Presently based mostly in Paris, Feisthauer welcomed CNA Luxurious into her creative Montmartre house, situated alongside the identical row as Spanish artist Pablo Picasso’s first studio within the metropolis. Her three-storey condo is a comfy trove of work and books. There’s a beautiful roof-top terrace crammed with pots of herbs and greens that Feisthauer makes use of in her cooking. On a transparent spring day the terrace provides splendid views over the neighbourhood with the cupolas of the magnificent Sacre-Coeur Basilica peeking in between buildings.
As we settled all the way down to tea and cookies, Feisthauer shared how she got here to work for Amaffi, a mission that has given her entry to the who’s who of substances in perfume-making.
“It’s a mission like nothing on the earth,” declared Feisthauer, who was creating scents for luxurious manufacturers like Cartier, Versace and Azzaro in addition to multinational FMCG firms Givaudan and Symrise for over 35 years earlier than beginning her personal firm Lab Scent in 2014. “Many purchasers say there’s no restrict in value however there all the time is. Solely Amaffi has no restrict, it makes use of the very best.”
Thus far, Feisthauer has created greater than 20 fragrances for Amaffi, utilizing pure substances reminiscent of agarwood oil, absolutes of champaca, iris, narcissus in addition to hard-to-obtain rose centifolia from Grasse. Absolutes are essentially the most concentrated type of fragrances within the type of extremely fragrant, oily mixtures. These are sometimes extracted utilizing a solvent reminiscent of hexane or ethanol in comparison with the steam distillation technique utilized in most perfumes.