An interview with Atanas Krachmarov from Ecomaat Ltd. in Sofia, Bulgaria

I have the pleasure of working with some of the best natural raw materials from Bulgary. I source them from Ecomaat. The olfactory quality of these natural extracts is simply outstanding. I cannot get my nose off the rose carbondioxide extract and wanted to get to know more. Here is a little summary of my talk with Atanas.

Enjoy!

(Andy Tauer, June 2010)

Andy: Dear Atanas, I find the quality of your natural materials absolutely stunning. Especially the carbondioxide extracts are fantastic. Could you explain to our readers in a few words how this technology works?

Atanas:
The extraction of active ingredients and essential oils with liquefied gases is a high-tech technology, recognized as the technology of the future in the production of natural aromatic products. This is a process in which, through utilization of specific equipment and "know-how", under certain conditions the properties of liquefied gases (most often carbon dioxide - CO2) are used as a solvent. Under high pressure and low operating temperature, the carbon dioxide goes into supercritical phase and the natural ingredients are derived from the plant material - aromatic molecules, active ingredients and vitamins without changing their properties, and preserving all thermo-sensitive substances. After completion of the process, the carbon dioxide is released in gaseous state leaving the extracted product absolutely clean and free of traces of the solvent.

Andy: Thus, besides the extraction technology, I feel the quality and care when harvesting natural raw material makes a difference, too?

Atanas:
The quality of the raw material is the most important link in the production chain: high grade aromatic products can be derived only if the raw material to be processed is of superior quality... supply of oil yielding plants, their varieties, their conditioning, fresh or dry material, storage... often people do not take into account how much knowledge is necessary to get the right «feed» in aim to take out the right aromas. At Ecomaat we are proud and we praise to have the know-how for maintaining about 40 ha of oil bearing plants  and processing more than 100 tons of wild grown plants and herbs every year.

Andy: Some of your products are organic: Do you think it makes a difference for the scent quality?

Atanas:
Actually our company is specialized in organic production – in our distillery plant and extraction units we process plant raw materials originating only from organic farming or from wild collection. Moreover, last year our rose flowers have been recognized to be of highest vitality and plant vigor of all tested rose plants in Bulgaria – benefits due to the favorably application of the organic principles in our agricultural practices. This fact is one of our most important advantages and it is a good precondition for production of high quality rose scent!

Andy: Bulgaria is since centuries a hotspot for roses and rose products, such rose essential oil. Ecomaat produces rose oil that is remarkable, too. Why do you think is Bulgaria the perfect place for roses?

Atanas:
It is well known that in general roses are very capricious and there are very demanding requirements for their cultivation. Despite that the Rose of Damask is native of Iran, Bulgarian lands grant milder climatic conditions: 4 distinctive seasons, soft summer etc... Shortly, during harvesting season the Sun does not evaporate the volatiles aromatic molecules as it does it in Turkey, Morocco and other (hot) countries where rose flowers are grown.

Andy: In light of modern perfumery, using the longer the less natural raw materials: Do you see a future for high quality naturals like yours in perfumery? Do you see a trend back to naturals?

Atanas:
The trend back to naturals is obvious and continuously increasing. Maybe that is valid for skin care and cosmetic industries more than it is for perfumery. But there was time when perfumes were made mainly with  natural ingredients, right? Still I know many perfumers that prefer using natural and organic certified ingredients in their impressions.

Andy: If you could speak to an assembly of the best perfumers worldwide: What would you tell them? What would you wish from them and the perfume houses they are working for.

Atanas:

I would wish them inexhaustible creativity – the need for new olfactive perceptions, the demand for new  fragrances bringing about the innovations in our business and the innovations make the world go round!

Andy: Maybe one word on your company and service. Since when are you on business? And how do you sell your natural raw materials?

Atanas:
Ecomaat Bulgaria is a small and very dynamic family run business. Our company has been established in 2001 and after only 9 years of great efforts nowadays we are proud with numerous achievements: certified organic fields with oil bearing crops, a modern distillery plant for production of essential oils, a high-tech extraction plant for CO2 extracts, innovative fragrant materials, world unique aromas... For successful sales we simply follow the market trends – we early realized the growing demand for natural organic fragrances and Ecomaat became the first Bulgarian producer with bio certified production. Then, several years ago we followed the demand for new aromas and we invested in a technology that allows great diversification when playing with fragrant raw materials. Our marketing strategy targets partnerships with people sourcing for innovative materials of highest quality.

