​Mark Buxton im O-Ton, 1. Teil

Ein Vortrag von Mark Buxton vom 03.05.2012 im Rahmen des Symposiums "Follow your nose! On smell", zum Nachhören auf DRadio Wissen und zum Mit- bzw. Nachlesen weiter unten in meiner Transkription (bissl konfus auf Englisch mit britisch-französischem Akzent).

Anmoderation:

Im Hörsaal haben wir heute einen Job für Sie zu vergeben: Parfümeur. Parfümhersteller. Dafür brauchen Sie nur eine gute Nase – sagt jedenfalls Mark Buxton, unser heutiger Referent. Für ihn selbst habe das jedenfalls gereicht. Geboren ist er in England, aufgewachsen bei Hamburg und dann nach Paris gegangen. Er hat zunächst Parfums für renommierte Häuser entworfen wie Comme des Garçons, Givenchy, Versace oder Lagerfeld. Seit 2011 hat er nun seine eigene Firma, und, was noch hochspannend an seinem Berufsweg ist, wissen Sie vielleicht sogar, wenn Sie vor vielen Jahren "Wetten, dass..?" mit Frank Elstner gesehen haben. Vor mehr als 20 Jahren schlenderte er mit einem Freund durch ein Kaufhaus, als dabei die Idee geboren wurde "Wetten, dass wir alle Parfums allein mit unserer Nase auseinanderhalten können?" Unmittelbar nach seinem Fernsehauftritt bot ihm ein großer deutscher Parfümhersteller einen Ausbildungsplatz an, und seine Karriere begann.

Mehr sei hier noch nicht verraten. Buxton geht in seinem englischsprachigen Vortrag gleich näher darauf ein.

Wie wird heute Parfum hergestellt? Welche Ausbildung dafür ist nötig – oder auch nicht? Welcher Duft ist der erfolgreichste und warum? Mark Buxton hat seine subjektiven Antworten darauf am 03.05.2012 gegeben. Auf der offiziellen Veranstaltung des Potsdamer Einstein-Forums unter dem Titel "Follow your nose! On smell". Mark Buxtons freie Rede steht unter dem Motto "The independent perfumer".

Mark Buxton:

Yeah, perfumer since over 25 years and have been working in France, been here now for 20 years in France. Anyway, cut a long story short, I'm going to tell you a few things about perfume creation, how to do it, how not to do it, whatever to do... Now, I will try to explain to you how to become a perfumer and how to create perfume, and then whatever drags after that.

Okay, so what is a "nose"? Good question, actually. You see it's rather big and that's what you need. That's the tool you need. But the question is, how to become a perfumer and how did I join perfumery. But that's just a brief story, I'll tell you the few words. How to become a perfumer? There is a classical way to become a perfumer. That means you join a school. There are a few in France, there is one called ISIPCA, there is another one called Cinquième Sens. Rather expensive, takes a few years. You can have crash course if you want, which is even more expensive, and you have a slight little knowledge of fragrance and compositions and whatever, but that's about it. Second possibility is you join a school, an internal school, which I did 27 years ago at the Haarmann & Reimer school in Germany. Third possibility is you box your way in, you find a way in, and it happens to certain people by coincidence, whatever.

I became perfumer by coincidence. I don't believe in all this bullshit that you have to born in a... I think anybody become a perfumer, if you put the question like this. I slid into this industry by coincidence. At the age of 20 I didn't even know that the perfumer existed. There for me a bit early, actually. So, as I say, anybody can become a perfumer. I don't necessarily think that you need a special gift to become a perfumer. I think it is a kind of a job which you can learn. It's like becoming a musician, an artist, whatever. It's kind of an artistic job, somehow, yeah. And I think, as said, anybody can become a perfumer. We have, perhaps, a few exceptions. I think, you might talk about this later on. If you have a problem, accident, whatever, there are perhaps a few % of people which don't have a very strong odorat (Geruchssinn) or can't smell very good. But, besides that, I think we all have a nose and I think we can all smell the difference between chocolate and vanilla and coffee. The only difference is that my nose is better trained than yours. So that's why you have to go to school and to learn your notes. You learn your notes, you learn your accords, and then after that you start learning how to construct a perfume. That's the ABC of the whole business, just like a musician. So, let's say, you're a young boy, you start playing the piano, and you see that some guy has a talent, some has a medium talent, some has an excellent talent, somebody probably is a genius... It's the same with the perfumer. You can learn the basics, but the only thing you can't learn is creativity. And I'm talking about my point of view. Because if you ask the same question to ten different perfumers, you will get ten different answers. Especially that 90% of the perfumers are very, very arrogant people, because they think that our job is very secret and mysterious and nobody knows what we're really doing, so they want to keep it like that, so they see themselves as big artists and creators, whatever. I don't exactly see it like that.

