Estonia’s first perfume creator prepares to conquer Paris

«In the typically Estonian way I chose the hardest path and started to create my own brand of perfume – T-Perfume,» Veiler said. Photo: Sander Ilvest

Perfume creator Tõnu Veiler who brought out his first niche perfume collection last week, hopes to reach the French shops as early as in September. The French were impressed by his packages alone but the aromas definitely convinced them.

And it is hardly surprising because Veiler is no amateur but a graduate of the British Winchester University who completed a three-year course in the art of creating perfumes and received a certificate which would make him a desirable worker for many large perfume houses. But these firms play no part in Veiler’s plans for the future since he has chosen another path.

“Perfumes have excited me since youth,” he recalls. “I can still remember the first perfume I smelled. It was the French perfume Climate which my older sister received as a gift from her boyfriend. It was the deepest Soviet period and no foreign perfumes were available. I was a small boy and liked to smell it. I can still remember it clearly – a kind of pure smell of the Alps with a delicate touch of flowers. It created a completely independent image in my mind’s eye and I used to wonder how it can be possible that a fragrance could evoke such visual sensations.”

But these were different times, Tõnu Veiler was engaged in a totally different profession and forgot all about it. Yet one should realize all the dreams. By accident he happened to attend a course of ecological cosmetics which included a couple of lessons on aromatherapy and that brought it home – it is time to return to the childhood dream.

This was how Veiler entered the Winchester University and completed the course “Art and technology of perfumery”. The course was long, it took three years and repeated visits to the UK. But now it is over and Tõnu Veiler is ready to present his brand of perfume.

Preferred his own brand to large perfume houses

The graduation diploma could have opened him the way to several great presume houses of the world and it is no secret that some of them invited Veiler, but he was not interested.

“I am no longer as young as to work for someone else. I do not want work under other people,” he explained. “In the typically Estonian way I chose the hardest path and started to create my own brand of perfume – T-Perfume.”

A perfume creator of a large perfume company becomes an artisan. But he wants to be an artist who creates his own perfumes. This is indeed the hardest way since perfumes are very individual and not everyone will like them. Bringing one’s own brand to the market is not an easy thing to do.

“Developing a perfume takes approximately seven or eight months,” Veiler said. Having already started, it has become easier; there is a fourth perfume coming up and several others are still in progress.

His perfumes are not natural but nature-friendly. He uses a lot of natural raw materials, ethereal oils, absolutes, various natural components, but also synthetic aroma molecules. “Not all synthetic molecules are harmful and I use only the ones which are good for the body,” he explains.

Raw materials are Veiler’s number one priority. He purchases them from different sources all over the world, they are all tested and therefore expensive. Niche perfumes are not produced in large quantities, a batch by Veiler contains approximately a hundred bottles. He bottles and packages them all himself in his laboratory.

Next target – Paris department stores

But niche perfumes are gradually taking over the market share of mass products, since a perfume is something a person can use to emphasize one’s individuality. Such perfumes should be sprayed only once or not more than twice, at a distance of ten centimeters. The aroma based on pure ingredients is so intense that any more would be overdoing it.

“Once you release the molecules of scent from the bottle, they go wild in the beginning and start to swing around, but will calm down and yield the more beautiful notes,” says the perfume creator who thinks of fragrances in musical terms: which notes should come in the beginning and which later; when the orchestra will be complete or when is the time for solo.

Since the Estonian market is small, Veiler is thinking of reaching for abroad. “I am not an economic person and would not look towards Asia or the Arab countries but the old Europe. I would first conquer Paris and then think of the next target,” he reveals some of his plans.

Veiler claims that there are no fragrances which are incompatible – you just have to know how to fit them together. He can tune one drop with ten, nine, eight, seven, six etc. drops of another fragrance which all are different. When these result in a suitable solution, he will combine it with a third fragrance and so on. At the same time one has to watch for the middle, bottom and top notes. For example, the citrus notes evaporate quickly and would not stay.