It’s time for the second of my lost pandemic interviews, and this time it’s from early 2021 when we seemed to be ricocheting between lockdowns and restrictions. Neil Chapman, aka The Black Narcissus, is a renowned perfume reviewer and writer, and also the author of Perfume: In Search Of Your Signature Scent. We managed to arrange an e-meet and, two years later, it’s time to finally share the fragranced memories and recommendations that he revealed during his “Stephen’s Six”.
One of the aspects of perfumery that many people struggle to come to terms with is the worry that their observations of a scent might not match other people’s. The ingredient lists and fragrance stories all try to guide you to a particular scented impression, but it doesn’t mean that you’re actually going to get there. We all interpret scent differently, have different memories, and recognise different ingredients, so it makes sense that we’ll all pick up different aspects. This is the principle behind the newly launched Oddity fragrance brand and, with their full encouragement to trust your own instincts, it's time to discover Naked Dance.
After training at ISIPCA in Versailles, Sonia Constant joined the world-famous Givaudan and went on to create for the likes of Guerlain, Narciso Rodriguez, and Alexander McQueen. She possesses the rare talent of combining passion with precision and so when I met her at the UK launch of her own perfume range, ELLA K, I wanted to discover the perfumer’s own fragrance memories during “Stephan’s Six”.
