ABOUT

My name is Jean-Sandro. I’m a self-taught smell artist. My raging, hyperactive sense of olfaction has been with me for as long as I can remember. Very early, I began approaching most things through the lense of my nose.

It started with the cars down my street, as a child. I was of course attracted by their addictive gasoline smell, especially when the engine was still warm. I was learning to walk at that time, so the exhaust pipes where right in front me - quite literally. I noticed they all had a faintly different smell, with nuances in notes of smoke, petroleum gas, tar, greasy rubber, warm metal, plastic and dust. I started to go around and smell all the exhaust pipes of the street, much to the dismay of my parents. I knew from that time how fun, versatile and fascinating smells could be. I started smelling everything.

These initial experiences, while growing up in a city, and not in a family where perfumes were either common or affordable, brought me to different perspectives on “what smells good”. I do not possess a classical smell education, with the archetypal passion for delicate flowers and other “things that smell good”. I was into smells, the uglies and the pretties all together. They all had something unique to say, a full character out in the open, for those willing to listen.

Later in life, I was always disappointed by most of the perfumes you could find in department stores, most of them being overpowering, mass-produced, generic consumption goods. I loved smells, but couldn’t find my perfume. Really, I hated perfumes. They always had to be so boring and monolithic in what they offered, how they offered it. Catchy bottles and “perfumey” top notes full of promises that were never kept. So of course, I decided to make my own.

Coming from literature and philosophy studies, I see fragrances as poetic olfactory compositions - a molecular artwork built on tensions, contrasts, alliances and oppositions. The elements tell the story, they form a language. The agency of this language, is where my role begins.

I like to play with the elements, to explore the boundaries of olfactory language, like a poet plays with the boundaries of the alphabet. There is what’s to reveal, and what’s to conceal. The direction in which the elements interact; where the poem seems to be heading. And what do I want to say ? What do the elements have to say ? Do we want to celebrate harmony, or manifest rupture ? What happens in the space between the notes, that precious, captivating, invisible land where imagination erupts and flourishes ?

I enjoy marrying opposites. I want to show how lovable some apparently unlovable characters are, through a game of nuance and balance; suggest, rather than define. Let images from the mind take over. Let the characters dialogue, fight, reconcile, enlace. My fragrances are therefore less “in your face” than commercials, more subtle, and definitely more unique.

All the rest, concepts of taste, elegance and luxury, is up to you. In the same way that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, a truly exceptional smell happens first in the nose of the smeller.