Working With Precise Formulas, Ideas And A Will: Juliette Karagueuzoglou

A fine fragrance perfumer, Juliette shapes her perfumes in her own image

Juliette Karagueuzoglou
Juliette Karagueuzoglou

Perfumer Juliette Karagueuzoglou of IFF has won the Fashion Group International’s 2010 Rising Star Award in the category of Corporate Fragrance. A fine fragrance perfumer, Juliette shapes her perfumes in her own image.

The senses aroused

Since her early childhood, Juliette has smelt everything around her and described all she smells. “I used my sense of smell more than any other sense and my parents always thought I would later work in perfumery”. An olfactory memory? Without a doubt that of her father’s perfume, Drakkar Noir, which would wake her up in the morning.

Becoming a Perfumer

Juliette was only 13 years old when she heard about this profession from one of her aunts then working for Christian Dior perfumes. She still remembers the day her aunt made her smell the future Christian Dior perfume, Dune for women, and when she understood there was a perfumer behind each perfume. “I immediately decided that I wanted to become a perfumer”, Juliette remembers.

After her Baccalaureat and a degree in chemistry, Juliette passed the ISIPCA entrance exam. While a student at ISIPCA, she combined her course with two year’s work experience at Expressions Parfumées in Grasse.

At the end of her studies she joined IFF in March 2002. After one year as assistant perfumer and three years of training with the top IFF perfumers in Paris, Juliette joined the IFF perfume school in January 2006 sharing her time between Grasse and New York. She then returned to Paris and became junior perfumer in July 2007.

Doing it in style

Joyful, lucid and determined, Juliette belongs to the new generation of perfumers who have their feet firmly on the ground while their nose is up in the air, “We belong to a generation of perfumers in a now internationalised and increasingly competitive profession. Contrary to previous generations, we are less affected by this transition as we arrive on the market simultaneously. But like our predecessors, we still work with passion and conviction.”

Juliette describes her job with the same realism. “Being a professional perfumer requires three fundamental qualities: technical qualities (a trained sense of smell, knowing basic ingredients and how to use them), good human relations (understanding a brief, a client, enjoying human contacts) and finally one’s personality, which will determine the aesthetics and character of the perfumes one creates”.

Her perfumery style is concise and to the point – “I like short formulas that remain unswamped, and this approach is linked to the working methods of those who trained me.”

What’s her source of inspiration? They are multiple: “I consider the creative process as a sort of collision of those things that move and inspire me.”

When Juliette creates a perfume, her main objective is to arouse emotion. The first to judge her perfumes, she tests whether this emotion is aroused on herself before testing it on others – “What I appreciate the most is when I see others share this same emotion.”

Soulmate Women by S. Oliver
Soulmate Women by S. Oliver

SOME OF HER PERFUMES:

Soulmate Women by S. Oliver

Before Midnight by John Galliano

Polaire by Yardley

Retropical by Yves Rocher

Signorina EDT by Ferragamo

Vertige pour Femme by Pierre Cardin

Replay Jeans Original by Replay

Royal Diamond by Yardley

VIP for Her by Playboy

Innamorata by Blumarine

Signorina by Salvatore Ferragamo

Prestigio by Tonino Lamborghini

White Musk Sport by The Body Shop

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