Atlas of Perfumed Botany by Jean-Claude Ellena (Hardcover)
Regular price $ 29.95The Atlas of Perfumed Botany is a cartography of fragrance that charts the botany and geography of perfume composition, created by one of the greatest living French perfumers, Jean-Claude Ellena.
For perfume makers, each smell carries with it a multitude of associations and impressions that must be carefully analyzed and understood before the sum of all its parts emerges. All perfumers have their own idiosyncratic methods, drawn from their individual olfactory experiences, for classifying fragrances. In Atlas of Perfumed Botany, virtuoso perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena leads readers on a poetic, geographic, and botanical journey of perfume discovery. Ellena offers a varied and fascinating cartography of fragrances, tracing historical connections and cultural exchanges. Full-page entries on plants ranging from bergamot to lavender are accompanied by detailed and vivid full-color botanical illustrations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jean-Claude Ellena was steeped in perfumery from an early age in Grasse, France, when he picked jasmine with his grandmother to sell to perfume houses. He attended Givaudan's famous perfumery school in 1968 and became a professional perfumer working in Geneva, Paris and Grasse. He famously became the in-house perfumer of luxury brand Hermès for fourteen years starting in 2004. Since that time, he has been creating fragrances for a number of of niche brands, including Laboratorio Olfattivo (see Baliflora, Tuberosis and his Viaggio in Italia collection here at Ministry of Scent).
Illustrated by Karin Doering-Froger
Published 2022 by The MIT Press, 168 pages, hardcover