Dutjahn CEO & Perfumer Guy Vincent Shares Career Path and Industry Insights

Guy Vincent primarily formulates for everything where Australian sandalwood has an application, primarily hair, body and skin care as well as fine fragrance and air care too.
Guy Vincent primarily formulates for everything where Australian sandalwood has an application, primarily hair, body and skin care as well as fine fragrance and air care too.

Perfumer & Flavorist+ (P&F+) connected with Dutjahn Sandalwood Oils CEO Guy Vincent to discuss his journey to the fragrance industry, advice for those looking to enter the industry and how the job of perfumer has evolved since he began.

P&F+: What led you to the fragrance industry?

Guy Vincent [GV]: I started off working as a brewer way back before craft brewing really took off. I studied malting and brewing science and really loved the sensory testing of the job but was frightened that I would turn into a sick old dude if I drank a ton of beer every day, so I started studying herbal medicine. One of the classes was aromatherapy, which opened my world to all these amazing and beautiful essential oils. I was a perfume lover too so I was immediately drawn to blending, creating, and experimenting with every fragrant material I could get my hands on. This passion combined with my keen olfactory capability and all the technical, quality and manufacturing skills from the beverage industry led me into technical roles in cosmetics and aromatherapy companies and then finally a perfumer. I’m in a managerial role now but still perfume for the company in applications work and select external creative projects.

P&F+What is your first scent memory?

GV: Indelible very early scent memories of summer family camping trips beside the Murray River in Australia with searing sunshine heating tent canvas, digging in fishy-amine tainted sand, surrounded by enormous river red eucalypt trees breathing deep their distinct aromatic majesty and their dry cracking leaves and bark puffing a differentiated odor patina breaking under bare knees as I chase what crawls nearby.

P&F+What applications do you primarily formulate for? Do you have a favorite?

GV: Everything where Australian sandalwood has an application, primarily hair, body and skin care as well as fine fragrance and air care too.

As a perfumer, you rarely can deep dive into a single ingredient. Working here, I’m able to explore Australian sandalwood oils by fractions and provenance to create bespoke blends, then test their application in formula. You have a lot more freedom and time, so you learn the subtleties of the material and you can explore unexpected things like how even small amounts of Australian sandalwood can amplify fragrance strength, presence, and a variety of olfactive territories.

I also oversee R&D, so when we create products, we start from the position of “as a perfumer, what do I need?” It’s a very perfumer-centric approach. This is what we did to create the new Desert Dry collection. I was working on body and air care formulations and wanted something with more lift, power, that presented olfactively earlier in formula, and gave formulations the woody mystique of a material that’s been used culturally by first nations people for tens of thousands of years, so that’s how we came to create the Desert Dry Complete and Desert Dry Super.

P&F+Advice for people coming into the perfume field.

GV: Understand your materials deeply, what you're using, and where it came from. Is it ethical? Is it sustainable? Is it the material that YOU want, morally and technically? Be selective while always learning. Push every boundary you can to select what is right for you, because your creation is a reflection of you, your values and your art.

P&F+How has the job of perfumer changed during your career?

GV: The consumer's position. The industry has evolved from offering consumers products manufactured by companies to giving consumers what they want. Consumers are demonstrating more than ever that they want, and rightly so, products that do not contain ingredients that are harmful to them, the environment, or society. Companies must have integrity, fragrances must be ethical, and past wrongs must not be repeated.


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