Six Scents Parfums: The Sweet Smell of a Creative Charitable Success

It is a reality often observed that the course of creative partnerships does not always run smooth. However, when inventive minds are joined with the intention to think and feel alike while mindful of a charitable purpose, the fruit of those encounters can be exceptionally flourishing.

Each year, the Six Scents Parfums fragrance initiative produces creative talent with a conscience through a collection of six individual scents. Created by a group of designers and perfumers, these limited-edition fragrances are designed to represent a global range of contemporary views on creativity and culture. Through the designers’ concepts and the perfumers’ knowledge of fine fragrance, two disciplines join forces to create new compositions and multi-sensory experiences to assist a good cause.

To Kaya Sorhaindo, Six Scents Parfums Creative Director, the intention is to allow creative freedom to perfumers, designers and artists in order to stimulate and obtain unexpected results. The expectation is that Six Scents does not engage with the standard notion of what a perfume is, and the requirements that make it. Instead, it plays with conceptual speculations about what else a perfume could be or stand for.

The latest Six Scents (Series Three) feature fragrances by emerging names in the fashion world who worked with talented perfumers to explore the notion of transition from childhood to adulthood, and from innocence to experience, and the results are outstanding. In addition to their high quality, the fragrances conceived by Alexis Mabille, Mary Katrantzou, Juun. J, Rad Hourani, N. Hoolywood, and Ohne Titel are also presented in stunning individually numbered boxes, each containing an exclusive portrait by Robert Knoke. The boxes also contain DVDs with the ‘Six Scents: Series Three’ documentary and short films exclusively commissioned from artists such as Alia Raza (with story edited by Tavi Gevinson and starring Julia Restoin-Roitfeld), Rainer Judd, Olaf Breuning, Sue De Beer, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Heather Sommerfeld, Tim Richardson, Lucas Michael and James Widegren. 

Every year, the theme established by Six Scents Parfums relates to the remit of a charity that benefits from the sales of the fragrances. For Series Three, a portion of the proceeds will go towards War Child International and helping those whose childhood and innocence were stolen because of war. In this sense, artists and filmmakers have contributed their own memories of youth to create scents and works of art to help victims of war rise beyond the trauma that might otherwise hold them back.

If all six fragrances related for Series Three are extremely successful, numbers 3 (‘Can’t Smell Fear’ by Juun. J and Natalie Gracia-Cetto) and 6 (‘M’ by Ohne Title and Yann Vasnier) are highly accomplished scents. ‘M’ surprises because of its unusual ingredients including tonka beans mixed with musk bottom notes and cedarwood heart notes. ‘Can’t Smell Fear’, with its leather notes, is outstanding in the way it invokes warm, sensual and masculine images. Gracia-Cetto’s work is a rich composition suitable for all times but ideal for colder days.

Fragrances are offered in a limited quantity of 3,000 units and are available at over 220 retailers worldwide including Opening Ceremony (New York), Seven New York (New York), Lucky Scents (Los Angeles), Liberty (London), Colette (Paris), 10 Corso Como (Seoul and Milan), Adelaide (Tokyo), Assin (Melbourne), Club 21 (Singapore) and Joyce (Hong Kong). In addition, in celebration of Art Basel Miami Beach 2011 (which is taking place between 1 and 4 December), Six Scents Parfums have created two distinct exclusive fragrances and site specific installations entitled ‘Verde’ and ‘Incense into the Sea’ that will be available exclusively at The Standard Spa Miami Beach during Art Basel 2011, along with the a selection of the Six Scents Parfums range.