A very personal perfume
She is not a man, nor a Frenchman - really bad conditions to make a career in the male-dominated perfume industry. Nevertheless, Kim Weisswange has fulfilled her childhood dream and has become a perfumer. In her Hamburg studio, she develops her own perfume series, room scents and her special highlight: Unique perfumes - fragrance compositions as unique as the person who orders her personal perfume. Of course I would like to try that as well.
Everything the scent expert needs to know to create a personal perfume is queried on a three page questionnaire - from date of birth to favorite drink, from hair color and skin type to favorite fruits, smells, dishes or musical preferences. On page three things get a bit harder, at least for a layman like me, who so far has been so little aware of smells. So how should it be, my personal perfume, my special fragrance - velvety? Why not. Light? Very much. Sporty? Sure, of course. But not earthy or mosy, but rather fruity and flowery. And by no means vanillig and certainly not honey-like. Resinous and spicy - maybe. But dry-dusty or powdery? That does not necessarily have to be ...
The scent organ in the head
With my questionnaire, I visit Kim Weisswange at her workstation, imagining how, surrounded by thousands of vials, she treats flavors and essences like a witch's kitchen and conjures up great fragrances. Far from it - her studio is tidy and tidy and far and wide is not the fragrance organ so typical for the perfumer with thousands of scents in sight. Kim Weisswange has her olfactory organ in her head.
Around 10,000 fragrances are stored and retrievable in their photographic memory. "For me, the fragrance is first mixed in the head," she says and calls this her imaginary nose: "I read through a questionnaire, and then developed with me already a fragrance experience, which I write down as a recipe.The mixing of essences is only later".
Everything is possible...
Pure nature: essences and aromas from a variety of plants.
While I have no scent in my head, but a pleasant aroma of scented candles in the nose, while Kim Weisswange studied my statements: "Fresh is an important aspect, citrusy, fruity, velvety, warm, cinnamon and flowery in any case. Lemon balm you write and orange, I imagine a really nice sweet orange, an Italian cold pressing maybe Then we have cinnamon and cocoa, which goes already in the direction of Mexican note, there is much possible.
Then she smiles: "Difficult is always this beautiful contrast between sporty on one side and velvety on the other, which is of course a challenge - but otherwise everything is wonderfully conclusive." In principle, she could design all three fragrance concepts for me - chypre, oriental and floral. "It could be an oriental fragrance with cinnamon and warmth, on the other hand chypre would also be perfect: with fresh citrusy notes, oceanic, fruity and sporty, and there is also plenty of room for a floral perfume, but if you try in the To go in the middle, it would certainly be a floral fragrance that brings all the qualities of the other classifications with it, so that forms a beautiful sensual accord in the base note, with a sensual-flowery and gentle heart note - I would choose a nice warm flower And the top note will be citrusy, fruity with a sporty touch, all in all it's a perfume that also stimulates you in creative processes that give you energy that can lift the mood, so I could imagine that. "
Unfortunately, I can not even smell all that, nor really imagine it as a smell. But I think that sounds very promising.
It's about the whole
For Kim Weisswange, however, perfume is more than just a nice fragrance. As an aromatherapist, she also knows about the healing and supporting powers of oils and essences. "Perfume emphasizes the personality and should also serve as a protective function for the human being." Astrology also plays a role in her path to "personal perfume": "If you include the astrological aspect, for example, you can detect certain human attachments and try to support them for the better." Our goal is the holistic perfume, one that integrates all aspects of the personality into its fragrance - the haute couture of perfume, so to speak. " And so she works according to the ancient art and tradition of perfumers from the past centuries. "When you create a perfume, you're all in one: alchemist and healer, creative creator, astrologer and psychologist ... Am I not really a spirit healer?" she asks and laughs.
The love of plants
The rose - queen of flowers and precious as oil.
Since it goes without saying that Kim whitewash uses only natural products and no synthetic fragrances. "These scents have a very different liveliness combine much more beautiful, even with the skin." The luxury of authenticity of course has its price - but is also understandable if a perfumer has to pay 8,000 euros and more for a kilo of real rose oil, instead of 100 euros for an artificial one from the laboratory. "Once they've smelled the differences, the chemical rose is a cheap toilet flush," says Kim Weisswange, "but there are more and more people who distinguish and demand that quality." Our perfumes are the stored life energy of plants, that is 'It's something energetic that the customer gets, something energetic and not dead, synthetic, and if you like, that's love too - the plants sacrifice their fragrance, their extract, so we can take care of it pure".
Customers all over the world
Fragrance control with smelling strips.
If the fragrance is mixed, it needs a lot of time for storage, so that the fragrance molecules grow together and the aroma - similar to the wine - can develop. Sometimes something goes together, but perfumes with over 200 different ingredients have already been created by Kim Weisswange, but the average is 30 to 50 different fabrics. And of course, there are also beautiful fragrances that can only be done with ten ingredients, such as a rose perfume: "If you have a beautiful Bulgarian rose, you need little more". After about five weeks of storage, the new fragrance is finally filtered and finally bottled in a bottle and sent with a content certificate to the customer.
Her clientele is colorful and international, ranging from the perfume freak from Japan, celebrities from Hollywood to neighbors next door. At the most exciting moment, when the bottle is opened and the fragrance rises for the first time to the new owner, Kim Weisswange is therefore usually absent. "But I have never received as much presents and positive feedback as the Unique Perfumes."
For me, it is now time to wait a few weeks. As my perfume is, as it smells, is probably still a bit in the stars. In any case, I'm looking forward to it I'm curious. But what if it goes wrong and I do not like the scent in the end? The expert looks quite relaxed: After 20 years of professional experience and 30 to 40 000 composed fragrances, their hit rate is 99 percent. "If you consider only the expensive ingredients," she says "everything else would simply be ruinous".
