PHOTOGRAPHY: ANA CUBA WRITER: EMMA MOORE
Navigating aroma apathy to make an impact on the
overcrowded perfume market is becoming a serious
challenge for scent entrepreneurs, but our bets are
on Laurent Delafon and Christopher Yu, of United
Perfumes, to shake things up with their latest project.
The pair are launching Ostens with five single-
ingredient scented oils (Ostens Préparations) and six
perfumes (Ostens Impressions). With a name plucked
from Baudelaire’s Harmonie du Soir, its art-loving
founders, like many before, are creating synergies
between scent and art, but the real innovation comes
in the experimentation with ingredients and formulas,
and the novel way they propose to retail the line.
Delafon and Yu have been partners in the business
of fine smells for many years. Delafon, a Frenchman,
came to London in 2001 to set up Diptyque in the
UK, while Yu, a New Zealander, has a background in
finance. Together they brought Cire Trudon to the
UK and formed a consultancy called United Perfumes.
The pair pitched to Fornasetti with a plan to develop
a home fragrance line. They were soon in Grasse, scent
central, and exploring olfactory angles at IFF-LMR,
a leader in the creation and development of raw
materials for fragrances.
Ostens is the product of this immersion; scent for
a savvy consumer. Delafon is quick to call out the
fake stories attached to ingredients. ‘You hear about
jasmine or rose de mai, picked by virgins from the
Grasse heartland, or Indian girls with delicate fingers
who don’t crush the molecules – it’s all nonsense.
It’s a curtain of romance that shields all the technology,
passion and talented people behind it,’ says Delafon.
‘The romantic side shouldn’t disappear, but there needs
to be a fair balance with transparency and traceability.’
The pair were particularly captivated by IFF-LMR’s
ability to transform perfume’s raw materials, chipping
away dusty, dirty aspects to produce cleaner, crisper
notes. ‘They are the Harry Winston of the industry,’ »Source code
A fragrance power duo are rediscovering perfume’s pure hit
ABOVE, LAURENT DELAFON
AND CHRISTOPHER YU
BY THE PERFUME WALL IN
THEIR LONDON HQ. THEIR
NEW BRAND OSTENS OFFERS
SINGLE-INGREDIENT
FRAGRANCE OILS, WHICH
ARE DESIGNED TO BE LAYERED
WITH THEIR OWN RANGE OF
PERFUMES, OR ANY PERFUME
IN YOUR COLLECTIONGrooming
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