Photo via ApotheCARE Essentials.
Whether its a whiff of a significant other’s conditioner or the smell of your favorite meal, we all know how scent can instantly transport us to some of our most treasured memories. It can often be the defining factor in whether your pick up a certain product or leave it on the shelves. That’s why perfumers like ApotheCARE Essentials‘s Lead Perfumer Frederique Terranova work so intensely to craft fragrances that not only delight our senses but also stay top of mind when we go to restock our beauty buys. The fragrance phenom has spent 30 years working with some of the biggest brands in the business to stir up memorable aromas, blending her love of nature with her precision in perfumery to create the new bath and body care line’s soothing scents.
In fact, a slew of beauty editors and I got to sniff her hard work and even try our hand in stirring up our own scent at a recent masterclass helmed by Terranova where I also got to chat with Terranova to learn which fragrance note was the catalyst to kicking off her career, how the industry has evolved since her start, what notes she’d blend together for her very own signature scent, and how to know when you’ve found your own go-to perfume.
you describe what your first fragrance memory was?
My first perfume memory is the perfume of my grandmother, I remember coming back from a weekend in Campagne, France I was sleeping on her shoulder and the memory of smelling her perfume… it’s a beautiful memory for me.
What was the fragrance that made you want to become a perfumer? And how did you enter the industry?
Growing up in France, I had such a deep emotional connection with scents, and inspired by this, I studied chemical engineering in school and entered the field. I’ve been doing this for over 30 years now.”
Courtesy of ApotheCARE Essentials.
What are some of your favorite notes? What are some of your least favorite notes?
Specifically for the fragrances I developed for the ApotheCARE Essentials line, I love the lavender fragrance in The Colorist & The Soother products. It’s fresh and reminiscent of my garden in Grasse – I create little sachets filled with lavender to drop in my closet drawers.
When you’re creating a fragrance, what are some of the places you draw inspiration from?
I draw inspiration mostly from nature. Most of the high-quality, natural ingredients we used in the collection, like geranium, jasmine, and lavender, I grow in my own garden so I was able to use my personal experiences as inspiration as well.
Because creators always feel like they can always improve a piece of their own work, when do you know that you’re completed a fragrance?
You can work all your life on a fragrance and never be finished. While premium fragrances can take years to create, we achieved complex, comforting scents for ApotheCARE Essentials in under two years. I’m very proud of them and I hope everyone loves them as much as I do.
What are the biggest ways you’ve seen the fragrance industry change since you started?
The evolution of certain industry constraints coupled with the scarcity of some ingredients are new obstacles to the perfumer’s creative process. As a consequence, we constantly need to reinvent our creative approach – we must never fall into a comfort zone.
Another change is the globalization of the market – an increasing number of brands must also adapt its products and take an innovative approach to development. Once a brand travels or goes global, you must observe many different cultures and standards. What is thrilling to me is to observe shifts in consumer interests and the way they shape new opportunities, especially the cultural shift toward natural beauty.
If you could develop your own signature scent, what notes would it contain?
This signature scent would definitely evoke the smell of the Mediterranean Sea in winter swept by the wind, mixed with smells of citrus, rosemary, and pine, heated by the sun.
How should someone go about finding their signature scent?
Your signature scent is the one that transports you to the moments when you feel safe, relaxed, happy and free. Your signature scent is in perpetual evolution and may change from one season to another and may vary according to moods and circumstances.