So, the differences between a good, a bad an average and an excellent perfumer is the creativity. The only thing you can't learn. You have it or you don't have it. So far, just to say, you know, how to become a perfumer, whatever. So, and me, by coincidence, I grew up in Germany, and just to make it short, what did I do then? I wanted to study fashion design, didn't work out, it was the big epoch of the German designers, upcoming, Wolfgang Joop, Jil Sander, and I wanted to study in Hamburg, university was full, so, I'm a lazy person from nature, so I started to study geology in Göttingen, which didn't mean anything.

So, anyway... And, as certainly quite a few of you know, I made a bet with a friend of mine at the time in Göttingen, this famous German TV programme called "Wetten, dass..?", Saturday night, at the time still with Frank Elstner, and... Well, that's how I got discovered. We made a bet that we could recognize all the perfumes in the world, and we lost the bet, but I got discovered. So, you know, something came out of it.

But what I noticed when we started to collect and select all these fragrances which we had to recognize in the show, that after university we used to meet up... I grew up in a family, I come from West Winds (?), my parents had West Winds (?), so I... that's where I think I first was in contact with odours. I love odours from the kitchen, that's why I like spicy notes and aromatic notes. Anyway, that's beside the point. I think I could still be standing here tomorrow morning, so I have to say stop.

And, so, yeah, so I got discovered and... But when I was selecting all these fragrances, I noticed that they must have something in common somehow. Either it's a single note, it's an accord or there's a structure, and I noticed that I could memorize them very easily. So, cut the whole story short, once again, going to this show, lost the show, and I had an offer by Haarmann & Reimer, at the time, which nowadays is called Symrise, and they offered me if I would like to attend the school, perfume school. And so I did. So that's how it all started, and that's how I slid into the industry. So, that's why I'm saying, I don't necessarily think you have to be born in Grasse or you need a family tradition behind you to become a perfumer. I think, you just have to be willing and if you want to get in there, somehow there's always a possibility to get into any job you want. You have to sometimes take a back door or you have to really row hard, but if there is a way, there is a way somehow.

It's an easy question, but at the same time it is a difficult question because how to create a perfume, it depends where you position yourself. If you look at the perspective, you're in the industry, you're in the big industry, so you're working for a big group, you get briefed by companies X. They want a perfume, so you get briefed, so you're automatically pushed in a certain direction where you're going to. Of course, we all know that, creating a perfume, you have natural products, you have synthetic products and you have bases. With you having the knowledge of the accords, how to start, I mean, if somebody's asking for an oriental, I'm not going to start with a fougère accord, so... You know, or... where you're going, where you're starting.

But somebody asks you the same question, could you create a perfume, you, for example. You say, I would like my personal perfume, for myself. Then, the aspect or the approach is totally different. Because I try to create something for you, what you're looking for, and there's nobody else who's going to give me any influence. There's no marketing, there's no evaluation, there's no sales person, there's no management behind your back who telling you, you should do this, because it's going to make more turnover, it's going to be a bestseller, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

So, the approach how to start a creation, from my point of view, I've always done it like this. And that's where I was fighting for 25 years. After 25 years I just gave up, because I think even lasting for 25 years I should get a gold medal in this industry. Because after all these years of criticism and pushing to a certain direction and telling you what to do, it's not even just that it's internally like that, it's also externally like that. So, internally, you fight against your colleagues and against the evaluation and even the sales guy. The sales guy can come up to you and say, look, if you don't make this modification, I think it's too green, I won't show your perfume. So who is creating? Is it me, is it you, is it the company or what are we doing?

So, lot of difficulties on this way. But I always try to start on a white page. I know it sounds stupid or may sound a bit arrogant if you say, oh, yeah, Mr. Clever here always starts with a white page. Yes, but it is like that. I mean, the industry has gone so fast in the last ten years. Everything is computerised. I mean, you have no contact with the labs anymore. You have no physical contacts with any raw materials. You don't even have... You hardly ever have contact with your assistant. I mean, if you see her once a day, two minutes, she puts the bottles in your office, and that's it! You're in your little office and you smell your stuff and that's it.

So, furthermore, you can start a fragrance, and you know, by reading the brief, if I start from a J'Adore and I put this top note on there, that could work. Because you have like indice (?) what they're looking for or what type of person it is for or everything like that.

