaning there are no fixed rules. In the apprenticeship stage, perfumers often need to remember many basic recipes, and when they really start to create incense, they must forget these fixed collocations and let more raw materials collide. Yu Guangwei described, "It's like learning martial arts, learning a lot of tricks, when you can crack each move, you need to forget the moves, no moves win there are moves." ”
It is also a rose, but it can create hundreds of different rose scents. "To make a different rose you have to break the mold. For example, enlarge the proportion of a certain raw material by 10 times, or remove a certain raw material. "The afterglow is biased.
Most perfumers just do what they like silently. People tend to pay attention to more well-known perfumers, but the volume of perfume in the fragrance market is not large, and shampoos, shower gels, candles... All the fragrances that can be touched in daily life belong to daily fragrances.
"In fact, daily chemical products are more complex, such as shampoo, we need to consider the expressiveness of the three links of opening the lid, smelling, washing and drying, although the price is not high, but the perfumer needs to have more knowledge." Afterglow bias mentioned.
▲ Guangzhou, perfumer SIYA (right) introduces the perfume he created in Photo/Visual China
The swing of the market with art
Perfumer Elena said: "Although perfumers are used to being compared to composers, I have always felt that I am a writer of smells. "Someone really started a perfume brand in the model of a publishing house. In 2000, Frederic Malle, as the "publisher" of perfume, gathered 14 perfume masters to found the "Fumar Perfume Publishing House", setting a precedent for perfumers to sign perfumes. He once described the relationship between Fumar Perfume Publishing House and perfumers as a publisher and writer.
Although he is called the "writer of smell", due to the commodity nature of fragrance, the creative space of perfumers is often subject to the market.
Perfumers are often divided into commercial perfumers and independent perfumers. Commercial perfumers mostly work for flavor and fragrance companies that work with most of the mainstream brands in the market, while independent perfumers set up their own studios to work with or create their own brands.
Independent perfumers have more freedom and can make more personal expressions, but face the pressure to survive. While commercial perfumers rely on platforms with more spice resources and better team assistance, individual expression is sometimes limited.
In the industry, although perfumers are the souls at the top of the pyramid, this does not mean that they must have more say than others. Perfume is a team work, and the final solution given to the customer is often the result of teamwork. Another of these roles is the perfumer, which is similar to the bridge between the client and the perfumer, responsible for communicating the details of the project background, needs, target market and regulatory requirements to the perfumer, and proposing modifications to the samples created by the perfumers.
"We spend a lot of time doing our best to create the perfume our customers want." Alesia said that because of price, regulations, performance and stability constraints, sometimes the final product may be very different from the original idea.
Yu Guangwei described that every perfumer has his own "trash can" to hold the idea of being killed, of which 70% to 80% of the attempts may be denied, there may be creations thrown into the trash can every day, and there are many perfumers around who give up because they can't stick to it.
Similar to propositional essays, each person has a different understanding and interpretation of the subject, which may be off topic, but it does not mean that the work is not good. Sometimes a work that is rejected by one client may also be welcomed by another client. Although there are limitations, Yu Guangbian does not deny the creativity stimulated by such a model, and there are also classic works born from this, "perfumers are easy to be obsessed with, and everyone always feels that what they do is the best." ”
But as the chinese market as a whole becomes increasingly competitive, there is less and less room for perfumers.
Capital poured into the smell economy
China is not a big country, but it is one of the fastest growing markets.
Yu Guangbian recalled that when he first entered the industry, the perfumer gave people the feeling of being "protected" and completely engaged in personal creation. "At that time, the whole market may only launch one or two hundred new products a year, but now the market launches thousands or even tens of thousands of new products every year." Consumers choose products from one in a hundred to one in a thousand, which poses a challenge to the work of perfumers.
Since the beginning of the industry, the volume of projects on the afterglow bias has increased by at least 5 times. The amount of work increases, the authoring time for each project is usually compressed to two or three weeks, and it may be necessary for multiple projects to work on at the same time. Only a few companies give one to two years to create.
This change has begun in recent years, and 2017 was a more pronounced watershed.
According to data from information consulting company Euromonitor, from 2011 to 2016, the use of fragrance in China has not yet become a common consumption habit, and the market size has always been around 700 million US dollars. In 2017, the market size exceeded 983 million US dollars, with a growth rate of 16.94%. In the years that followed, the market exploded, reaching $1.575 billion by 2020.
Growth means new opportunities. Market fragmentation intensified, and in the case of international big names occupying the market for a long time, new companies emerged and capital entered the market.
