Henry Jacques, the man behind the brand, lives in the French town of Grasse, which earned its title as the perfume capital of the world thanks to the fragrant flowers that have grown in the area for centuries. The jasmine that goes into Chanel No 5 is picked from the fields here. The town even has its own school of perfume.
Jacques has been working on a certain natural oud smell for decades, but oud is not an easy product for perfumiers, he explains.
“It’s not an easy product … You have to be patient with oud. Like [with] a beautiful lady, you have to be very patient. And oud also has the same delicacy,” Jacques says.
"With the deforestation, you know the forest of ouds, they are all cut. So the oud we have today is not same as before. It was more animal. There was a strong animal smell in the old oud … today it is more sweet, more soft."
Henry Jacques
Henry Jacques: The challenges of making oud perfumes
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