So, somehow, it's become too easy. You have a computer, you just press on a button, and then, all of a sudden, you have this formula, and you want to combine it with this formula, so you press another button and it goes (pfeift), you have the formula. You press on another button, it goes directly to the lab where there's a robot. The robot makes your perfume. Then it goes back to your assistant. She adds crystalline products because robots can't handle that. No resins. So she adds four, five products, and then you get the solution back in that (?). So there is no more contact with all this feeling, you know, emotions, creating a fragrance. If there's something which has been created in-house, any perfumer who has done that, let's say, (?) at Symrise, you have no chance to get his formula. There would be no analyse of this formula, and perfumers keep them to themselves. It belongs to the company, but it's their... But anything else which comes on the market is automatically analysed. It takes 24 hours, and you have 90% of the formula. You press on a button. Yesterday something came out, tomorrow you press on a button, you already have 90% of the formula.

So, this is why the industry is slowly going down the drain because I call it "Lego" perfumery. It's like playing with Lego. So you take (?) of this one, you put the heart of this one and the top note on this one. Because they are the three bestsellers at the moment.

So, somehow it could work. So, where is the art? And, secondly, why I said before, I think, especially nowadays, anybody can become a perfumer because you already have 90% in the bloody computer. You just have to press on a few buttons and that's it. It's done.

Where are we going to... I'll get to that later.

What I always try to do is start from a white page. I mean, I'm not a virgin. Even if you start with a white page, you have a course (?) in your mind. You know where you've come from. It's like music. You have... It's there, so you can't start from "scratch" scratch. You need an accord, a strong accord, three, four products, which gives the DNA, which gives the information in your fragrance, which gives the guts. And when you smell this, it's, wow, that's it! And then you add around it, but I usually start from that. But I would say, 80% of the fragrances which came out on the market, which I created, I'm not even proud about. Because perhaps the first idea which I put on the table was that, it had guts. But one year later, after working internally with marketing and evaluation, externally with marketing and evaluation, at the end of the day you have an Acqua di Gio twist. And at the beginning it had nothing to do with Acqua di Gio! But you're getting forced into this direction. It's what the market wants, it's what they want, they want success, they want to make money, and that's all it's about. Our industry, nowadays, is making money. They don't five an f-u-c-k about what's in the bottle. And that is the truth. And that is, unfortunately, the truth. That is, I think, why, finally, after 25 years, with my big stone on my back I jumped out.

Anyway, that's so far to the creation bit. If it's Jacques, if it's Olivier Cresp, if it's... you name them. They get highly paid, but if you don't bring back what the company's expecting, you're in deep shit. They don't give a... they don't care about this anymore. And that's it. You're on the plate, so... And you see now the way some people are trying to escape, we're going back to this manière we had 30, 40, 50 years ago. In-house perfumers. We have the trend, now there are more and more in-house perfumers. Even smaller groups are starting with this. And Jacques Cavallier who's drawing himself out of Firmenich who has made his all career there. With enormous success... He's going to LVMH, and he's becoming the perfumer for LVMH.

This is just one, little, small piece in that. 30 years ago, 40 years ago mainly every house had their in-house perfumer, like Chanel always had. And they were the only one of the traditional houses which kept this in-house perfumer. But all the others, if it was Lubin, if it was Balmain, etc., they all had their in-house perfumers. They were creating for them, they had liberty. There was perhaps only one freelance perfumer, which made an enormous success, was... Roudnitska. But Roudnitska, if you look at Roudnitska, he created the whole line of Dior. He made all the Dior, the guy. But then he also made perfumes for Rochas and other brands afterwards, yeah. It was mainly the perfumer who chose his qualities of raw materials. And especially naturals. I mean, 20, 30, 40 years ago perfumes had a lot more natural products in there, for x reasons. We all know now legislation and the problems we have with naturals etc.

I mean, but perfumers were so afraid that people would copy something they were making at the time, even though we didn't have all this information we have today with the mass spectrum, the GC etc. But they were working like with keys, with bases, sub-bases. So, if you see a formula, an old formula, which perhaps is only this long, you say, wow, bloody hell, that's well done! But there are sub-formulas in there. There are formulas he created which only he has with his own qualities. He was using like a special kind of a jasmine or three different kinds of roses etc. just to make it complicated, that people couldn't copy his work. And even until ten years ago perfumers, they never gave the formula entirely into the lab. They only used to give a half or a quarter. Then his assistant didn't know what she was really doing actually, then he only used to give the other quarter, and he used to mix it himself. But she didn't know what was the entire formula of his fragrance. So it's always been very mysterious and very secret stuff like that. This doesn't exist anymore.

