Our world of art & chemistry

Art or alchemy? Accident or design? Grooming journalist Lee Kynaston takes a look at what really elevates a fragrance to cult status.

What makes a fragrance cult?

Escentrics Geza Schoen Molecules Our World Trend

EM03 and EM04: Behind Scents

Geza Schoen deconstructs the scents of Javanol and Vetiveryl Acetate, the hero molecules of EM03 and EM04.

Molecast 25 min listen

Geza Schoen Molecules Our World

Scentscapes

Sophie Bew, Editor of AnOther Magazine, deconstructs the notion of scentscapes — redolent fragrance environments that evoke distinct moments, faces, places and eras.

Written Article 5 min read

Escentrics Our World Trend

Scent and Sound

Fragrance lovers are generally sensorial creatures, but it would be strange if a love of some of the finer pleasures in life were limited purely to olfaction. What about things that stimulate the other senses — cinema, art, dance, theatre, opera and music?

Art Escentrics Molecules Our World Trend

A microscopic look at our new Escentric packaging

Investigating the colours behind our products and packaging, the specific messages and ethos each colour conveys to enhance and not conflict with the fragrance's aromatic profile.

Written Article 7 min read

An examination of olfactory artists working with scent and colour in the context of contemporary art.

Can we smell colour?

Written Article 7 min read

How sensory experience, synaesthesia and the super additivity of stimuli are linked to certain brain regions and how they can be used for the psychology of fragrance selection.

The latest findings in Neuropsychology and Neuroperfumery

Written Article 11 min read

Colour is a universal language that elicits physical, emotional, and mental reactions in us. An exploration into how colour and aroma trigger memories and how we can form connections through colour and scent to people, places, and experiences.

The interplay of colour and fragrance on our emotions

We break the enigma of the multilinearity of the EM fragrances by revealing the kaleidoscopic ecosystem of neuroperfumery.

Art Escentrics Our World

Escentric Synaesthesia

The 15th Year Saga Collection

Written Article 4 min read

Escentrics

Celebrating 15 Years of Chemistry

Escentrics Our World

The sensual resonance of nature

What would you do if you wanted to release a second fragrance following your debut of the scent that became a cult phenomenon and revolutionised the world of modern perfumery? This was the question Geza asked himself back in 2007. His answer: EM02.

Molecast 25 min listen

When Geza Schoen’s partner asked him to make a perfume just for her, he had no idea it would lead to an evolution in the concept of Escentric Molecules and a whole new way of creating fragrance."

Modern Minimalist Evolution

How did Escentric’s Geza Schoen go from working at one of the big five fragrance manufacturers to being an indie perfumer at a time when they were as rare as hen’s teeth?

Geza Schoen Molecule 01

Not according to plan

Things did not go according to plan when Geza Schoen launched Escentric
Molecules.

They went ridiculously, spectacularly better.

Molecast 32 min listen

Geza Schoen

The story behind the story

Molecast 29 min listen

Scent goes beyond the perfume bottle. It is being employed in nearly every aspect of our daily lives, from the laundry detergent we use to the public spaces we frequent. But what is the process behind crafting these smells?

New car smell

Written Article 4 min read

My spiritual home

Perfumer, Geza Schoen introduces us to his "spiritual home" and gives insight into the development of EM05. "Escentric 05 is an evocation of my summer retreat on a Mediterranean island."

Film 7 min watch

Plunge into the wild and whacky world of aroma-molecules with Escentric Molecules’ Geza Schoen. Skatole anyone? That’s ‘smell of rotten teeth’, but according to Geza, an essential part of the perfumer’s palette.

The stinky to the sublime

Molecast 31 min listen

Sillage may only be a two-syllable word, but it’s a fluctuating component of scent that encompasses a multi-faceted network of physics, chemistry, and aesthetics. Geza Schoen explains the factors which cause some scents to whisper and others to shout.

Scent Trails

Written Article 8 min read

Geza Schoen

EM05

Escentric perfumer, Geza Schoen on cashmeran, the star molecule in his new Molecule 05, and the inspiration behind Escentric 05, his most personal fragrance ever.

