Imagine stepping into a home where the story is told through scent. From the moment you cross the threshold, you’re greeted by a bespoke aroma that harmonizes with the environment and enhances the personality of the homeowner, whether it’s an opulent penthouse overlooking Central Park or a cozy cabin nestled in the Rockies. Home fragrance is a subtle yet powerful art, and in the realm of luxury living, where every detail matters, people are increasingly turning to custom fragrances to elevate their living spaces.
No longer content with off-the-shelf scents, this olfactory trend is about curating an immersive sensory experience for the people who live in the home and those who visit. For centuries, fragrance has been an essential part of the environment. Cire Trudon, established in 1643, was the candle maker for Louis XIV, who featured the candles prominently in the grand châteaux, including the Palace of Versailles. Today, a Cire Trudon scent is the mark of luxury. Fragrances are developed with renowned perfumers, and each glass surrounding the candle is made in Tuscany, their shape inspired by champagne buckets. Trudon works with hotels and restaurants worldwide to develop distinctive scents for hotel lobbies, guest rooms, and spas.
Rathbornes, founded even earlier than Cire Trudon, bears the distinction of being one of the world’s oldest candle manufacturers, with an unbroken lineage that extends back to 1488. Established in Dublin, Ireland, Rathbornes has upheld a legacy of craftsmanship and quality for over five centuries. Over the years, they’ve evolved from producing traditional tallow candles to crafting luxurious scented candles renowned for their exceptional fragrance blends, often inspired by the Irish landscape and its rich history. To create a custom scent for your home with a luxury brand like Trudon or Rathbornes, you can choose between room sprays, candles, diffusers, or a heated cameo–a decorative object containing scented wax that melts when lit, spreading the fragrance rapidly into the air.
Collaborating with a Perfumer
Perfumer Joëlle Lerioux Patris explains the difference between the forms. “Candles offer warmth and comfort, and some of the most qualitative ones even diffuse their scent when cold, without being lit.
The sprays diffused on the fabrics of the house leave a lasting trail, and diffusers can ensure a continuous veil of fragrance in the atmosphere.” It all depends on how you want to experience the scent.
“This olfactory trend is about curating an immersive sensory experience for the people who live in the home and those who visit.”
Joëlle is the founder and creator of Le Perfumer Français. She has created some of the most popular scents in the world for brands like Givenchy and Acqua Di Parma. Her creations include fragrances for skin, beauty, and the home. When working on a custom fragrance for the home, she brings the client into her world, which includes a plant garden and studio where they can spend a few days immersed in scent. She explains, “From this meetings is born the inspiration, which will trigger a time of deep reflection to find the right idea, the one full of meaning, before starting the composition.”
After working with the client, she is intentional in her presentation and does not give them a selection. Rather, she provides the result of their collaboration. “I refuse to be a self-service perfumer who focuses on quantity/variety and, therefore, I fully accept that I do not always satisfy my customers. Luckily, it’s very rare not to follow through on a fragrant story because there is a real commitment on my part and the person who comes to me. Collaboration begins if everyone is in harmony with [each] other.”
Her creations are indeed one of a kind, as expressed in the fragrance she developed for Barber Pisterzi, a line of grooming products from Italy. “I took immense pleasure in composing the perfumes of the entire Pisterzi Italian Grooming Art range, inspired by barber shops in NYC and Milan, highlighting notes of vetiver and coffee, or even gentian and Calabrian citrus. Or, more surprisingly, parsley and sandalwood!”
If you happen to be in Miami during Art Basel this December, you can experience Joëlle Lerioux Patris’s fragrances in person, through her collaboration with artist Vanessa Moselle. Under the art direction of gallery owner Lisa Braun, Joëlle chose and interpreted seven photographs by Moselle and created seven perfumes for an exhibit called “Joy Venture.”
Finding Your Scent
Finding your signature scent takes an open mind and some experimentation. It also helps to have a guide, even if you’re not working with a personal perfumer like Joëlle. LA-based Luckyscent, founded in 2002, helps customers source niche, hard to find fragrances for personal use and for the home. Walk into their Scent Bar in LA or New York City, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by shelves tagged with words like: “Clean” “Citrus,” “Floral,” and “Smoke.” When helping a client choose the right scent, the Luckyscent team asks the customer what kind of mood they want to set. Some home fragrances are more potent than others, so it’s also important to know whether the customer is looking for something bold or more understated, explained Claire Jelinek, who works on Luckyscent’s social team.
“Someone’s personal scent preferences can be a great jumping-off point if they’re unsure what direction to go for a home fragrance,” Jelinek says. “Some fragrance companies make candles that exactly match their best-selling fragrances, and there are many people out there who would love for their homes to smell the same way they do.”
Candles and diffusers aren’t the only way to fill your life with the scent that you love. Brands like Le Labo and Maison Francis Kurkdjian sell laundry detergent based on popular perfumes. For French luxury perfumer Frederic Malle, a room spray isn’t enough. The brand has a Perfume Gun that promises to transform your decor faster than wallpaper, instantly changing the atmosphere with one of Malle’s sumptuous aromas. Speaking of wallpaper, Flavor Paper offers a scratch and sniff for your interior—scented wallpaper in cherry, banana, and “Cannabliss—a very pleasant yet dank scent that is made from true flowering hemp. ”
Whatever form your scented environment takes, there are many options available at all price points to help you make the air in your home reflect your taste. Home fragrance also makes a great hostess or host gift, and we asked Claire and Emi at Luckyscent about the fragrances they’re excited about as we approach the holiday season. “For this time of year, many of us like home scents that skew a little bit holiday, e.g., pine, spices, chestnut, woods, gourmands, etc. They’re a great way to make the home feel festive and cozy on those icy cold nights.”
