Features  -   -  Share

Looking beyond mass-market fragrances, Something Curated highlights seven UK-based independent perfumers offering a truly original olfactory experience, as well as a talented glassblower who produces some uniquely beautiful bottles to hold scents.

 

Lyn Harris

British perfumer, Lyn Harris is best known for establishing the London-based perfumery Miller Harris. She is now solely focused on her new brand Perfumer H. Her shop-come-scent-laboratory is based in Marylebone and is where she creates her seasonal, nature-inspired scents and bespoke fragrances. Harris is classically trained in the traditional ways of perfume making, first in Paris and then in Grasse at Robertet. She told Something Curated last year that the vision for Perfume H, “was about showing the perfumer in all its entirety and who we are and who I am. For me, it’s about portraying the true integrity of the craft.”

 

Roja Dove

Luxury British perfumer, Roja Dove, was born in Sussex and began his perfume career when he joined the French house Guerlain. He worked there for 20 years before starting his own business venture Roja Dove Haute Pefumerie in Harrods, where he curated the fragrances sold and also provided consultancy services to customers wanting bespoke scents. After having worked in perfume for most of his life, Dove finally decided to open his own perfume line, Roja Parfums, convinced by his friends that he had a duty to pass on his knowledge. He still continues to create new pret-a-porter fragrances as well as bespoke home scents that are inspired by the clients’ memories and personal styles.

 

Azzi Glasser

Azzi Glasser started her career working for CPL aromas and in 1999 she collaborated with Agent Provocateur to create the brand’s signature scent. Following the fragrance’s success, she started Family Tree, a bespoke perfume business where she created perfumes for fashion designers, actors like Jude Law and Helena Bonham Carter, artists like Kylie Minogue and hotelier Andre Balazs for Chiltern Firehouse’s own scent. In 2015 she released her first collection of 11 limited edition perfumes with Harvey Nichols, where she also still conducts her Bespoke Atelier by appointment only.

 

Angela Flanders

Angela Flanders, who passed away last year at age 88, was a self-taught artisan perfumer that happened upon the art by chance when she was unable to find the perfect potpourri for her furniture shop in Columbia Flower Road Market and decided to make one of her own. After much success with the product she turned her furniture business into a dried-flower shop and expanded to a new space that became her perfumery. During her life as a perfumer she created more than 40 individual fragrances and won Best New Independent Fragrance at the Fifis in 2012, for the floral fragrance she created for her daughter, Precious One. She also made Roksanda Ilincic a bespoke fragrance to spray on the hems of dresses of her debut collection.

 

Anastasia Brozler

Anastasia Brozler considers herself a ‘perfume curator’, as she works on the formulas for fragrances often in close collaboration with other renowned noses. This love of curating led her to bring together 14 of the world’s greatest perfumers to create an haute-couture fragrance atelier, Creative Perfumers. In the Mayfair perfume house the marriage between client and perfumer is brokered by Brozler and stylists Adam James and Angela Wright. Brozler has also worked with Fiorucci Art Trust to put together a scent workshop in order to explore the world of bespoke perfumery.

 

Dom Bridges

Filmmaker Dom Bridges was a prominent advertising director before becoming disillusioned with the industry and deciding to move to Margate in 2012 to start natural fragrance and skincare brand, Haeckels. The brand grew out of Bridges’ love for the ocean and time spent cleaning the beach. He discovered the many uses and benefits of seaweed and handcrafted a soap that he gave to his friends. His range has now expanded into fragrances, candles and various unisex products that are stocked in the likes of Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Hostem. Bridges continues to formulate all products in a cliff top lab in Margate, working with locals and natural ingredients.

 

Tomi Ahmed and Leo Gibbons

Tomi Ahmed and Leo Gibbons are the London-based duo who decided to create scent brand Iiuvo after meeting in a party and complimenting each other’s perfumes. Neither Ahmed nor Gibbons had formal training in perfume making, but with their background in fashion, Ahmed is an ex-Comme des Garçons creative, and Gibbons growing up in his mother’s flower shop, they went to Grasse and developed Iiuvo, which means to assist or please. Iiuvo debuted with three unisex candles and has now expanded into fragrance creating Bullshit in collaboration with conceptual artist Stefan Bruggemann and most recently Edition One.

 

Michael Ruh

Master glass blower Michael Ruh trained at the Institutuut voor Kunst Ambachten in Belgium and the Corning Museum of Glass in New York before setting up his own studio in 2004. The studio in South London is run by Ruh and his wife Natasha Wahl and creates glassware for individuals and luxury brands. Production is limited to a handful of pieces per day. One of his most interesting collaborations is with Lyn Harris, crafting and hand blowing all the Perfumer H bottles for the brand. The bottles were made in a palette of five colours – each colour matching a base scent.

 

Words by Ana Alvarez | Feature image via Perfumer H

Stay up to date with Something Curated