Guilt

Every decent perfumer feels guilty from time to time... For serving luxury, for satisfying vanity, for creating the unnecessary.

I heard Cresp in a conference about how he likes to think of himself as a sort of a doctor. I read various interviews given by perfumers trying to convince dear readers ( and themselves ) about the magic role perfume plays in our well-being.

If you work in perfumery, sooner or later you will have to face the fact that perfume is rarely a question of life or death. ...And basically, all the exceptions are already listed in the book of Patrick Süskind.

Having been born with an overdose of justice-sensitivity, the feeling of guilt uncomfortably started to grow in me during one of the first classes of Natural Raw Materials while still in school. We studied the "dark chocolate coated cigar" smelling patchouli essential oil and by chance I got to know also about the exploitation of patchouli farmers in Indonesia. After that, for a long time I wanted to become a natural raw material expert, and turn the whole perfumery business into one big fair-trade family where all the big creation companies are buying directly from local producers thanks to me, the future Indiana Jones of Essential Oils.

When my inner need to compose perfumes became as strong and frustrating that I had to give up on saving the world of natural raw materials and those poor patchouli farmers in Indonesia, I reasoned myself with reading a lot about how really our mood is affected by smells. It is true, we all know that by now, smelling is the only sense directly linked with a specific part of the brain responsible of euphoria. Therefore it can engolden your day, it can fill you with happiness, love and peace ( along with some Hedione and Musks, of course ).

I managed to persuade myself that all the energy and money being spent by Chemical Engineers creating new fragrant molecules couldn't have already led to finding the antidote of cancer anyways.

Guilt came back just after winning a perfume competition based on a given brief. Am I really taking raw materials of mother nature and put them into bottles so that somewhat rich women all around the world could complete their daily seduction with higher chances?

After a long frustration and hesitation to give up my perfumer, now I think I calmed my tiring consciousness for good now: The first commission payment I have received - from sales of my creation overseas - is going directly to an organisation that offers education and a familial environment for orphans and children with difficult financial background.