Molecast 24 min listen

Escentrics Geza Schoen Molecules

Rip the Heart Out

Reducing a fragrance to just one molecule is radical. But the nonconformism doesn’t stop there. In the Escentric fragrances Geza Schoen does something else pretty rad: he rips the heart out.

Written Article 8 min read

Perfumer, Geza Schoen talks molecules and minimalism in his hometown of Berlin.

The private world of a perfumer

Film 4 min watch

Escentrics Geza Schoen Molecule 01

Sex in a Bottle

Ever wonder why certain scents can make one individual smell more attractive than the other? EM speaks to neuroscientists Dr. Rachel Herz and Dr. Janek Lobmaier to discuss the psychology, chemistry and physiology behind the smell of sexual attraction.

Is there any point to scent when no-one but you can smell it?

Scent and Social Distancing

Written Article 12 min read

Written Article 9 min read

Summer Decon-structed

Escentric Molecules 05:
a study in the scent of summer

Escentrics Geza Schoen Molecules

Non-Binary Scents

Brands may still be marketing fragrances as women’s perfumes or men’s colognes, but for 2020 and beyond, these distinctions will become obsolete.

Written Article 8 min read

Beaver Morse code, petrified poo, and ‘something like a pearl’. The animal ingredients in perfumery may be a strange bunch, says Geza Schoen, but wait till you meet their lab-born kin.

The animal imaginarium

Written Article 14 min read

What use is a glorious artwork if it exists in an elitist bubble? Whether it’s fragrance, fashion or fine art, one could say the most impactful pieces of art are those which speak to an audience regardless of age, gender or income.

Reclaiming art space

Written Article 7 min read

Art Trend

Is Niche Nevermore?

Amidst the ever-growing popularity of indie brands, the niche fragrance industry will need to reclaim its sense of identity.

Written Article 13 min read

The Smellsonic Forest

Unsound’s Małgorzata Płysa on Foris, the immersive installation created by field recording artist, Chris Watson, and our very own Geza Schoen, that plunges participants into the beating heart of a vanished wilderness.

Inside each Molecule is the scent equivalent of a jazz riff ready to bust out into a big beautiful fragrance melody. Geza Schoen takes you into the secret soul of the Escentrics.

Art Our World

Molecular Riffs

Written Article 4 min read

Escentrics

The Fab Four

Geza Schoen riffs on the super-special qualities of the four molecules at the heart of Escentric.

Prima ballerina POLINA SEMIONOVA, memory champion CHRISTIANE STENGER and perfumer GEZA SCHOEN riff on bottling the Bolshoi, mapping memories, and making beautiful fragrances together.

Molecules

A meeting of minds

Escentric Molecules collaborated with Frieze on Making Scents: Art & the Olfactory, a mind-expanding symposium with pioneers in multisensory VR, olfactory art and neuroscience. Catch a whiff of the future.

Our World

Art & Chemistry

Art Geza Schoen Our World

The Right Stuff?

Word on the street is that

natural = good, synthetic = bad.

Hold on a minute, says Geza Schoen, life – and fragrance – are not so simple.

24 years ago, Mark Buxton cooked up a fragrance that ‘works like a medicine and behaves like a drug’. It was Eau de Parfum, the first fragrance from Comme des Garçons, and the first flowering of the anarchic creativity we now know as ‘niche’.

True Niche

It’s the coolest store in Berlin, maybe even the world. Escentric Molecules’ stockist, Andreas Murkudis, is where Geza Schoen goes browsing for green trousers and brown paper hats… Here are a few of his favourite things.

Our World Trend

Escentric Bedfellows

Designer Boris Bidjan Saberi is intimately involved with his primary materials, moulding leather jackets on his body and using his own formula to tan the hides. When it came to creating a fragrance, he wanted that intimacy, bottled. And as a Molecule 01 wearer, he wanted Geza Schoen to make it happen.

Our World Trend

His Dark Materials

When she first sniffed Molecule 01, Daniela Rinaldi could smell nothing – “I mean nothing at all”. So how did the Harvey Nichols beauty supremo end up wearing it every day for the last eleven years?

Our World

Molecular Mystery

Molecule 01

When Geza met Jónsi

For Sigur Rós frontman, Jónsi, making scents comes second only to making music. On his world tour, he took time out to hang with Geza Schoen at his Berlin laboratory. Listen in...