Fragrance is a huge passion of mine and I spend as much time as I can sitting at my perfume organ, creating the fragrances that eventually become part of the Rook Perfumes collection. Relatively speaking though, perfumery is a new facet of my life and what occupies me the most is my work as an emergency doctor. I studied medicine at University College London and graduated in 2010. I spent most of my career working in acute and geriatric medicine but eventually the West End came calling and I decided I wanted to go back to my passion in the arts....
Here is a collection of the most common questions we get asked. Fragrances are very important to people and marketing messages can be confusing. Hopefully this blog post will help to demystify a few things.
I get many people asking me what is involved in creating a niche perfume company. I will start off by saying that the most crucial thing is a "point of view." Scent is an art as much as music and painting. Similarly to those other mediums, if you don't have a point of view you become drowned in a business which is already saturated. With having a point of view comes the responsibility to stay true to it. Now to the bones of it. The perfume business has challenges at every step. Making the perfume is the fun bit. Creating a...
Musks are interesting molecules. Traditionally extracted from various glands of various beasts including the beaver (castoreum) and deer - we now have a vast selection of synthetic musks to choose from. These molecules tend to closely replicate the natural molecule responsible for the desired odour. Amazing scent - cruelty free.
Sunday marked the end of the first Rook Scent Experiment. We turned the perfume buying experience on its head and sent out 25 samples of a scent I created. I shared nothing about the notes in the scent nor any facts about the inspiration for the scent.
As each sample arrived people created images, videos and stories which they shared on instagram. They told me about any places or memories the scent evoked and made a list of notes they perceived.
"Moments" are something talked a lot about when it comes to Rook Perfumes. The spray of a perfume can make you stop in your tracks and transport you to a different time or place. It makes you react spontaneously and truthfully. "The moment" was a concept introduced to me during my training as an actor at LAMDA. It is something something it took me a long time to be able to understand. In the acting world "the moment" is not tangible. It is about allowing the way you feel and the interaction you are having with fellow actors to be decided...
