Who: Julian Provust, managing director of Cire Trudon. Julian supervises all aspects of Cire Trudon, the innovative and luxurious interior scenting company. We caught five minutes with him when he visited London recently to prepare for the company’s first fine fragrance collection, Maison Trudon, which launches late summer 2017.
Today is the Trudon fragrance launch for press and in order not to interfere with the scents I’m presenting, I’m not wearing any fragrance. But usually I wear one of the five that will launch late August 2017.
Fragrance is important enough to me that I do not need to use it all the time. It might sound a little mysterious and strange, but I think in order to appreciate the personal relationship I have with fragrance, it works best when I’m not constantly surrounded or invaded by different ones. I like coming back to them and I think maybe it’s because of the Cire Trudon candles and interior fragrances we make. Typically, the really good interior fragrances are the ones you discover progressively as you enter a space, where you leave the space but remember the scent. Maybe I’m looking for that when I’m discovering fine fragrances.
I love the smell of fresh air so I open my windows a lot even when its freezing outside. It’s like turning a page in a note book, you have a clean white page ready for the appearance of a new scent. I’ve been using the three new candles we launched recently from Les Belles Matières, my personal favourite is Tadine, which is the sandalwood fragrance.
At home I like to clear the air before I burn the candle, so there’s no interference with the fragrance. It’s not always easy to do and I’m not a kind of monk of candle burning, with strict rules, but I do like to snuff my candles with a snuffer. We do a good one, so I push the wick into the wax to extinguish it then pull it back out with the snuffer to avoid the release of unnecessary smoke in the atmosphere.
When it comes to wearing fragrances, I vary between scenting my clothing or my skin. I usually don’t do both. It’s a conscience decision I take at the time and it depends on what I’m wearing and the occasion.
When you are wearing it on your skin its more of a personal ritual, you enjoy being reminded of the scent during the day. If you’re perfuming your clothes, its like wearing another garment, with a different message to convey to the exterior world or society. And we all like to seduce a little bit, don’t we?
By spraying the inside of your jacket you’re using body heat to release the scent and it gives an immediate impact. When it comes to spraying my body, I don’t do anything unusual but when I scent my home I like to perfume unusual places and unexpected objects in my home.
A scent I really like is Sex Wax, the grip wax you use to wax surf boards. I surf and it has a very artificial coconut-y scent that I just love.
Trudon, the fine fragrance collection by Maison Trudon, will be launched end August 2017
