Affinessence
Affinessence is a brand founded by Sophie Bruneau, who has over 25 years' experience in the fragrance industry.
Each fragrance in the collection illustrates the art and the talent of a perfumer, showcasing their favourite base note ingredient. It was important for each perfumer to feel a total “creative affinity”. This is why each one was free to choose the base ingredient which inspired them, which resonated with them, without any constraints, even financial: they were given an unlimited budget.
"I wanted these perfumes to be luxurious thanks to their ingredients, but also by the way that they are written, how they are composed : fragrances which don’t throw a thousand scents around like we see so often. I wanted purely beautiful perfumes, the result of a selection of noble and rare natural raw materials, showcased with audacity. Each one had to be imbued with a precious alter ego (such as benzoin for vanilla or agar wood for patchouli), and this duo had to be crowned with a halo of other, equally splendid ingredients.
I wanted the perfumers to combine the ingredients in an unusual way. I wanted them to try new approaches, away from the diktats of conventional perfumes, leaving behind the traditional olfactory pyramids and the structures which hold up most of the perfumes on the market. By rejecting the classically developed constructions, they would dare to “forget” the top-middle-base structure, frustrate, overfill, overdose, and only retain the fullest, most direct and characterful perfumes."