Ashley Santiago launches French Cowboy

It was with a great sense of respect and pride that we announced the 2025 arrival of French Cowboy, the debut niche fragrance brand by our friend and former colleague, Ashley Santiago, who is also the youngest professional perfumer at the historic fragrance house, Givaudan, based in Paris.

French Cowboy is built on collaboration — first between the perfumer and her husband and co-founder, Adrien Ollat. The brand's name was chosen in part as an homage to Ashley's Mexican grandfather, who was a cowboy across the Americas, as well as to Adrien's French heritage. It also symbolizes a quest to deliver French fine fragrance quality while never shying away from risks worth taking.

The debut fragrances in the collection were developed in collaboration with young creatives from outside the perfume industry — Mezcal Chocolat with the popular French chef, Mathis Molinié, and instant hit Pear Pavlova with the effervescent Moulin Rouge showgirl, Allie Goodbun. We checked in with Ashley to learn more about how her career and French Cowboy came to be...

Q: Let’s start at the beginning… How did the idea of becoming a perfumer occur to you at such a young age (and well before the current perfume craze)?

A: In middle school I came across a blog that no longer exists today called Scent Addicts. They reviewed more celebrity scents than niche, but I liked the lack of pretense in their fragrance selection and writing. That really resonated with me as a teenager. From there, I fell down the rabbit hole. I started reading more and more fragrance blogs and became completely obsessed.

Very few things keep my attention for long, but when they do, I hyper-fixate. I loved pouring over fragrance descriptions, learning about raw materials I had never heard of, tracking down things I had never smelled before. And that’s really where the idea of becoming a perfumer first took root.

Q. What were your early goals in terms of becoming a perfumer — did you see yourself at a large fragrance house, leading a niche brand, simply pursuing it as an artform or other?

A: I wanted to learn the craft seriously and at the highest level possible. There are very few places in the world where you can do that, one of them being the Givaudan Perfumery School. I always wanted to become a perfumer in the traditional sense — trained formally, immersed in raw materials and shaped by masters of the craft — so I committed to the classic perfumery path.

Q. Tell us a bit about the steps you took toward achieving these goals, and were there any particularly difficult challenges and/or delightful surprises along the way?

A: The first step was getting my chemistry degree, which I pursued solely because I wanted to become a perfumer. In the end, I found it incredibly rewarding to study something so outside my comfort zone, and graduating with honors in a field where I’m not naturally gifted gave me a real sense of confidence.

After completing my chemistry degree, I moved to France to pursue a master’s in perfumery. Since I already spoke English and Spanish, I assumed French would come easily… but fluency took me an embarrassingly long time. It was personally very challenging acclimating to a new language and culture, but in the long run it ended up being one of the best decisions I could have made.

Around the time I was finishing up my master’s, I was accepted into the Givaudan Perfumery School, which eventually led to a position as a perfumer at their fine fragrance center in Paris, a dream almost a decade in the making. 

Q. What was it like to study at Givaudan, and how did that experience influence you as a perfumer?

A. Studying at the Givaudan Perfumery School was intense and formative, but also very collaborative, which I loved. You’re surrounded by people who are just as driven and as in love with fragrance creation as you are, and that environment pushes you to raise your level constantly.

It also gave me a very solid technical foundation and brought a lot of rigor into my creative process. You learn to deconstruct everything you smell so you can begin to understand the many invisible components that make up the olfactory world. 

Q. What's it like to be the youngest perfumer at Givaudan?

A. It’s very humbling to see the commitment one’s fellow colleagues pour into their work and how long they’ve been perfecting their craft. Perfumery is a fulfilling career, so there are perfumers working well into their 70s and sometimes even 80s. Seeing that passion firsthand is inspiring. I hope to contribute to the heritage of perfumery in the same way they have, to honor the craft while still bringing something fresh.

That balance between traditional savoir-faire and exploring new fragrance frontiers is exactly what drives us at French Cowboy and what challenges me creatively.

Q. Are you able to tell us a bit about a day in the life of a professional perfumer at a large fragrance house? We’re intrigued!

A. No two days are ever the same. Some days are more social, meeting with clients, attending fragrance launches, doing interviews. Other days are purely creative: building new ideas from raw materials or abstract briefs.

There is also a lot of smelling. You smell constantly. And then there’s collaboration with evaluators, marketing teams and clients. It’s both very solitary and very collaborative at the same time which suits me very well. 

Q. Do you have a signature approach to creating perfumes, and if so, how would you describe it?

A. I really like to align myself with what I’m creating. Sometimes I see a project, and the fragrance formula almost flows out of me. Other times I like to map it all out beforehand, fleshing out the texture, color, and personality of the scent before adding even a single line to the formula.

I’ve always loved the creative process whether it’s writing, performing or formulating. I find my approach changes because changing and discovering new approaches is one of the most enjoyable parts of fragrance creation for me.

Q. What are your favorite types of fragrances to create, and why?

A. I’m a foodie so I love gourmand structures and fragrances that play in that space, especially in unexpected ways. I love working in that in-between space, where something feels familiar yet still surprising.

Q. We’d love to hear about your professional partnership with your husband, Adrien. How did the two of you decide to launch French Cowboy together and how do you collaborate?

A. Adrien and I come from very different professional worlds, but we’ve always shared a clear idea of what we wanted fragrance to feel like: qualitative, unpretentious and truly differentiated from what is out there today. It’s important for us to make the whole process more transparent and open. We wanted a space where perfume is made with community in mind which is why we decided to invite creatives with fresh perspectives into the process.

We talked about launching our own brand one day. Honestly, I imagined it happening maybe 10 or 15 years down the road. But I felt like we needed something different today. I love that younger generations are discovering niche perfumery so early, and there’s so much education and conversation happening through social media. It made us feel that our project could genuinely resonate in this environment.

He brings the entrepreneurial vision, the structure, the strategy, the drive to turn ideas into reality. I bring the olfactive and creative direction. We work incredibly closely, we challenge each other in the best way, and we always meet with a lot of respect. French Cowboy is truly a shared creation, built together from both our strengths.

Q. And tell us about the collabs you undertook for Pear Pavlova and Mezcal Chocolat. How did you choose Allie Goodbun and Mathis Molinié and what was it like to work with each of them?

We chose co-creators who already have a strong creative universe of their own, and who were willing to commit the time to really go on this journey with us for several months. That was essential. We wanted collaborators with a strong creative vision and point of view, not just a name/face on a campaign!

For Pear Pavlova, working with dancer and showgirl Allie Goodbun made complete sense. Performance is a key factor perfumers consider when making a fragrance. We are always looking to improve the sillage, the power, the long lastingness. Allie, being a performer who’s honed this craft since childhood, had a unique perspective on this.  Her performances mix lightness with strength and that balance of softness and power is what guided the entire Pear Pavlova direction and translated into a beautiful fragrance.

For Mezcal Chocolat, Mathis Molinié brought something completely different: a bold, visceral, almost primitive relationship to taste and sensation. He pushed us toward contrasts we might not have explored on our own.

We hope people can feel that authenticity in the behind-the-scenes content we’re sharing on social media. It’s important to us that the process is as open and transparent as the result.

French Cowboy is really a statement about access, freedom and creativity in fine fragrance. It’s about bringing perfume back to real life with honesty, quality and emotion. We’re building a brand that belongs as much to its community as it does to us!

Thanks, Ashley, congratulations on the launch of French Cowboy!