From brief to perfume

How a fragrance is developed for a brand

Fisfis Academy · 15 min read ·

From brief to perfume

What you will learn

  • List the key information a fragrance brief contains
  • Explain how competition between fragrance houses and the modification cycle work
  • Distinguish the roles of the perfumer, the evaluator and the sales team in the process
  • Compare the in-house perfumer and "editor" models with the commercial brief model

Most perfumes on the shelf are not born from a flash of inspiration one morning. A brand writes down what it wants in a document, and several fragrance houses compete for months to answer it. That document is called the brief.

A brief: target audience, story, price and timeline come together on a single page.
A brief: target audience, story, price and timeline come together on a single page.

What goes into a brief?

  • Concept and story: The emotion the brand wants to convey, candidate names, the visual world, sometimes a film or a song.
  • Target audience and market: Age, gender perception, country or region. Scent preferences can differ markedly between the Middle East, Asia and North America.
  • Product type: EDT or EDP? Will there be a lotion, deodorant or shower gel alongside it? Each product means a separate IFRA category.
  • Price: The maximum cost per kilogram of concentrate. It directly determines which raw materials the perfumer can use.
  • References (benchmarks): Successful competitors on the market, or directions such as "like this, but younger."
  • Technical constraints and timeline: Allergen targets, vegan or color requirements, launch date.
  1. Receiving the brief At the fragrance house, the brief from the brand is interpreted by the account manager and the evaluator; often several houses compete on the same brief.
  2. Setting the direction The evaluator translates the brief into the language of scent: reference perfumes, accord ideas, "mood" scents. One or more perfumers are assigned.
  3. First submissions The perfumers write trials in different directions. These are narrowed down in-house, and the strongest few are presented to the brand.
  4. Modifications The brand gives feedback: "fresher," "a longer drydown." Each new version is called a mod; on large projects the number of mods can run into the hundreds.
  5. Consumer testing The finalists are tested with the target audience, often unbranded. The results influence the choice and the final adjustments.
  6. Technical validation The winning formula is checked for IFRA compliance, allergen declaration, stability and packaging compatibility, then scaled up for production.
  7. Launch When a fragrance house wins, it usually gets the supply contract for the concentrate rather than a fee; its income comes from every kilogram of concentrate sold.

Three different models of creation

Competitive brief

  • The brand gives the same brief to several fragrance houses
  • Consumer testing is decisive
  • Heavy pressure on cost and timeline
  • Major designer and celebrity license fragrances

In-house perfumer

  • The brand employs its own perfumer
  • A consistent olfactory signature
  • Less testing, more authorship
  • Houses such as Hermès, Chanel, Dior and Guerlain

Editor model

  • The brand treats independent perfumers the way a publisher treats authors
  • Flexible budget and timeline
  • The perfumer's name is on the bottle
  • Frédéric Malle's "Editions de Parfums" approach

Examples from the field

Chandler Burr's book The Perfect Scent follows the journey of two perfumes released in the same year (2005): Sarah Jessica Parker's celebrity fragrance Lovely, developed for Coty through the brief process, and Un Jardin sur le Nil, written by Hermès in-house perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena. The book is one of the best accounts of how the two models live side by side in the same industry.

Case studies

  • Lovely: A celebrity-licensed fragrance developed through the brief process (2005). A musky, clean structure with broad appeal: smell how it answers the brief's call for "wearability."
  • Un Jardin Sur Le Nil Hermès: A transparent composition Jean-Claude Ellena wrote for Hermès, inspired by a garden in Aswan. A work of authorship built from few materials.
  • CK One: Alberto Morillas and Harry Frémont (1994). The "one scent for everyone" concept: the market idea in the brief became the fragrance itself.
  • Angel: Olivier Cresp (1992). A dense, sugary-patchouli structure with no precedent on the market; polarizing at launch, it went on to open a new family (gourmand).
  • Sauvage: François Demachy (2015), Dior's in-house perfumer. A bergamot and ambroxan axis: a clear signature for a broad audience.
  • La Vie Est Belle Lancôme: Olivier Polge, Dominique Ropion and Anne Flipo (2012). Co-signed by several perfumers, the product of a long development process.
Brief
The brand's written request to the fragrance house, defining concept, target audience, price and timeline.
Fragrance house
A company that designs and manufactures fragrance concentrates (such as Givaudan, dsm-firmenich, IFF, Symrise).
Evaluator
The specialist who interprets the brief, smells the perfumer's trials, gives direction and bridges the brand and the perfumer.
Mod
A new version of a trial. Each mod is a formula response to a piece of feedback.
Benchmark
A perfume cited as a reference in the brief, usually a successful one on the market.
Captive
A molecule patented by a fragrance house or reserved for its own perfumers; it makes copying harder for competitors.
Flanker
A new interpretation that carries the name of a successful perfume: Intense, Elixir, Eau Fraîche and so on.

Key points

  • A brief defines the concept, target audience, product type, price, references and timeline.
  • Fragrance houses often compete on the same brief; the winning house gets the supply of the concentrate.
  • A perfume matures through many modifications shaped by evaluator feedback and consumer testing.
  • The competitive brief, the in-house perfumer and the editor model offer different degrees of creative freedom.
  • A benchmark is a direction; the goal is not to copy it but to carry the reference's strength into a new idea.

Sources

  • Burr, C. (2008). The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York. Henry Holt.
  • Calkin, R. R. & Jellinek, J. S. (1994). Perfumery: Practice and Principles. Wiley.
  • Ellena, J.-C. (2011). Perfume: The Alchemy of Scent. Arcade (original: Le Parfum, Que sais-je?, 2007).
  • Turin, L. & Sanchez, T. (2008). Perfumes: The Guide. Viking.