Well, we shortly spoke about this, yeah. Natural, synthetic and bases. Bases are mainly those products which don't exist. Fantasy bases, it can be a peach, an apple, things like that where we don't have an extract. And there are lots of naturals like that. Lily of the valley, lily, lys... Lily... They don't exist as natural products, so we create a base which smells like that and... So there are products we work with... I would say, nowadays, minimum 90% is synthetic in a perfume by formula cost. The naturals... There are still quite a few which we use as fillers or which aren't too expensive, which you can still use in a rather big (?). Mainly the citric products are not too expensive, the aromatic products. But all the big naturals like rose, jasmine, tuberose, orris etc. The prices have gone sky-high. We're talking about a kilo of rose, nowadays for Bulgarian, is around 5,500, Turkish is 4,500... Orris can go up to 15,000, tuberose 4,000, osmanthus 6,000 etc.

So, but the beauty about all these naturals is, and this is also what has also been fading away since the last ten years, is not just because of expensive that we don't use them. It's because the people, or the youngsters, the young persons which are coming up, they don't have the experience to use them because they're not used to it.

When we were trained almost 30 years ago, naturals for us was one of the most important ingredients to put in a fragrance to give it the body, the longlastingness, the sillage etc. Nowadays, every time I had a youngster and I had to train them for a year or so, and you say, well, I think I'll put a trace of galbanum in there, the guy puts 10 grams pure in there. But, what are you doing?! You know? Well, he's never used galbanum, so you see that they have this lack of knowledge and working with these precious and beautiful products like natural. And, furthermore, legislation. Everything is getting shot at, you know. Even rose is limited now, and this is limited... And animal products are more or less dead and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... So, it's a never ending-story... Allergies, skin rashes... So some, they just invent something, like oakmoss was a big thing, six years ago, I don't know, it was some kind of a product in there, they all got retreated, they took this product out. And then, a year later, they noticed, well, actually it wasn't that, so we had to go back again, and then we had to take something else out... So it's a never-ending story.

So, but that's something else, that's legislation. But that has something to do with the whole perfumery industry has no lobby. The perfume industry has no balls, to put it plain. Because these guys in Brüssel, they come up and say, this, this and this is in danger, we're gonna take this out, this is (?) take out. Now it's lilial, it's lyral, it's coumarin, it's a never-ending story.

But all the industry, the five main players, name them all, IFF, Firmenich, Givaudan, Symrise etc., nobody will stand up and say, f-u-c-k L'Oreal! If you don't want to use it, we're not gonna work with you anymore! But they won't. Because it's money-making business. It's all about money. And it's really sad.

So, to come back what I was saying, I think some of the most interesting products which have come out over the last years are synthetic. And you absolutely can't say that synthetic has a less value than natural products. It's different. Depends what you're doing, what you're looking for. But there are products that are absolutely magic, like cashmeran, like ambroxide, come back to ISO, yes, hedione, I mean, they are products you can just bathe in them because they smell so beautiful, they have such a diffusion, and it's not the end. The synthetic musk notes, they can be as expensive, or even more expensive than natural products, so, you know, point a finger, say, if you have 80-90% of synthetic products in your fragrance it must be shit. No, it's not true. It depends how you use them and what to use. And there, as well, there is a big difference in money. And there, if you see, for example, that if you work for Dior fragrance today, and they give you 20 euro raw material cost per perfumer, to be honest, it doesn't mean anything. Cost price, yeah... So, if you think about it, it doesn't... Yeah, absolutely... So, it doesn't mean anything. So, prices are going down, doesn't matter which brand you have anymore. So you have to find quality and liberty somewhere else but perhaps not in the big industry. We'll get back to that later.

So, in general, that's it. Synthetic, natural and bases, and bases are mainly fantasy. Yes. There is a classical structure of a fragrance, tête-coeur-fond, top note, heart and base. Yeah, but, I don't know... I've never really thought about structuring a perfume where I thought about, the top has to be like that, and the heart like that... It's... You need the main accord first, of a fragrance, that will give it its soul, and then you will ground it. You add and you finish it off, like that. But not necessarily top-heart-base. I think it's a bit cliché. But yes, there are esters and there are aromatic and citric products which go in the top note. Volatile, gone after five minutes. Then you go into the heart with the floral part. Of course, base is musc, woody notes, amber etc. last forever. Animalic notes, if you're allowed to use them. Well, I am. So, yeah, that is, more or less, the structure of a perfume. But I always say anyway, break the waves and swim against the tide.

