Turn to the East – Style – Kommersant

Kommersant Style finds out what is interesting about Asian perfumes, how companies in Japan, China, Singapore and South Korea build their work, and which brands you should pay attention to in order to get your idea of ​​the intricacies of oriental fragrances.

The time has come for interest in everything oriental, but if many are already familiar with Korean sheet masks and serums with snail mucin, then very little is known about oriental perfumery. Let me make a reservation right away: we are not talking about Middle Eastern fragrances, which are well known on the Russian market, but about a more unexplored region in this regard — south of Irkutsk and Vladivostok. It is believed that modern perfumery began in the West, and even ten years ago, the same Japanese were presented to us as a nation that does not use perfume, because it considers it intrusive and indecent to appear in society with an overly complex or strong aroma – just so as not to disturb others. Today, industry insiders point out exactly the opposite trends: the East enjoys fragrances very much, and each region has its own characteristics.

“It is very difficult to launch a new brand in Japan because information about fragrances is usually scarce and it is difficult to find raw materials and perfume bottles,” says Yasuyuki Shinohara, founder of Di Ser perfume company in Hokkaido. “While Japan has a long history of perfume culture, including kodo, our perfume culture is just beginning,” he says. Kodo is a traditional culture of fragrances that has existed for 1,400 years: a special state of mind, the “way” or “before”, the spiritual culture of the invisible. A person listens to smells, and does not smell them – this is how you can connect with your inner “I”. Shinohara notes that European perfumers have been actively trying to create products for the Japanese market, but if Western perfume culture prefers long-lasting fragrances, the Japanese are not interested in longevity, preferring lighter, transparent fragrances – and there is some conflict in this. Among the ingredients used to produce the Di Ser perfume are local symbols of the region, such as the Japanese rose and the spicy shiso herb. “Foreign users call our perfumes unique,” ​​he says in his interview with Kommersant Style. “I don’t have a clear understanding of what it means to be unique, but I think that this is probably used to refer to a fragrance that you haven’t heard anywhere else.”

Of those that have gained international fame, but have remained niche, I will note such Japanese brands as Zoologist, Monocle and Satori – they can be found in small perfume boutiques in Russia. Of the new perfume brands, Sholayered is worth paying attention to – the brand offers to layer fragrances to create your own versions of smells.

Unlike the wary Japanese, the Chinese perfume market is booming. And if for decades the world’s best-selling brands such as Chanel No. 5 and Dior J’Adore dominated the Chinese perfume market, now we see how consumer tastes are evolving. In recent years, the market is ready to experiment with lesser known brands, including local manufacturers. Attention and investment from global companies has led China’s perfume market to reach 10.9 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in 2020 and is expected to reach 30 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) by 2025. – data from the iMedia Consulting agency. Local brands are becoming part of the portfolio of large corporations, such as Scent Library became part of the Spanish conglomerate Puig, and L`Oreal, in collaboration with Cathay Capital, invested $1.4 million in Documents perfume brand.

Nevertheless, Chinese perfume brands are developing business domestically as well. For example, To Summer works this way: they focus on creating oriental, emphatically traditional fragrances and work with notes of osmanthus, gardenia, jasmine, orchid, honeysuckle, citrus, bamboo. The brand’s feature is the release of new fragrances only at 20:00 every Thursday evening and in very limited quantities – therefore they are sold out instantly. Melt Season, which is also worth being aware of, opened its first store in Shanghai in August 2022, and so far the brand has been operating only in China, but is striving for global expansion, inviting established perfumers like Francis Kurkdjian to cooperate.

Perfume Singapore is developing almost as actively: new brands are growing like mushrooms after rain and are aimed not only at the local market, but also at entering the international arena. What are the locals interested in? For example, Maison de L`Asie is inspired by Asian motifs and releases perfumes in the form of stories – for example, the first chapter is dedicated to Singapore, the second is inspired by Bali and Indonesia. “We will be the first luxury perfume house from Southeast Asia to take part in the Esxence Milan 2023 exhibition,” says Elisabeth Liau, the founder of the brand, to Kommersant Style. “We have plans to start selling this year in Russia , we will cooperate with the Rive Gauche network. We had a very positive interaction with the Russian perfume community, we were always supported and interested in us.”

Another Singaporean perfume brand, Scent Journer, specializes in creating vegan perfumes and is a gender-neutral advocate. The brand produces pure powdery fragrances with subtle floral notes. “We source our natural ingredients from all over the world,” says brand founder Joyce Lian. “For example, our fragrance A Starlit Spell features damask rose from Turkey, vetiver from Haiti and sandalwood from Australia.”

Other names worth paying attention to are Singapore brands Six, Singapore Memories, Sifr Aromatics and Code Deco.

Hong Kong also has some noteworthy perfume brands, which is not surprising, since the word “Hong Kong” itself means “fragrant harbor” – in the past this country was the main exporter of agar (or oud, as it sounds more familiar) tree. This is where the Floriography perfume house was born, which creates fragrances-emotions. “We capture our memories and experiences in fragrances through the sense of smell, like a photograph,” says Jo S, the founder of the brand, Jo S. “We have fragrances with notes of rice, cornfields and pandanus, as well as Asian flowers, such as white jade orchid, and our best-selling fragrance is osmanthus tea. Most of the components come from France, the UK and the USA. However, we also try to look for interesting ingredients from producers in Asia, such as specialized flower farms.”

Hong Kong One Day looks conceptually and concisely: transparent fragrances in a clean design – it seems that this is how the perfumery of the future looks like. The brand Aurora par Charles Wong is perfumery, the embodiment of French panache, but in an oriental way; Tobba perfumes are also interesting, because the founder of the brand, the artist-perfumer Jasper Lee, considers perfume as a work of art and a way of self-expression.

And finally, South Korea. This country is not only proud of its skin care lines – the perfume boom has reached this part of Asia as well. Brands such as Nonfiction, Alorea, and RboW are just a few of the companies that focus primarily on local ingredients and gender-neutral fragrances.

The fragrances of Asian brands are unique, diverse and represent an interesting cross-section of the historical and cultural heritage of this part of the world. It seems that in the near future we will have many discoveries and olfactory journeys.

Irina Kirienko