Q&A with Juan M. Perez
What are you most proud of in your fragrance career?
Flor Azteca was a perfume that I was really very proud of. It was a very complex tuberose perfume with an interesting earthy and smoky oriental base. Other floral notes included Datura and Magnolia. It was inspired by my imagination of tuberoses growing in an Aztec shaman’s garden. It was one of my most popular creations. I’m also very proud of being able to create fragrances for other perfume houses like EnVoyage, Zoologist, Renier Perfumes and Scent Trunk.
Your fragrances all have kind of an exotic vibe to them. Is that intentional?
When I started to develop my line of perfumes, the concept was based on the olfactory experiences of the islands that I enjoy the most. I was careful to present those experiences in the most vivid way possible, choosing raw materials of natural origin when available and locating ingredients that would help me create that experience. I still keep many of those ingredients in my working palette that have been my favorites and I use them frequently in fragrances that are not necessarily in the tropical exotic concept but always maintain that exotic vibe.
Do you think that your career studies as a plant scientist and horticulturist gives you a unique advantage as a perfumer?
I think that my love for plants and fragrant tropical flowers very much shaped my style and direction in perfumery. Perfumery gives me the opportunity to combine science and creativity.
Do you speak a different language with the orchids?
The orchid family is one of the largest families of flowering plants with about 25,000 species of orchids and counting and probably more than 100,000 manmade orchid hybrids. It’s an extremely diverse plant family. Fragrances in orchids could be just as diverse, ranging from completely scentless to familiar scents like coconut, roses, citrus, lilacs to intriguing complex floral scents to not so pretty scents like rotten meat and animalic insect scents. I think orchids are very fascinating plants and a real joy to grow.
Are there some fragrances that are native to the Caribbean that we don’t have stateside that you wish people would know about? When I think of the Caribbean I often think of ocean air and also the enormous cornucopia of tropical fruits! What is your favorite fruit or food to eat? Are you a gourmand?
Yes, we grow a diverse variety of native and exotic tropical fruits in the island. I live more in the mountains but the closest beach is about 45 minutes from where I live. Two local fruits that I love are the “Quenepa” and the “Guamá” or “Ice Cream Bean”. The quenepa (Meliccocus bijugatus) is a fruit from the same family of the Chinese Lychee with a completely different flavor. It’s a sweet and sour flavor that I’ll compare to a mix of cherry and other berries with a floral touch of violets and mimosa. The Guamá or Ice Cream bean (Inga sp.) comes from a tree of the same family of mimosa. Its sweet creamy white pulp tastes really good. I can’t say it exactly tastes like ice cream.
Are there any interesting native Puerto Rican plants or the smells that you wish to share with us? OR perhaps are there some plants that smell amazing that don’t have a particular essential oil?
Well, this one is not exactly native but everyone must smell the scent of coffee blossoms in the air mixed with the humid air of our mountains. In spring when coffee shrubs are blooming, our mountains smell really wonderful. Coffee flowers have an interesting scent profile, very heady like orange blossoms, tuberose and jonquil,mixed with very particular green and spicy notes. Along the same lines we have a native frangipani in our mountains that I’d love to have an extract from their flowers. Its Latin name is Plumeria obtusa, but not to be confused with the Hawaiian Plumeria cultivar of the same name. Our native obtusa have a very intense and indolic orange blossom like scent, but creamier and richer in salicylate notes. Really amazing!
Was it easy for you to create the scent inspired by a provenance in Mexico? Is scent culture in LatAm similar within the countries or are there very different style & taste preferences?
When I was given the provenance and the ingredient I was really excited as I love the scent of limes and although I’ve never been in Jalisco and Puerto Vallarta, the climate and culture have many similarities. We grow here in the Caribbean many of the plants that are grown in Mexico and the natural beach and mountain landscape have many similarities so I had a very good point of reference to start. I grow some of the cactus flowers native to Mexico that inspired the accord that I created for June 2020, I have Dragon fruits and limes in my yard. I’ve cut some agave leaves to smell their green and succulent scent to create the green accord. I’ve brought some agave nectar to develop the sugary accord in the fragrance and added my own twist of imagination. A very enjoyable fragrance to create!.