News: 582 posts

If you’ve donated and didn’t receive your Zoom invitation, please contact me and I will resend your invite.

Join Luca Turin and me for a live online seminar on new perfume launches, industry trends, and insider observations from the fragrance world. Luca will be joining us from Milan during Esxence, the world’s largest niche perfumery exhibition. I will be speaking from Ukraine.

Scientist, critic, polymath, and co-author of Perfumes: The A–Z Guide, Luca needs little introduction. Expect lively discussion, strong opinions, and plenty of opportunities for questions.

This event supports a cause close to my heart.

Since this spring, I have been working with the Kramatorsk Volunteer Organization in eastern Ukraine, helping evacuate civilians from frontline communities. The team is made up entirely of local volunteers. They receive no salary. Their leader, Bogdan Zuyakov, works at a local music school and spends his free time organizing evacuations, transporting hospital patients, and helping people escape the war zone.

I join the team’s missions whenever I am in Kramatorsk, and I have seen firsthand how vital this work is. As the front advances and drone warfare expands the danger zone, the window for evacuation is shrinking.

Unfortunately, one of the team’s vehicles recently broke down. Without vehicles, evacuations stop.

Together with my fellow volunteer Ben Kochenburger, we have already raised more than $10,300. We are now just $4,700 away from our goal of $15,000, which will allow us to purchase a replacement vehicle and keep these missions running.

Spend an hour talking perfume with Luca Turin—and help keep a lifesaving evacuation vehicle on the road.

Event Details

Friday, June 5
17:00–18:00 CET
11:00–12:00 EST
Zoom

How to Participate

Donate $50 or more to the fundraiser: https://gogetfunding.com/humanitarian-support-for-relocating-civilians-in-ukraine/

Everyone who has already donated $50 or more is automatically eligible and will receive a Zoom invitation before the event. Be sure that you enter your email address, so that we can contact you.

A recording will be made available to the registered participants.

If you are unable to contribute, sharing this post would be a tremendous help.

It’s not every day that a conversation about perfume helps to save lives.

Luca’s Substack: https://lucaturin.substack.com/

You can follow the reports of my work with the Kramatorks Volunteer Organization via my Substack or Instagram.

For the past twenty years, Bois de Jasmin has been my home. It has grown with me on countless journeys through perfumery, cultural curiosities, writing, and life’s unexpected turns. Many of you have been reading since the early 2000s; others joined along the way. All of you made this space what it is: a place shaped by scent, curiosity, beauty, and thoughtful conversation.

As I prepare for my upcoming trip to Ukraine and work on a new project, I feel the pull toward a different kind of writing, deeper, more personal, more expansive than a traditional blog format easily allows. Which is why, after much deliberation, I finally created a Substack, Bois de Jasmin Circle.

So what is my Substack about?

In short:

It’s a space where creativity, scent, and culture help us survive chaos, told through my journeys in Ukraine and around the world. As a journalist, I’ve worked in and written from conflict zones, and those experiences changed how I understand beauty, ritual, and the role of creativity in dark times.

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I’m delighted to announce a new online seminar dedicated to one of my favorite flowers—osmanthus. It’s a completely new course based on my recent research and studies of this unique perfume note.

During this 1.5-hour class, we’ll explore osmanthus in all its beauty and complexity. Together, we will:
• Learn how osmanthus is processed and what to look for perfumes with this note  
• Train our noses through guided smelling exercises
• Learn how to detect notes and identify accords in perfumes
• Practice different techniques for scent analysis and memorization
• Discover the most beautiful osmanthus perfumes I’ve encountered—including many new creations I smelled during my recent trip to China
• And, as a special treat, I’ll share a recipe for osmanthus honey I learned from a tea maker in Hangzhou. Can be used for other flowers.

I’m preparing a trip to Ukraine, and I’m raising money to buy art supplies for Kyiv’s Children Art School. The proceeds from this seminar will support that initiative.

This is brand-new content, distinct from my previous osmanthus classes. It reflects the latest discoveries and insights from the vibrant contemporary perfumery scene I experienced in China.

If you love flowers, perfumery, or simply want to refine your sense of smell, this class will be an inspiring and sensory journey.

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes (live on Zoom)
Price: €65 per participant
Small class size to keep it interactive
Date: November 15, 2025, Saturday, 12:00-13:30 EST/18:00-19:30 CET
Replay available for registered participants (on request)

SOLD OUT

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Have you ever dreamed of working in perfume, but had no idea where to begin?
Or wondered how fragrances are actually made, who creates them, who decides what they smell like, and what happens between an idea and the bottle on the shelf?

By popular demand, I’m running a 90-minute live class that opens the door to the perfume industry, from an insider’s perspective but made for those starting from the outside.

SOLD OUT 

I trained at IFF as a perfumer under Sophia Grojsman, one of the legendary creators of modern perfumery, and I’ve spent over 20 years working in the fragrance world — from formulation and evaluation to writing and education. I’ve worked with nearly all major supplier companies and today, I teach perfumery at ISIPCA, the leading perfume school in Versailles.

Through this class I want to share what I’ve learned about how the industry truly works and how you can find your own path into it.

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I’m delighted to bring back my newsletter! Here you’ll find reflections and stories I don’t publish anywhere else—behind-the-scenes notes, sensory explorations, and previews of projects as they take shape. As a welcome gift, I’ve prepared a short guide to the art of cologne: it includes a simple accord you can recreate at home, along with a carefully chosen selection of remarkable colognes to discover. Subscribe here.

This autumn, I am launching a new seminar, Fragrances that Influenced History—a journey through perfumes that not only shaped how we smell, but also how we understand art, fashion, and society. These are the first two parts of a longer seminar, each one hour in length, designed to introduce you to the milestones of modern perfumery. The class is interactive and its size is kept small to ensure that everyone can participate comfortably.

Fragrances That Influenced History

Location: Online, Zoom (recording available)

Date & Time: 1h

Fragrances That Influenced History Part 1 September 20th, Saturday 1:00pm-2:00pm EST/6:00pm-7:00pm CET   SOLD OUT 

Fragrances That Influenced History Part 2 September 28th, Sunday 1:00pm-2:00pm EST/6:00pm-7:00pm CET   SOLD OUT 

Part I: The Dawn of Modern Perfumery
We will begin with the late 19th and early 20th centuries—the moment when modern perfumery was born. You will discover Coty’s La Rose Jacqueminot and Guerlain’s Jicky, perfumes that marked the transition from traditional essences to a new, modern aesthetic. We will discuss how synthetic materials transformed perfume creation, and how these innovations paralleled the bold experimentation in visual arts and literature. You will learn what accords are still used today and how niche perfumery continues to be inspired by the legendary perfumes of the 19th and early 20th century

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