Andy: I thank you so much for your time and hope that your company continues to thrive in the future. Merci!

Visit Ecomaat on the internet: Click here ..>>.

Ecomaat Ltd.
24, Krum Popov str.
1164 Sofia, Bulgaria
Contact: click here...>>

The following article was sent to us and it is with great joy and proud that we publish Walker Minton's contribution. Walker Minton has won the Jasmine award - Best Website Feature on Fragrance 2009, and is a basenotes.net columnist.

Walker Minton on "the most valuable perfume ingredient"
Some perfumes are technically competent, many well composed and a few are made with good ingredients. The very best ones, however, contain something special. This rare ingredient is invariably diluted by focus groups, bottom lines, endorsement deals and public relations companies. In corporate perfumes, even when it gets put in, it soon becomes an undetectable trace.

I call it conviction; you may name it integrity, love, craft, or even “art” if you insist (though to me, art is what happens to craft when somebody wants to sell it). When I smell it, I get the feeling that the perfumer has done their very best with concept and materials; I believe that there is no difference between the perfume I buy from them and the one they have made for their own use or satisfaction. There is a solid inevitability about the work as if the perfumer has uncovered something old rather than made something new.

This is very rare and valuable to me; and it means that the perfume can have an emotional effect upon me. It can nourish me in ways that the empty calories of purely commercial perfumes cannot. It allows me a relationship to the perfumer, human and uncompromised by economies of scale. I drink it in like an addict deprived; so rare is meaningful contact in the modern economy. It is like a lighthouse in a calone sea; a warm smile and handshake in the cold city of remote abstract perfume made by a nameless nose to the cheapest formula. It provides an antidote to the covert poison which is “essence of empty commodity”.

Fortunately, it seems that perfumers who work with a high concentration of conviction are often keen to discuss their work, just as great musicians are happy to discuss their interpretations or improvisations. They feel little threat from openness. When exposed to the public, work with integrity apparently gains a form of invulnerability which even the huge corporations haven’t learned to replicate yet. They do try; many of the large designer companies have a “private collection” or an exclusive line of some sort. These seem to be made distinct only by limited distribution and high price rather than quality of ingredients or composition. I suspect they are often made in the same labs, and usually from the same materials as all the regular offerings. As long as we have a place where we are free to talk, these seem unlikely to fool the public or challenge the true artisans (or perfumists as we may now call them).

Author: Walker Minton. Published March 28 2010

Once upon a time there were perfumers working for brands, big and small, with no great differentiation both in the ideas behind the creations as well as in the manner they operated. Court perfumers created for their esteemed clients and later for the toiletries brands establishing themselves for the aristocracy and bourgeoiserie. Ernest Beaux created for both Chanel and the somwhat less prestigious but affiliated Bourjois. The word niche hadn’t been coined in regards to perfume yet. Originally “niche” derives from economics and marketing jargon to denote segmentation of a market. Today, and among perfume consumers, it seems we’ve taken this word and manipulated it to fit an aesthetic! Niche is supposed to be about quality and creativity, we hear. Amidst it all, we’ve recently witnessed a degeneration of this aesthetic into a literal sweeping of the market; how many niche brands are popping up in an already saturated market like the fragrance one?

Niche began to be used tentatively about 25 years ago to denote any brand sold through a certain limited number of doors: It subliminally followed that limited distribution through specific boutiques signified smaller-scale production obviously and smaller production usually denotes attention to detail, craftsmanship, and raw materials control; much like a small producer of tomatoes in tiny Calabria, Italy is probably making a finer product than a full-blown industrial scale farm of thousands of acres in Texas. Diptyque, L’Artisan Parfumeur, Annick Goutal, Maître Parfumeur et Gantier, Lutens and others were considered the pioneers who paved the way. They didn’t designate themselves as niche, but their distinctiveness satisfied a certain niche (i.e. segment) within the buying audience all the same. Today the term “niche” is applied by companies to themselves, suggesting creativity and exclusivity, utilizing limited and elitist marketing and thus acting as a smoke-screen for justifying high prices which don’t always deliver exceptional juice; often niche products sold at specific boutiques are derivative, unoriginal, short on any exceptional materials, cheapened throughout on their composition, but posing through their exterior or press material like an air-headed beauty pageant contestant.  In short niche has been emptied of its meaning. What went wrong along the way?

