“I carry my bag full of small bottles of samples and I test them driving, in the car, where I can decipher them better. I have to smell and feel it. I put it on my wrist and, if it motivates me, I know I have to finish it”, explains Nuria Cruelles. Loewe’s in-house perfumer, she shares with the brand’s creative director, Jonathan Anderson, the desire to go beyond trends, open the door to the disruptive and create her own coherent universe.
Nuria likes to wear white and play with accessories. It is no coincidence that she compares the perfume with the jewels and the moment to wear them: “The same perfume cannot identify you morning, noon and night”. Her secret to making the right choice: “Think about when you are going to take it. Do you want it for the office or to go out with friends for a drink? Her proposal: “Have at least three and combine them with each other by applying them to different parts of the body to create a unique aroma.”
Where do you start to create a perfume?
Because of the idea of ??the ingredients, which is the most difficult. I work a lot on synesthesia; Me, when I smell an ingredient, I see a color, I touch a texture, I hear a sound… For me, the most important part is the raw material, what I want to work with, what I want people to experience. From here I like facetting, texturing, coloring, harmonizing… It’s like having a white canvas and I have to make it represent something when you smell it.
Each perfumer has his olfactory imprint. What is yours?
I really like to use ingredients from classic perfumery, which have been forgotten and are wonderful, and modernize them. I want to give them another life for the new generations. Also the technical part, of balance, of very structured fragrances in which there are no ingredients that stand out and chemistry, of knowing how a scent evolves in different supports such as a candle or a mikado.
What does it mean to be an ‘inhouse’ perfumer? Because there are less than astronauts…
It is the dream of every perfumer. It means working on the DNA of the brand, living the project from the beginning to the end, contributing your stamp. In the case of Loewe it also means doing something coherent with fashion, interpreting the colors of the new bags and collections olfactorily.
What is it like working with Jonathan Anderson?
He is a person who challenges me at every minute and in every project. She all of a sudden she says, “why don’t we do this”? It can be a story, a name, a color… And you have to pull the thread. It is supercreative, superdynamic. Able to do a thousand things at once. I have to catch the idea and land it. Achieve a perfume that suggests to him exactly what he is thinking. When he smelled the tomato candle he told me: “This is a real tomato, like the ones from my childhood”. Like every artist, he seeks excellence.
You have created a ‘Loewe chord’. What exactly?
Another challenge: concentrating the mark on a chord, giving it a coherent olfactory fingerprint. When they told me, I put my hands to my head. Spain has many ingredients that we all know, lavender, rosemary, thyme… I wanted to do something less everyday. I thought of Huelva, where there are rockrose plantations that grow wild and spontaneously, and I associated it with leather, with the artisan tradition… It is rustic, animalic, powerful and has an exuberant personality. A clean, transparent, white and super versatile chord.
Is there a scent that resists you?
Sichuan pepper, but I’ll get something out of it.
How would you define yourself through a perfume?
With citrus notes, because I am very energetic, and aquatic, because of my transparency. If I have a transparent chord, which I associate with white, I think I can add whatever I want, vetiver, patchouli, ylang-ylang… It symbolizes my open mind.
Has pregnancy altered your sense of smell?
Yes, and since I’m a mother my body asks me to add musk and amber, which I hated before. There is a hormonal part in them that now grabs me. In Loewy Earth and Paulaos Eclectic it already shows.
Where is perfume going, beyond trends?
At Loewy we no longer talk about seduction or attraction, but about escapism, about reinterpreting something in nature that you feel comfortable with. Talk more about yourself, about how you are… I invite you to be your own alchemist, to wear different fragrances (on the neck, wrist…) that harmonize and create a unique aroma when you move. Combining a 7 with a White Magnolia is brutal!
Perfumer, oenologist, sommelier… what does each of their worlds contribute to the other?
When I do a tasting or a pairing I look for the affinity or the contrast between the ingredients, just like with fragrances. Perfume and wine have the same language, but they speak different languages. Perfumery gives you a sensation, evokes a memory; the wine tells its story through a mysterious code that tells you who it is and where it comes from. If I notice a note of rose in a wine I think of a Riesling or a Gewürztraminer… In both worlds I look for balance, roundness, body, the top note…
Do you recommend a highly perfumed wine?
A wheel or an albariño, which have a lot of fruit.
What does luxury smell like?
On time. Luxury is time.
