Farouche Paris

The Inspiration

On the plane ride to Europe I read a book (gifted by my wonderful sister-in-law) called The Secret of Scent by Luca Turin. Within the first chapter, Turin explains his experience with a scent named Nombre Noir. He describes, “It brought to mind a purple ink to write love letters with, and that wonderful French word farouche, which can mean either shy or fierce or a bit of both.”

I underlined the quote, wrote it in the notes of my phone, and re-read it about 10 times. I didn’t know why this stuck out to me so much, and at this point, had no idea I would use it for something. All I knew is that the concept of being both reserved and fierce resonated with my soul, especially in a time where I am stepping out of my comfort zone so much.

Flash forward to the first day of class and we are assigned to come up with a concept for a fragrance. My professor encouraged us to choose a topic/subject that we are passionate about, that stirs our creativity.

I have had a continuous love affair with jazz music since I was a teenager, and this was the first idea that came to my mind. How deep and dynamic and lovely is the feeling of listening to a jazz band? What if I translated that feeling into another sense? Into a scent? I started to think about all of the jazz singers I listen to, and discovered that most of my jazz playlist on Spotify is Ella Fitzgerald.

Oh Ella, what a woman. She has such a fierce voice, full of depth and confidence, but as I read more about her, she was actually quite shy off the stage. She was farouche, much like myself, much like many modern women.

That’s when my concept was born. Farouche Paris, a fragrance inspired by Ella Fitzgerald and the romance of the jazz age, inspiring the modern woman to embrace her farouche personality.

The first week of class I worked to lay down the foundation for this fragrance concept, workshopping various scent trials, developing a scent direction I wanted my fragrance to take.

The Creation

The following images are how I created my 100mL bottle of Farouche Paris at Galimard in Grasse working along side a master perfumer. At the end of this workshop, I received a diploma stating that I have graduated as a student of fragrance.

The Marketing

After the fragrance was developed, I worked in Lactose and Paris to develop a marketing plan for Farouche Paris. Below you can see my final presentation, which is a product brief for Farouche Paris. This presentation includes inspiration regarding scent direction, primary and secondary packaging, competitors, and pricing. Please note that this presentation is in a video format: if you want to pause at anytime to take a better look at the content, feel free.