Q&A

What does it mean for a fragrance to be ‘dissonant’?

This means that there is a rupture between the individual notes. You experience a scent that is not cohesive… something that is disturbing but intriguing at the same time. Normally a fragrance is formulated to achieve balance and cohesive qualities: the combination of rosemary, neroli, lemon and lavender for example - a cologne ‘accord’. So that at the end of the day you smell something new as a result of all of these things coming together. For a dissonant perfume, you include something to give it a spark, something that’s going to contradict what a normal fragrance does so that you give people an extra wonder. I call it rupturing the scent accord.

 

How did you achieve this rupturing in DISSONANCE? 

It is a very green, fougere, fragrance but then we added tuberose, which is a heady floral with an animalic undertone. There is also the treacle note of opopanax resin present. If I was creating a fine fragrance perfume, I would never have attempted to craft together hay, clary sage and tuberose, and leave the ingredients so exposed. In DISSONANCE, they form this incredible new smell but there is definitely a discord in it. Hay is a dry green, grassy absolute. To think of making a women’s fragrance and adding hay is quite unusual. So it was interesting that through our consultation process, Nandipha was drawn to these ingredients - and my challenge was then to formulate how the raw materials could come together, honestly and vibrantly.

 

How did you and Nandipha reach this unusual formula? 

Designing a perfume requires a multi-layered approach similar to that of the artist’s process. So many elements are drawn on to make a decision about each drop added to a formulation. This was an intimate boundary-spanning bespoke exploration with Nandipha. What’s really interesting is that I would never have arrived at this ingredient construction on my own. A muse doesn’t know how to make fragrance. In a bespoke fragrance, we work through my nose and skills as a tool to creatively direct the client’s own signature formulation. With Nandipha, we started the journey in her home country of Swaziland, researching where she grew up, the landscape, the grasslands, her memories, inspirations, smells and the ingredients that we found there.

 

Your perfumes are complex; often with earthy smells and quite resiny. Not generally very light or commercial smelling. How would you describe your style? 

To start, I only work with natural and organic materials. It is an immediate smell differentiator because most commercial fragrances use synthetics. Many commercial fragrances are lighter. I do have light fragrances, like my INR range, designed for easy day wear and relaxation. But I never add chemicals to give a fragrance longevity, or to keep it light, so I have to apply all the tricks of my natural ingredients attributes, which makes the process very different. With DISSONANCE, I had to work with the heaviness of the hay to give longevity, and bring in the heavier, earthy tones that Nandipha evokes.

 

How does this affect a personal bespoke perfume? 

I love seeing what I do through someone else’s eyes. It gives me a fresh perspective. Beneath the commercial ‘fresh florals’ and ‘woody ambers’, our bodies reveal so much about us as individuals. Nandipha has a different perspective that I can learn from on how she responds to petitgrain or clary sage. Both of these get used very predictably in men’s fragrances. It’s a sweaty note and used because it smells musky - even evocative of sex. It’s got a grittiness that commercial houses would shy away from for a perfume inspired by a woman, or a woman’s art. Nandipha liked it as there it echoes the androgynous edge, which she has explored in her work. Here, using these raw materials becomes appropriate, and I like learning about someone and why they choose a certain ingredient. I love looking at my ingredients objectively. I don’t embark on it thinking that I need to instil a certain stamp that is mine. I love losing myself in someone else.

 

Is this your first collaboration?

Not at all – Frazer Parfum has always embraced working with others, and I actively seek out artisan collaborators to craft the packaging and visual elements of my perfumes. All my perfumes are handmade, so there was a natural resonance with what Nandipha does. I love learning about other materials and processes. When I go to glass-blower David Reade, who made our bottles, I’m learning about the constraints of his craft and about what he can do through his medium, even though I have the creative direction. I have used prints on silk scarves, handmade porcelain candleholders, hand-carved African hardwood parfum solide containers and paper-art for perfume boxes, and worked with collaborators from fine artists for visual designs through to community-based projects for packaging elements. I do this to explore African luxury as a commercial engine, but also because learning about these materials and how artists and artisans work with them is what inspires me. Here, Nandipha had the creative direction but doing it through the constraints of the natural raw materials, crafted by a perfumer, which is me. 

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What drew you to a collaboration with Nandipha?

In 2012, I decided that my fragrance development also required an art exploration, so I created “Skin Portraits”, a collaboration with a photographer and nine South Africans with different skins and different histories - and through this project first met Nandipha. I was inspired by Lucian Freud’s portraiture - how the artist showed emotion and personality with just painted colours. I create perfumes as products, but that artistic project was the first time that I could truly explore skin as my canvas. I had to - literally - “get close” to all nine of my collaborator-subjects who included truly galvanizing people like dancer Dada Masilo, Miss Earth Kirsten Carls, Dion Chang and Ndaba Mandela - but it was my conversations with Nandipha about working with an artistic medium, and the artistic process, and history, and skin, that led to the inspiration for DISSONANCE.

 

Take us on the Dissonance scent journey?

There is a cleanness throughout because of the grapefruit, basil and petitgrain. Then the clary sage is fresh, slightly floral herbaceous and musky, which picks it up and takes it onto the resiny note created by the opopanax, following through to the decadent tuberose embedded in a dark well of hay that moves like a shadow throughout. That’s the journey. This will evolve differently on the skin over time and with the heat of the body. On paper, what you smell is a consistent herbaceousness, which doesn’t dissipate as quickly as it does on the skin. The fragrance moves, it has a life.