To question parameters, is the differentiation merely a matter of scale? In larger companies, all fragrances inevitably become a compromise: The vision of the perfumer or the art director clashes with the directives of the marketing team and those involved in production, outsourcing and advertising; all have their say as well, making the finished item seem like a team effort, but also sometimes feel like the product of a conveyor belt process; just not special enough... Lines where the perfumer operates on a miniscule scale (even a one-person affair, a “micro-niche”, to borrow a term from brewery) naturally offer the advantage of tending to the product as if it is their child. Nevertheless, the disadvantages and inconveniences of one person’s operation are obvious as well: It only takes relocation or a personal tragedy to risk the well-oiled machinery from working properly. Several of those tiny one-person-operated companies prefer the word “artisan” to denote the return to traditional methods and techniques used, also a return to artistry for the pleasure it gives them; alternatively they opt for the term “indie” (short for independent) to signify their detachment from conglomerates.

The blurring of lines is evident when traditional big brands (either fashion or toiletries) decide to create what in fashion terms would be considered a “diffusion line”. In fashion, this works both ways: You can upgrade to “Purple Label” (Ralph Lauren) or “Black Label” (Armani) but you can also go commercial & budget (Versus by Versace, Armani Jeans) to broaden your appeal. In perfumes, funnily enough, the overwhelming desire is to upgrade. And it happens when you have the popular base covered already so the aim is exclusivity cachet. Hermessences, Armani Prive, Dior exclusive colognes, Tom Ford Private Line, Chanel Les Exclusifs…There is no end to the companies who seize the word of the day (“niche”) into proposing products that are catered for “the discerning consumer”.  Flattery will get you anywhere…Several of them are exceptional specimens of skill and art. Are they “niche” when they come out from a big manufacturer and get composed in the same labs and by the same people who compose the mass-market compositions? Is it a simple matter of taxonomy?

Another differentiation proposed would be alongside the creative independence that the creators (perfumers and artistic directors) are given, describing the creators as "auteurs", following the popular term from cinematography and its Cahiers du Cinéma: If we consider them auteurs (authors), then even though they may work to client specifications in some part (a concept, “templates” ingrained in a house’s aesthetic, or even budgeting), they possess the freedom  to express a style their own and call the creative shots. The idea of “authorship” was begat by Frédéric Malle who acted as an editor commissioning lab-working perfumers such as Maurice Roucel or Sophia Grojsman to come up with a formula to their taste built upon a simple suggestion; clearly this freedom of expression could not be employed when these perfumers worked for Rochas or Yves Saint Laurent, when there were constrained by the above mentioned perimeters. The nuances and implications of the former independence are interesting to contemplate in regards to fashion houses which have a single in-house-perfumer, namely Jacques Polge at Chanel, Jean Claude Ellena at Hermès and Jean Michel Duriez at Patou. Hermès is emphatic in their press about the “extended free rein” they’re giving Ellena in regards to costs of materials, creative directions and even the lack of market tests and focus groups! Can this be? I guess where you’re hiring a star perfumer to redesign your whole line and reposition you in the fragrant map, yes it can. Ellena pretty much does what he likes.

But authorship as a descriptor or synonym for niche can be problematic as well. Contrary to music and literary genres in which authorship is legally framed in specific terms ~protecting the creation from disfiguration, mutilation and general arbitrary butchering~  the widespread reformulations, alterations and masquerading of perfumes under different names and different formulae leave us with little concrete seal of authenticity. Furthermore, the secrecy with which perfumery as an industry is shrouded makes the validation of compositions difficult to ascertain. How many times have we seen classics circulating under no mother-wing and how many times companies have changed outsourced perfumers at the last minute producing several versions of the same scent, attributed to the same person? (Dear Guerlain, I am looking at you!)

