Roja Dove Interview

"Smelling jasmine oil worth three and half times the price of gold, that only half a dozen perfumers experience will stay with me for quite a while"

And how did I come to this position of privilege..? Well, last Thursday, Harvey Nichols hosted an evening with Roja Dove - the perfume expert and master of the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie in Harrods.

On behalf of Manchester Gossip I was lucky enough to interview him before this and what followed was a decadent evening of perfumery...and champagne.

Reclining on the seating in Harvey Nichols’ personal shopping department, Roja explained how his passion for fragrance began when his mother kissed him goodnight as she was leaving for a cocktail party and the scent, mixed with the gold lame of her dress created a magical scene in his memory.

Roja became particularly fascinated with the perfume house, Guerlain, after purchasing a bottle of Jicky and reading about their fragrances. When he asked the sales woman for more information she told him to write directly to Guerlain, which he did.

He kept writing to Guerlain and various subsidiaries to locate lost scents and eventually Robert Guerlain visited Roja’s local Guerlain counter and asked the manager who this man was, pestering them for information. She explained and when she finished Robert told her to give Roja a job as he would be less of a nuisance in house than out.

He stayed with the house for 20 years and trained in the traditional way of perfumery, which involves receiving “10 oils one day, smelling them and committing them to memory. The next day you receive the 10 original and 10 more and you do the same... carry on and eventually you commit to memory some 3000 raw materials. This is how big the perfumer’s palette is.”

To begin to understand the job of a perfumer, Roja suggested this exercise and all you gossipers should try it... shut your eyes and try to imagine a brand new colour you’ve never seen before. It can’t be any kind of peach/ yellow for example because you already know this. If you find that too difficult, try imagining a sound you’ve never heard before.... and it that’s too difficult, now try imagining a completely new scent you’ve never smelt before. Relatively impossible right?

Of course, that’s just the beginning. When a perfumer has an idea for a new scent, he/she has an array of ingredients to choose from. Roja likens the process of choice to cooking – “you’ll know that if you cook you can only make a good dish, however clever you are, if you buy good quality ingredients.” So on this note, he uses simply the finest materials in his fragrances.

An example of this is jasmine. A standard jasmine from Egypt or Turkey would cost around £100 a kilo (a bag of sugar) but the best jasmine, from Grasse in the South of France is worth £32,000 a kilo. And Roja Dove is the only private individual who buys it. The other customers of this exquisite ingredient are Chanel, who use it in their extracts and Jean Patou, who are the biggest users.

Roja is quick to explain “I don’t spend that much just to say ‘oh I’ve spent a fortune’ otherwise I would be a fool”. The reason this ingredient is worth this price is that the environment it is grown in has an effect on the quality and Grasse is the perfect environment. Also because Grasse is such a small town and the perfume industry is worldwide, the demand drives the price up. Having smelt the oil myself I can assure you it is absolutely divine.

We were advised during a mini training exercise with Roja, to smell the jasmine then smell a rose oil he gave us and the mixture of the two together is sublime. These two form the basis of most perfumes and create a very feminine scent. The rose is quite cool with almost a moisture to it whilst the jasmine is bold, sensual and warm. Together they create a balance – “like two sisters. The rose would tell the jasmine to tone down a bit and jasmine would say ‘why don’t you get some red lipstick and get a life!”

This combination trick is a top tip from the expert. He advises never, when trying a fragrance, to smell it on its own - take another one and smell them side by side, as you do it will help you to fully understand and appreciate the perfume you want to try, as a perfumer would.

An insight I found particularly interesting – have you ever thought that your perfume doesn’t last very long? This is explained by the fact that most of what we buy is Eau de Toilette which was never made to be a long lasting scent. Literally translated it means “refreshing water” so is designed to revive you. “When you put an Eau de Toilette on at 8 in the morning, by noon 80% of what you’ve put on will disappear. In fact, around 50% will disappear within thirty minutes.” This is not a fault of the product but by comparison, 50% of a perfume will remain on your skin for 24 hours. So really, it’s more expensive to buy an Eau de Toilette... Putting a few drops of perfume on in the morning means it will last all day and will still be working right into the evening. Now that’s what I call value for money.

And as Roja pointed out “it took me a long time to earn a title - that title is of parfumer not eau de toilette-r” so invest in the real deal next time you’re on your perfume excursion.

On this note, Roja also detailed the best way to apply perfume, which he believes is something of a lost art. Take your scent and use only around three or four pumps – never on the area along the jaw to the earlobes and down to the décolleté, surprised? As was I. The reason for this is that the skin on the breastbone is extremely thin and most shirts or tops are open at the neck so the fragrance is exposed to elements and just gets lost. Also, we produce no oil on our necks so spraying an alcohol, aka an astringent there is madness. To keep your neck and cleavage in good condition keep the perfumes away!

Spray the fragrance lower on your body and put a little on your wrists and on the elbow because as you move your arms they naturally go in front of your face and release the fragrance. Never put perfume behind your ear, instead spray a little onto your collarbone – “As you move your head, you will have the pleasure of smelling the perfume and anyone whispering into your ear is right above the hotspot so heaven knows what could happen!”

Roja read a note that one of his friends had written to him on the release of his book ‘The Essence of Perfume’, which perfectly sums up the nature of fragrance – “How wide indeed the doors of the past are opened by a few fragrant molecules. I was 19 or 20 years old when Pat sold me my first bottle of Jicky perfume. I still have the bottle. Not too long after that purchase I was kissed by a stranger in Milan. I was aware of three things: his tongue, my heart beat and the smell of Jicky under a cashmere sweater I always wore. Oh to be physically back in time”.

This highlights the ability of a fragrance to trigger all sorts of memories. “Perfume is one of the kindest and gentlest of all things. When an 80 year old woman puts on a fragrance, just like that it reminds her of when she was a young woman and maybe the first time she fell in love.” We can all relate to certain perfumes taking us back to a certain point in time – smelling Hugo Boss ‘Deep Red’ immediately reminds me of my group of friends at school because we all wore it, at the same time for years.

On the subject of our amazing city, Roja was complimentary – “I’ve always found the people here extraordinarily friendly, very friendly and forward which I love”.

He commented on how much had changed because he’s visited so much over the years, and how Manchester has moved from one end of the town centre to another with the opening of Selfridges and Harvey Nichols. The only negative, in his opinion was that people don’t have the long lunches they used to do – when businessmen would still be finishing lunch at 6 in the evening!

I asked Roja to describe the scent of Manchester, something he does for various cities in his book and this is what he came up with - “Manchester has quite a pronounced scent - maybe it is helped by the humidity in the air which tends to bring all odours to the fore. It is without question urban, with a pronounced petroleum note underscoring the earthiness of dirt and the sweet warmth of humanity.” He went on to say “Sorry it does not sound too pretty does it?” but I think this is true of our extremely urban, ‘industrial’ city that thrives on the people within it.

 Now I could continue writing this article for pages and pages because there was such a myriad of stories and tips but I’ve tried to condense it down to the most important tit bits.

To leave you with the same thought as the man himself left me:

“Roja is a god, only rather more omniscient. In his temporal capacity he is also the king of narrative. If there is a perfume that Roja doesn’t have an anecdote about i have yet to discover it. Talking scent with Mr. Dove is as rich a pleasure as it is a privilege. Everyone in the world of fragrance could do with a good Roja-ing” Hannah Betts, Sunday Times Magazine

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