From 2020 onwards, the domestic fragrance market has frequent financing, attracting investment institutions including Sequoia China, Zhen Fund, IDG, and Source Code Capital. For example, Guanxia received two financings in 2019 and 2020, and Yufan completed a new round of financing at the end of 2020. In 2021, Scentooze Santu, Plustwo Plustwo Rabbit and other fragrance brands received tens of millions of yuan in financing, and the Smell Library completed tens of millions of dollars in Series B financing.
As market competition intensifies, so does the working style of perfumers. Nowadays, marketing is becoming more and more important. Yu Guangwei said that in recent years, perfumers have begun to contact the market more, and they must have better expression and communication skills in order to convey the inspiration and story of creation to consumers. For example, the smell library's internet celebrity product "Liangbai Kai" perfume was once very popular, and its official introduction is: inspired by the scene of Boiling water in Chinese families aluminum pots decades ago, that is, about home, about someone's memories and taste, is "a glass of water with a story".
But competition has also created chaos in the market, with companies focusing on marketing and creative concepts over R&D. Most new brands have controversies about the quality of the fragrance time is short, the smell is thin, etc.
In addition, plagiarism is also widespread, and a best-selling fragrance can easily be reduced to "street incense" because of imitation. Although the essence is difficult to imitate, it is difficult for ordinary consumers to distinguish between original and imitation.
Some perfumers are in a fast-paced state for a long time, which may also cause creative solidification. However, in the view of the afterglow bias, short flat fast can also give birth to some very good or even can not surpass the product, the traditional perfume time period is longer, but it may be difficult to meet the current changing market.
The battle is coming
While new companies are popping up, China's fragrance market is just getting started. The market is still occupied by international cosmetics giants, and there is a lack of domestic enterprises with a complete fragrance and fragrance supply chain.
According to the 2021 China Perfume Market Research Report, international cosmetics giants such as LVMH and Chanel account for 59.9% of China's perfume market. According to the data of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the ten flavor companies that occupy the head basically cover the global fragrance market, of which The four major flavor companies of Givaudan, Firmenich, the American International Flavor and Fragrance Company, and Dezhixin occupy more than half of the market share of the global flavor and fragrance industry.
Large flavor and fragrance companies have already formed high competitive barriers because they have a more perfect supply chain and richer raw materials.
In the case of Givaudan, where Yuguang is located, the company will choose to produce and grow its own key raw materials and strategic raw materials to ensure quality, price and continuous supply.
The production process of fragrance is very complicated, and the taste and price of roses in different places may be very different. The same raw material, the smell is not only affected by the climate, season, light, humidity and other factors, but also varies according to the extraction method, such as extraction, distillation process, in the process of extraction or 200 degrees before the extraction of raw materials are not the same.
The division of fragrance in "class" is related to the supply chain, raw materials, extraction methods and purity, and is also jointly created by the market and marketing links. In the view of Yu Guang, the low price does not mean that the fragrance must be low, in recent years, the rise of Chinese fragrance brands, to some extent, is also to cut off the brand premium, so that the profit to consumers.
Fragrance innovation has also become very important, and perfumes with Chinese elements have become very popular in recent years. Osmanthus oolong tea and white rabbit milk candy perfume make many people feel refreshed, but no perfumer has boldly applied these flavors to perfumes before.
In addition, with the development of artificial intelligence, it also brings more challenges to the "nose" of perfumers. Fragrance giants are starting to try smart perfume, and data drive is becoming an industry trend.
▲ Fragrance innovation has also become very important, and perfumes with Chinese elements have been very popular in recent years Photo/Visual China
Yu Guang bias believes that the human nose and brain can not be replaced in the short term, and AI incense can become a very good supplementary tool, "it can create a taste in a few minutes." We make the first draft and then carry out secondary processing, with the help of this tool, it is currently conducive to personalized customization. ”
According to the 2020 China Perfume Industry Research White Paper, the global perfume market size is about 390.6 billion yuan, and China accounts for only 2.5% of it. There is still more room for imagination in the future Chinese market, and a fierce battle is coming.
Many large fragrance factories will spend huge sums of money on market research, summarizing from different dimensions to form a market trend report, which is also one of the inspirations for perfumers.
But in the opinion of French perfumer Olivia Giacobetti, "the biggest mistake you can make in creation is to try to find the greatest common divisor to please everyone." As a result, we fall into mediocrity, we grind out the edges and corners, and only the rules remain. "This is also something that every perfumer should be wary of.