Hello

My name is Jonathan, I've been studying perfumery for almost five years now. I live in the Forest of Dean and I've worked in Film and television and the fashion industry for a long while before I have always been a creative at heart, writing books and scripts, painting oil paintings, making furniture, plonking away on my piano...

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I found my love of scent early into my career, working with some really amazing fashion photographers at the top of their game. They used to send me off to Selfridges and Harrods to find candles for our studio and location shoots, and I had the best time wondering the counters, smelling candles made by companies who served emperors of France. Of course I could never afford these works of art myself, so I set about finding a way to make my own.

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I started with essential oils, blending and composing scents that would fill my home with smells reminiscent of those royal blends (not always successfully I might point out!). I learned the properties of each oil, every family, their favourite places to grow, their strengths and weaknesses, dabbled in candle-making but didn't get very far (I didn't like that the most successful products tended to be by-products of the oil industry) and tried out my first almond oil perfumes.

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I quickly realised that, although those oils were and are a joy to behold (I still venture upstairs with a glass of wine sometimes and revel in their olfactory beauty - what a world we live in where a plant can exude such heavenly smells!), they had a limit - the scents are structures in themselves, tall and grand and stately, but I found I could only go so far in constructing new and lasting scents of my own.

 

So I ventured into aroma chemicals, hesitantly at first, the world was so different; Suddenly I was surrounded not by soaring, elegant structures, ancient and worldly, but by bricks and mortar, and some very basic tools. I had to learn the components by their very bones, and stitch and carve, and see what wild new creatures I could bring to life.

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I saw myself as an architect with no qualification; just a nose and a determination; part witch brewing potions in her forest home, part crazy scientist trying to find the life in his creations. Aroma chemicals are often constituents of a scent, and the wonder of their worth is the ability to construct the idea of a smell, rather than the scent itself; instead of a rose I could make a walk in the garden on a hot summer's day; instead of smokey wood I could paint a campsite in a pine forest, the damp wind blowing the soggy fallen leaves off a frozen lake.

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And finally I am confident enough to share those creations with you