What does it take to become a top nose?

Times

29-05-2025

Since the dawn of time — or at least 5,000 years ago — people have been spritzing perfume. Whether to seduce with scent (like Cleopatra, who, legend has it, infused the sails of her ship with sweet fragrance) or to ward off malign spirits with incense. But what about the people who conceived the scents, aka the 'noses'?
Etchings on an ancient clay tablet show that the first recorded nose dates back more than 3,000 years. A female chemist named Tapputi is credited with discovering the first distillation techniques, creating fragrances that included ingredients such as myrrh and balsam for the royal family in Babylonian Mesopotamia. We don't know much about Tapputi's background, but modern noses — of which there are thought to be fewer than 500 in the world — must undergo years of training. It all starts with an innate curiosity about scent.
'It happened when I went to Paris when I was eight years old … I really enjoyed being in the Metro to smell people,' says Sophie Labbé, known for her work on Versace Dylan Turquoise and Estée Lauder Pure White Linen.
• Read more luxury reviews, advice and insights from our experts
Likewise, Roja Dove of Roja Parfums knew his calling from the time he was a young boy and his glamorously dressed — and spritzed — mother would come in to kiss him goodnight. He admits to occasionally stealing perfumes from her drawer. 'Then as I got a little older, I used to spend all my pocket money on perfume,' he says.
Carlos Benaïm (the in-house nose for Sana Jardin and creator of Ralph Lauren Polo) spent summers with his botanist father, who would extract and distil natural ingredients as a hobby. 'He was a sort of amateur perfumer,' he says. Benaïm would travel with his father by Jeep from field to field, learning to love plants and the natural ingredients used for perfumes.
The creative genius behind Bibbi Parfum, Jérôme Epinette, spent much of his boyhood in the boutique where his mother sold perfumes. While the selling side bored him, he found himself engrossed in the stories she shared with customers about the creative process behind perfumes.
Olivier Cresp (the famous nose whose creations include Dolce and Gabbana's Devotion and Light Blue collections) was born and bred in the city of perfume — Grasse, so called because of the native abundance of wild grasses, herbs and flowers. Crest grew up surrounded by scents. 'My entire family was immersed in this universe: it wasn't uncommon for my parents to invite perfumers over for dinner,' he says.
Once the spark of curiosity is ignited, the hard work begins. It takes about ten years of training to become a nose. 'I wish I could tell you that genetics play a major role, but I don't think so,' says Olivier Polge, Chanel's in-house perfumer. 'The excellence of a perfumer's nose is not determined by its innate physical attributes, but by its creativity, curiosity and state of mind.'
Wannabe noses must start off with a science degree, ideally chemistry. With a foundation in molecular structures, chemical reactions and formulations, they can move on to their postgraduate training at a perfumery school. For top noses, this usually means the Grasse Institute of Perfumery (GIP), which accepts a maximum of 12 students at a time per course, or ISIPCA in Versailles. Aspiring perfumers not only do a multitude of tests to secure their place, from calculation and logic to olfactory recognition to creativity, they are also interviewed by perfumers.
Courses like this last one to three years. Students learn the smells of raw materials — flowers, types of wood, spices — before learning to combine them. Epinette was one of those students, smelling every day 8am to 5pm: 'The first six months is just really smelling raw material ingredients … thousands of them.'
Dora Baghriche (the nose behind Mon Paris by Yves Saint Laurent) recalls learning ten new scents a week and being tested on them the following week. She was taught to associate the smell with a memory, colour or emotion. Students finish the course with an internship for a big perfume company. By this point, they should be a dab hand at identifying each individual ingredient in the perfume of any passer-by.
Fresh graduates will be on the hunt for jobs as junior perfumers, lab technicians or even sales representatives. They begin working their way up the ladder until they reach nose level (or master perfumer).
It wasn't always so regimented. Some of the best noses in the world followed in the footsteps of their fathers. Olivier Polge, the man who created Chanel Chance Eau Tendre and Dior Homme, is his father's successor. Jacques Polge served as Chanel's in-house perfumer for 37 years. Polge Jr learnt much of what he knows through an internship with his father. 'It was only the direct contact with the profession that led to a greater understanding of the field,' he says.
Training during this time (the 1980s and 90s) was, as Dove puts it, more 'on the hoof'. Perfumers learnt by watching their fathers or mothers or mentors. 'I had absolutely no formal training,' he adds. Dove went against the grain by being the first in his family to enter the industry. After pestering Guerlain for a job, in 1981 he got his wish: 'They created a sort of totally hybridised job around me — the job evolved but one of my fundamental things was to go and learn about the raw materials,' he recalls. Dove's first role was to create a training programme for perfumers (without having ever trained himself). So he was shipped off to France where he was taught the intricacies of perfume ingredients at the fragrance and flavour manufacturer Robertet, 'the Rolls-Royce of luxury naturals [natural ingredients used in perfume]'.
Mentorships are important in this field. 'I think our industry is very kind. People are really very supportive and will always try to help,' he says.
Large fragrance houses now have programmes set up mimicking this traditional watch-and-learn method. A handful of students each year get to spend time with the world's most esteemed noses. Roja Parfum has four forthcoming fragrances, created by very young perfumers at the start of their career.
So what makes a successful nose? 'You have to listen a lot,' Labbé says. Not just to mentors but to the brands that brief them. Noses 'translate what [the brands] have in mind to become a perfume'. Inspirations for these projects can come from absolutely anything. Labbé says something she sees at the theatre or travelling or even gardening might blossom into an idea.
Similarly, for Epinette, 'just by listening to [the brand], I have a scent popping in my head or my nose. I throw ideas on paper and then they compound it in the lab and I smell it.'
What is clear is that noses love their jobs. 'It's like a parallel world that nobody sees but you feel,' Labbé says. It is their livelihood, yes. But it is also often their lives. Labbé sums it up in one sentence (which, naturally, sounds far nicer in French): 'Je suis née lorsque je suis devenue nez,' meaning her life began when she became a nose.