Amy George, Indie Perfumer: profile in URGE magazine!

Okay, so the indie perfumer IS ME.  But I’m just so excited!  Please read the great article – I was so impressed working with these folks.  Very professional, fact checked everything twice, showed up on time, even in the torrential downpour!   I really dig that there is a magazine devoted to people doing creative things in my adopted hometown.  Most Kroger and Ukrops stores have a few copies left – and there’s a special surprise inside!  One lucky, creative reader can enter his or her idea for a Richmond-inspired scent, and I’m going to create it!

Amy George found her avocation— or it found her—at the intersection of Mulberry and Grace as the breeze changed direction. “There was just something in the air—the moment had a certain scent, and I could dissect in my head what the notes were,” she says. “That got me thinking about all the interesting scents of Richmond: the tobacco heritage, the FFV cookie factory, the Sauer’s factory, the smell of dogwoods in the spring, and so on.”

George began researching perfumes and buying essential oils. In February of 2006, Modern Atelier, her line of handmade perfumes, was born. Its name describes her approach to perfumery.

“I have a very modern sense of life. However, perfumery is a craft that fuses science and art. Atelier is French for ‘workshop.’ So I feel that the brand reflects the handmade character of the scents, yet also conveys the modern aesthetic.”

Modern Atelier is sold online at www.etsy.com and includes a wide array of scents for women, men and even fragrances for the home. Twenty-four scents are inspired by Richmond places and have attracted a clientele far beyond Broad Street and Bon Air.

“I have a lot of customers in the Pacific Northwest and San Francisco areas. One of my very best customers is somewhere near London, but I’ve shipped to Finland, South Africa, and Singapore. Many visited Richmond, used to live here, or are ordering the scents as gifts for family who lived here,” she says. How does she make a perfume based on the Farmer’s Market or the Hippodrome?

“The scents are inspired by first-hand experience of the places they are named after. I take a scent-snapshot of the moment in my mind, tease out the notes that I think might be able to recreate that moment, and then head back to my workshop.”

George believes the Internet has fostered perfume connoisseurship, calling perfume collecting “the new wine-tasting.” Unlike wine, however, many historic perfumes can be recreated through modern science. “You may not be able to find a 1982 Bordeaux, but you can enjoy a reconstruction of Coty’s L’Origan or Bourjois Soir de Paris every day,” she says.