Meet the perfumers who decolonize how we smell

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In the years that Ezra-Lloyd Jackson first spent studying fragrance and how the human body reacts to odors, fair skin was the default. So when the British-Jamaican perfumer set out to build his brand, deyaa question was raised: how could I smell a fragrance designed for my own skin?

Jackson is part of a new generation of perfumers entering the world of fragrance with a vision to decolonize how we smell. “We’ve had mostly white people go to foreign countries and make fragrances that inspire them from their travels to a faraway land, that Marco Polo narrative, and we don’t need it anymore,” says Yosh Han, the founder of Yosh’s water, creative director of Scent Trunk and producer of Scent Festival. “We want to hear from people of color and what they think of their own homeland and beyond. Too often, people of color are in the narrative only as farmers or vendors, rarely in creative positions or as main characters.”

Jackson’s initial base note for I, his first fragrance, is Haitian vetiver root. It also includes parts of cocoa butter, as well as bay incense and nutmeg, scents often found in Jamaican homes. Beyond the focus on scents, Jackson formulates her perfume using a high volume of vetiver hydrosol (water) in addition to alcohol; a decision that is as much about building a more sustainable production process as it is about making the fragrance more comfortable for its intended users. “Black skin loses more moisture compared to white skin,” says Jackson. “Most fragrances are still alcohol-based and dry out my skin.”

The modern fragrance industry can often be traced back to Grasse, a city in southeastern France commonly known as the perfume capital of the world. But many of the scents that come out of the village perfume shops are created using natural resources extracted from countries in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Responsible sourcing was a key goal for Jackson, which meant sourcing directly from farmers and growers whenever possible to avoid complicated supply chains. “I want to establish a direct connection with providers to bypass the multiple layers of resellers and monopolies,” Jackson says. “For me, it’s about building a connection from the source, where these items are grown and cultivated.”

Most fragrances are still alcohol based and dry out my skin.

Matthew J Sanchez, the founder of the Los Angeles-based fragrance brand Matteo Perfumes, uses ingredients from third-party companies offering independent perfumers access to a library of responsibly sourced scents: His debut scent, Celadawn, included notes of horchata, a traditional Mexican drink made from cinnamon-flavored white rice. She has also fostered strong relationships with the farmers who grow the materials she works with, such as Hawaiian lavender, Mexican vanilla, and Egyptian myrrh. “I’m not necessarily trying to buy directly from the source, which means that [my suppliers are] happy to introduce ourselves,” he says. “I just want to know where I get the ingredients from, and give as much shine and credit to these places that have been left off the fragrance map for far too long.”

gábar – a Myanmar-rooted fragrance brand that centers Southeast Asian stories championing scents like amber, jasmine and sandalwood – is also building its supply chain with equity in mind. For co-founders Phway Su Aye and Susan Wai Hnin, this means relying on a blend of synthetic and natural oils, especially where natural ingredients like agarwood, rosewood, and sandalwood are difficult to source sustainably. Clean synthetic products not only avoid using natural resources, but are also better for people with allergy-prone skin.

“The agricultural trade and much of the oil trade in Myanmar is still controlled by the current government,” says Su Aye. “There is, for lack of a better word, a lot of shadow around the oil extraction and production business, and many oils are in jeopardy. We are really trying to move away from those extractivist models that are harmful to the environment and to the local population.”

For the fragrance industry to become more equitable and respectful, the language we use to describe scent must also change, says Han. “These white guys in suits have never been exoticized or fetishized, so they don’t understand why anyone Like me, he doesn’t want to see the word ‘oriental’ on perfume packaging”, he adds. These Eurocentric terms are not efficient for naming olfactory groups either. “Oriental” is often used to describe notes as varied as vanilla, cinnamon, orris, jasmine, and orange blossom, among others, without reference to a specific culture or geography.

For this reason, perfumers like Dana El Masri have called on the industry to replace problematic terms with more suitable names for specific notes. “Using kind, respectful, honest, authentic, and specific language strengthens the narrative and informs the ‘audience,’ for lack of a better word, about what you’re sharing,” says El Masri, who founded the fragrance brand. jasmine sarai in 2014. “And maybe it makes it easier to relate to others.”

Demystifying fragrance terminology is also a priority for London-based perfumers. maya njie, who launched his eponymous brand in 2016. Njie also runs regular educational workshops in London aimed at lifting the veil on jargon used in the industry. “Perfume can be really elitist,” says Njie. “The more language we use that people who don’t know about perfume can understand, the more people will be interested.”

Elle N, founder of blackperfumers.com, a platform dedicated to promoting the work of black fragrance designers, notes that a more equitable industry should include greater collaboration between retailers and independent designers of color fragrances. “When retailers take the initiative to discover, endorse, and invest in Black-owned fragrance brands, they increase the value of these brands in the eyes of shoppers,” she says.

Elle N also mentions the need for more consumer awareness of the perfumery code of ethics, more celebrity endorsement of brands by independent perfumers of color, and the introduction of fragrance curricula at universities historically black as important steps towards creating greater access points to the fragrance industry.

“The statistics tell us that we spend a lot in this industry,” says Elle N (black consumers in the US are responsible for 22 percent of the nation’s total spending on women’s fragrances, according to Nielsen). “So it’s even more important that we’re on the production side. That means that we are not just giving money, we are reinvesting in ourselves and acquiring skills that we can pass down, so that we can have generations of perfumers in our families. It’s a way to build on and re-engage with the notion of legacy within this industry.”