The journey of an olfactory artist

We sat down with the creative mind behind the perfume Walk with Me, Chester Gibs. As an olfactory artist, Chester takes us on a journey through his creation process and shares insights into his inspirations.

Can you recall the moment when you decided to become a perfumer?
Around 2016, I wanted to deepen my craft in perfumery, so I started buying raw materials and essential oils. I don’t want to call myself a perfumer. I just have this need to express myself, and it doesn’t have to be through visual art; scent is another way I express myself. But it’s scarier than visual art to me, because people can be very opinioned about perfume.

What types of fragrances inspire you?
I’m inspired by savory perfumes, which are rare on the market. In Asia, you can sometimes smell the scent of food through the skin, and that makes more sense to me as a way to experience scent.

What was your vision when you set out to create this perfume?
Walk with Me is my first fragrance, and it’s been an idea that has walked with me for years. When I started in perfumery, I had a limited budget and little knowledge. But I knew how to cook and work with different ingredients. My passion for cooking gave me an understanding of how ingredients smell and interact. This became my starting point, as my base formula that I kept improving. Thanks to my Indonesian roots, I often use tropical ingredients like white flowers and spices. I keep it close to myself.

When you think back to your first collaboration with our founder, Tanja Deurloo, what’s the first memory or experience that comes to mind? 
The trust Tanja gave me. As a customer and employee at the Perfume Lounge, I’d let Tanja smell my creations for feedback. While quite some time had passed, it was special to me that she had remembered my work and wanted me to create a perfume for her brand. That’s what I mean by trust. The trust she had in me as an olfactory artist. It was a form of validation for myself that I was on the right track. Along with that trust, I was given the freedom to create?Walk with Me, which was amazing. The best part of working with Tanja was her enthusiasm and openness toward my work. 

Where did you spend most of your time creating Walk with Me?
In the kitchen, my own lab at home and in New York.

Can you share any challenges or stories you encountered while developing this fragrance?
Finding the right balance between the right dosage and the amounts of each ingredient was difficult. Also, deciding when to stop working on the formula was another challenge. Since I’m not formally trained as a perfumer, I make different choices. But my training in art taught me to know when something is technically good versus when something is just beautiful. Those are two different things, and it’s helped me in this process.

One of the best parts during my creation journey was meeting with master perfumer Christophe Laudamiel in New York. I’m quite a chaotic creator, and he helped me in making a less chaotic way to do my formulas. He reviewed my formula and asked me critical questions about why I used the ingredients and the chosen dosages, which helped me to shape the perfume’s final version.