Clearly, the term niche is into a major rethinking and until the industry adopts artistic integrity standards that can be quantitatively and qualitatively measured and the will to be open about its machinations instead of clandestine, we can’t even be legitimate fragrance critics either.

 author: Elena Vosnaki

Masterpiece by its own etymology brings to the fore the creator, the “master” hand who crafter it. Yet it remains a “piece”, a material thing, which can be thus experienced through the sensory world by those who come into contact with it. Very often in perfumery we see the value of Beauty brandished right and left. A beauty which is tangible through smell, obviously. Emmanuel Kant would have a field day, I guess: He describes the direct appeal to the senses as “barbaric”. So are we all barbarians who seek moral refuge in viewing perfumery as an art form? Perhaps!

Perhaps this is why we have relied on critics to tell us how to interpret what is essentially a field that is largely unknown in its structural core by the general audience. The arcane atmosphere of perfumery, coupled with the secrecy with which it has been veiled for years, has necessitated the input of educated evaluators. And when something is proclaimed a masterpiece, we feel elated, especially if we happen to agree! In artistic terms, the phenomenon of feeling a pre-digested and codified emotion is called Kitsch. Milan Kundera said it best in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being": “Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch”.
Kitsch is not only an aesthetically impoverished object which identifies the consumer with a newly acquired status rather than invoking a genuine aesthetic response. It is also the entire Modern Art genre (according to Hermann Broch) since art is made into a purpose in itself and to be consumed as beauty! Additionally, worshipping an art piece ~especially if we are not certain of its authenticity or its well-preserved state or if we do not instinctively like it~ transforms it into a fetish: we do not derive pleasure from it in real time but from the pleasure it had induced in the past! In perfumery this poses a very specific problem, as perfume is by its own nature a commodity to be bought and used within a specific time-frame. What makes a perfume a real masterpiece beyond merely good? Is it only…beauty?

The experience of "beauty" often involves interpreting an entity (a human being, a painting, a perfume...) as being in balance with nature or presenting a view of harmony  (in essence, the classical ideal). This harmonious coexistence might in turn produce feelings of attraction and emotional well-being. Because this is a subjective experience, the pronouncement that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is often referenced. Defenders of this view consider beauty to engender a salient experience, reflecting on the meaning of their own existence, therefore imbuing beauty with personal resonance. But let’s revert to Kant: The case of "beauty" differs from mere "agreeableness" nevertheless because, "If [a person] proclaims something to be beautiful, then he requires the same liking from others; he then judges not just for himself but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things."

So, in perfumes we might ask ourselves using objective criteria:
How well does the fragrance converse what it has to say? (And does it have something to say in the first place?) How well does it integrate into its genre and into its time-frame? How well does it balance the facets and create its message? How well does it stay on skin? Is the perfumer or art director in possession of a distinct style uniquely his/her own? Does the perfume open a new dialogue with those who precede it and those who are following it? And finally, does it lack the pretence to pose as beauty but can it at the same time create passionate discourse? These factors might pave the path to a masterpiece.

Author: Elena Vosnaki

Imagine the creator sitting in meeting rooms. Imagine the perfumer disconnecting from the matière premiere, technicians mixing all the fragrant components. Imagine fragrances, composed in teams, with sub-groups taking care of head, heart and body. Imagine perfumes created with a budget in mind.

This is perfumery that serves so successfully the demands of the many. Its form is in line with expectations, it follows the law of demand and supply.

Perfumery can be more. The perfumer needs time, freedom and the courage to intrude. Intrusion of disturbing chords, associations, thoughts. By reaching out, going beyond the limit of what has been done before, by fighting with established concepts, the perfumer can create truly new beauty. Thrilling, shocking, evokative. 

Spraying a perfume can open the door to new esthetics, to new landscapes of fragrant shapes, challenging and revealing. These perfumes need time; to create and to experience.

Now, when spraying the next time, ask yourself: Who created it. For how many. Where. Why.

These are some of the questions to ask, when thinking art in perfumery.

I prefer the question: Why? If you get an answer like "Not creating it was not possible, but it is not finished" chances are good you look at a piece of art.