The origin of Parfuses.

Parfuses begins with an experience, not an idea.

For a long time I wore one perfume. Not out of loyalty, but out of ignorance. I didn't know the difference between notes, between Eau de Toilette and Extrait, between a citrus and a gourmand. I didn't know the language, so I bought what I knew — and half the time I didn't even wear it.

What changed that wasn't a marketing campaign. It was a pandemic. In 2020, during lockdown, my routine fell away. No office, no travel, no social obligations. What was left was time — and the curiosity I had always had but never fed. I started going deep into perfume. First just to be able to talk about it, then because I was moved by what I was finding. I learned the difference between cologne, Eau de Toilette, EDP and Extrait. That there are perfumes that live on your skin for a whole day. That winter and summer fragrances are not the same. That perfume is essentially unisex, and that a man can calmly wear a floral composition without it saying anything about him except that he smells good.

The deepest insight came when I stepped into niche. Not the mass brands you find in every perfumery, but the small houses with 20 perfumes in their catalogue and a story behind every bottle. That's where it got expensive. A single bottle €200, €300, sometimes €400. And that's where my problem started: how do you choose?

“Gusti e colori non si discutano.”

And that is exactly what makes perfume advice unusable. Every review — from Fragrantica, from YouTube, from a salesperson in the store — comes out of someone's personal taste. A salesperson recommends what's on their shelf. Influencers recommend what their sponsors sell. Fragrantica reviewers recommend what they happen to like themselves.

So I went blind buying. And I was disappointed. Multiple times. It hurt — not just financially, but because I opened every bottle with hope and every time had to accept again that this one wasn't mine.

And then I found it. My signature scent. Not through an algorithm, but after a long search, a lot of money, and a few lucky accidents. A perfume that fits me. One people associate with me.

Three moments I will never forget

My current girlfriend — at the time not yet my girlfriend — first noticed me at a concert. A DJ show, thousands of people, a dark room. Through all those bodies and scents she walked toward me. Because she smelled me.

Another time I sprayed perfume on before heading to work. An hour of driving, lift up, lift out, desk. An hour later a colleague came over. “I thought you were in today. I smelled you in the lift.” An hour after I had stepped out of it.

Another day I was sitting outside the airport waiting for my girlfriend. I was smoking a cigarette among a group of other smokers — blue smoke, ashtrays, air thick with tobacco. A woman walked up to me. “Excuse me, may I ask what you're wearing? You smell fantastic.” Through the cigarette smoke.

Three times the same impossible thing. That kind of experience doesn't happen when you wear one-of-the-crowd. It only happens when you've found something that belongs to you, and that is strong enough to rise above the noise.

Those three moments are why I no longer see perfume as a product. It is an identity you wear. It is how you are recognised, how you are remembered, how you make yourself present without saying a word. And it is the reason I keep investing in it — not as a consumer, but as someone who wants to keep having these experiences.

€10,000 in scattered bets

From 2020 until today — six years of going deep — I have personally spent around €10,000 on perfume. That is not bragging, it is an honest figure. But it is also not a coherent collection. It is six years of trying, being disappointed, trying again. Bottles sitting next to each other without a common story. Several of them I never wear anymore.

That is the reality without a neutral coach. It is not just that you spend too much — you build something that is not tuned to itself. A pile of loose perfumes instead of an identity.

€4,000 that actually belong together

The proof that it can be different is at home. I brought my girlfriend into this world, but with a shortcut — I asked her the right questions. Which fragrance direction pulled her in: floral, spices, woods, gourmand. What memories it called up. What her mood asked for. She found her signature scent in one purchase.

After that — and this is the important part — she kept buying. The way anyone with a passion for fragrance keeps buying. But every new bottle fits what she already has. A summer variant of her signature, an office version for the day, an evening scent in the same family. In less than two years she has fifteen perfumes, worth about €4,000 together. And she still wears everything. Each bottle chooses the next.

“The difference isn't how much you bought. The difference is whether your wardrobe is tuned to itself.”

That is what Parfuses actually solves. Not “buy less perfume”. Nobody who steps into this world buys less perfume, that is human. Rather: know yourself olfactorily, know what fits you and why, so that every next purchase — whether it is one or fifteen — is a good one.

Why Parfuses exists

I started out looking for one signature scent. For me that took six years and €10,000. For my girlfriend it took one conversation and one purchase. That difference — six years versus one conversation — is why Parfuses exists.

You come to Parfuses because you want to find your signature scent. Not to build a collection, not to test thirty samples, not to learn what sillage means. Just: know which fragrance fits you, and get it in your hands without five blind buys in between.

What happens after that is up to you. Many people find peace with their one perfume — that is fine. Others notice the passion catches on and build a coherent wardrobe from there. Both paths work, because both start with the same thing: knowing who you are in fragrance.

“Buying perfume is buying an experience.”

That does not happen through a banner ad or a sponsored list. It happens through the right questions at the right moment. That is what we are building.