NOTABLE NOSES
Creating fragrances
with heart
Improving lives through everyday
fragrances and global partnerships
THE NOSE
GARY MARR
Master Perfumer, Body
Care and Home Care,
Firmenich, Inc.
––
WHERE HE TRAVELS FOR
INSPIRATION: “Southeast Asia,
especially Indonesia, for the
smells, the flowers, trees, and
spices.”
CUISINE HE FANCIES: “I
love Southeast Asian cuisine,
especially Thai, for its fresh citrus
and fiery sour blends. Of course,
being British, I enjoy an Indian
curry every now and then.”
WHAT HE’S LISTENING
(OR JAMMING OUT)
TO: “Everything—from rock to rap
to reggae—except country. I play
guitar, bass, and a little piano…
Playing and recording is totally
absorbing and is a great escape
from my professional life.”
LIA DANGELICO, DIRECTOR,
COMMUNICATIONS, FRAGRANCE
CREATORS ASSOCIATION: How did you
end up in perfumery and how what was your
journey from fine fragrance to fabric and home
care?
GARY MARR: I ended up in perfumery
by chance. I happened to be living near a
fragrance house (BBA, now a part of IFF)
in the U.K. when I began looking for a job
to support my passion for playing music. I
began as a perfumer’s assistant and saw it as
a job rather than a career at that point. The
company had a reputation and was a leader in
training perfumers in those days. They quickly
recognized a degree of talent in me and asked
if I’d like to train as a perfumer. At that point, I
think I recognized that I had more potential as a
perfumer than a musician.
As a trainee, you train in all categories
as a perfumer, though BBA was a company
that focused more in the home and body
care categories. After seven years, I decided
to move to France to learn French and fine
fragrance, which I practiced for several years
before returning to “functional perfumery,” as
we call it. I realized I didn’t want to miss all of
the big opportunities provided by working with
clients, such as Unilever, P&G, SC Johnson,
and others.
DANGELICO: Perfumery is a mystery for
many outside the industry, what does the day-
to-day life of a Master Perfumer look like?
MARR: Obviously, the majority of the day is
taken up with the creation of new fragrances.
It’s not unusual to have 40 or 50 briefs open at
any one time… but no two briefs are the same,
ever. So, the challenge is to do something
different each time, and that’s motivating: to
be creative, to do something different, to make
a difference, and to create something that’s
going to be there in the marketplace for years
to come.
In a typical day, we might create or modify a
12 | FRAGRANCENOTES.ORG | Issue 3, 2018
dozen fragrances for as many briefs. The process
involves the robot weighing the formula and the
lab staff applying the oil into the end product the
fragrance was designed for. After maturation,
the product is assessed under similar conditions
that consumers would use. After evaluation,
we see how the fragrance might need to be
adjusted, and the process starts over. Sometimes
the adjustment is a result of analyzing consumer
insight data. This process repeats, sometimes
many times until we feel we have the right
fragrance for the project.
In addition, a Master Perfumer has
responsibilities in the training and mentoring
of the trainee and younger perfumers. For
me, I’m coming towards the end of my career
and I recognize that I have a lot of experience
and insight to share—I don’t want that to just
disappear the day I leave the industry, so I want
to pass that on. We are also ambassadors and
champions of new technologies and ingredients
within the company, and play an advisory role
to our management and research partners,
when required.
DANGELICO: How is the approach/process
different for creating fragrance for fine
fragrance versus home care/fabric?
MARR: You soon learn that it’s hopeless to
try and recreate the harmonious subtleties and
sophistication that one can achieve in a fine
fragrance in a home care or fabric fragrance. If
you try, you will fail. This category is all about
performance and delivering the right notes
at the right time during the products stages
of use. Many ingredients you might use in a
fine fragrance just do not deliver the desired
performance in a home care or fabric product.
Using them would be like throwing money
down the drain. In this category, we also have
a lot less money to play with than you do when
working on a fine fragrance.
You also have to understand the different
global markets you’re creating for. I may be
working on a project for southeast Asia one
hour of the day, then Brazil the next hour,