Excellent question! What is a successful fragrance? I don't know. Ask my former boss, he most likely would say, the most-sold fragrance on the market. Yeah, great... What is a successful fragrance? Perfume is so subjective anyway. I mean, sometimes I ask myself why I even talk about it? Because I could say, my favourite perfume is Feminité du Bois. I would say, just giving you an example. And I talk to my neighbour or to anybody else, he says, oh no, it stinks! It's animal, it's this, it's that, I can't stand it! So, what is success? The way they judge success now is just on how they sell a fragrance. And how they sell a fragrance doesn't necessarily mean something to do with what the fragrance is like. There are so many things involved. The packaging, the bottle, the publicity, the budget behind it, the name, the image etc. I mean, sometimes, really excuse me if I'm... but sometimes I really think you can piss in a bottle and put the right name on it and you can sell it, 'cause people believe it. It's not that I'm spitting against the industry, not at all. Like I said, I've been in this place now for 27 years and it's just been two years that I've been out of there. But it's just, after a while you just think to yourself, the magic's missing, the art's missing, you know, the beauty of all this is missing. There've always been exceptions. But if you look at the industry, if you see some of the trendsetters which have been there for 100 years or perhaps even a bit longer or for 50 years or 30 years, if you smell these fragrances, there are a lot of them which are based on natural products, no doubt, secondly, they have character, thirdly, they have guts, and, fourthly, they have such a diffusion, and, mainly, character, that they've survived all these years. If it's a Shalimar, if it's a Chanel 5... But even more modern things, take an Eternity. I mean, Eternity is 95% synthetic, but it has guts! It has a signature! It's out there. I was a first which smelled like that. Go even further back like L'Eau d'Issey, like a Trésor. Give you more examples, Cool Water. For me, I hate the stuff, it's like... it's when somebody's cleaning the toilets, but that's where it comes from, the fragrance. But the success, the impact on the market, and the uniqueness... There is nothing which smelled like Cool Water before. So to say "like" or "dislike"... That's why I always say, subjective. You decide what's good or what's not good. It's just you, yourself, I mean... If not, we would all buy the same fragrance. What becomes different afterwards is that there are more people which are influenced by publicity, branding and how a fragrance runs... His best friend is wearing Cool Water, so I wanna wear Cool Water. He's wearing a Boss, so I want to wear a Boss. That is also reasons why a fragrance has success, but you can't point a finger and spit on them, say, the fragrance is shit. No, it's not. I don't like it, but it's well done, it's a good creation, it has something, has guts. It stands out there. And there are a lot like that, even new ones. Not a lot, but there are some out there. There are getting less and less in the last ten years. Because if you look at the outstanding fragrances which came out and which still are on the market today which have success, they're at least like ten years old. But in the last ten years it's getting really, really thin, the ice, guys. Because we are losing ourself. It's like we are watering down the whole industry.

What I've noticed on the Konsument, people which buy fragrances, people which are followers and people which are leaders. 90% of the whole population who buy fragrance, they buy something "because of"... Because she wears it or my friend wears it or this publicity or this brand etc. There are 10% which go a bit further, which perhaps have a bit more education in fragrance or a bit more interest in fragrance, and they go a bit more deeper into this whole material. And they are perhaps capable of smelling the difference between a fragrance which smells cheap. And you see after three, four hours on a blotter or even on the skin, there's not much left. Or they wear something and say, well, this is rich, it has a diffusion, it has longlastingness, perhaps there is more natural in there, stuff like that. So they are more curious. And these people are starting to look, or have been looking, this is a movement since ten years, I would say. And these are the guys which are going more into these niche brands which are looking for something different, something by the structure different, by the odour different, by the materials different, the quality, very important, and that is a movement which we've had since, like in the last ten years, and this has become really interesting and one of the reasons why... which have made me make this step out to get out of there and do stuff. I think I made my name, I don't know, I would say over ten years ago. Now, when I started to make these perfumes for Comme des Garçons which were always classified as "niche" because they didn't go into this big branding and they don't go into the chains like Douglas and Sephora etc. So they always had this kind of "niche" thing to it. And then started to make things for Le Labo, Linari... So niche always been my interest. So after this big movement, yeah, I think (?) something and that is a big difference between this movement on the market at the moment.

Well, fragrance house and independents... Well, I've already said it, partly. The problem with the fragrance houses is that, I would say, 90-95% of them all hide behind market tests. There are big groups which main