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Florentine perfumer Lorenzo Villoresi came to the fragrance business in a rather round-about way. After studying psychology at the University of Florence, he spent a year in New York before returning to Italy to complete degrees in philosophy and religion. Subsequent travels in North Africa and the Middle East sparked an interest in spices and other fragrant materials, and eventually he was asked to create fragrances for friends, and then scented candles for Fendi.

He officially launched his own business in 1990, and continues to create custom perfumes in addition to his ready-made line...

Grant Osborne was born in London, and now lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and 4 month old son. He launched the Basenotes website in 2000, and it has since grown into the largest online database and interactive community for men who are interested in fragrance. Last year he launched a forum for women, and expanded the database to include women's fragrances. I asked Grant to tell me how he got started in fragrance...

How and when did you first become interested in fragrance, and what were a few of your early favorites?
My first fragrance was a present on my 18th birthday: a bottle of Yves Saint Laurent Jazz. I liked it, but to me at the time, it was just a fragrance...

Bond no. 9 was founded in 2003 by Laurice Rahme, and features perfumes inspired by various New York City neighborhoods. Ms. Rahme was born in Paris but has lived in New York for over 25 years. She was formerly the president of Creed USA, and has also worked for Annick Goutal and Lancome. Bond's next fragrance, Bleecker Street, is scheduled for release on November 1st.

Bond no. 9 has been on a mission to capture the essence of New York City’s neighborhoods in fragrance...

Pierre Dinand is a living legend in the world of perfume packaging and design. His bottle creations are too numerous to list, but here are just a few examples: Givenchy Ysatis, Ivoire de Balmain, Tiffany, Coriandre, Caron Nocturnes, Lancome Magie Noire, and Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. Those of you who drooled over the recent special edition bottle of Mûre et Musc for L'Artisan — that is his design. So was the lovely green fig bottle for Premier Figuier that was released last year. On his website, you can read...

Jan Moran is the author of two volumes on fragrance, Fabulous Fragrances I and II, and the creator of her own fragrance, appropriately called Fabulous. Along with Michael Edwards, the author of Fragrances of the World, she is poised to launch a new online database, Fabulous Fragrances of the World, (see yesterday) designed to provide comprehensive fragrance information to retailers and journalists.

Please tell us how and when you first became interested in fragrance, and what were a few of your early favorites?
My grandmother and mother sparked my earliest interest in fragrance...

If you’ve ever been tempted to start mixing your own scents, Anya McCoy’s story will be instructive. Anya started collecting essences, then started selling, then started blending, and eventually founded the Natural Perfumery discussion group on Yahoo. Recently, Anya has launched naturalperfumery.com, a clearinghouse for information on this expanding field. She plans to launch her own line of perfumes early next year.

How and when did you first become interested in perfume?
My first scent memories involve the lush perfumes that my mother and her friends wore...

Strange Invisible Perfumes was founded in 2000 by Alexandra Balahoutis; the house was named for a line from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: "From the barge, a strange invisible perfume hits the sense of the adjacent wharfs".

Alexandra spent over 4 years studying the art of botanical perfumery, and her line is made without the use of synthetic notes or fixatives. She distills many of her own essences, using organic materials whenever possible, and favors the use of hydro-distillation rather than steam distillation or chemical extraction methods.

Her new boutique-perfumery...

Aedes de Venustas is well known to fans of niche fragrances. The West Village boutique was founded by Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner in 1995, and I when I dream about owning my own fragrance boutique, as I do from time to time, in my mind it looks pretty much exactly like what they have created at Aedes. I asked Karl to tell me how he became involved in fragrance retail, and how he, Robert, and store manager Miguel keep up with the competition.

How did you first become interested in fragrance?
My fascination with fragrance started when my mom gave me a bottle of Rothchild for Christmas in the early 80's. I was so much into the scent ...

Chandler Burr is the author of Emperor of Scent, the fascinating book about Luca Turin and his theory of smell. He is also the New York Times writer on scent. You can read his articles about perfume on his website, and you can also take a look at his 10 favorite fragrances.

If you have not read Emperor of Scent, you might also want to look at this interview with Chandler Burr for the website parfumessence.

You came to appreciate fragrance while working on the Emperor of Scent. Can you recall a few of the perfumes that initially captivated you?
I was fascinated and a bit disturbed at first by the degree to which I *didn't like—couldn't access, didn't understand— some of the perfumes that Luca loves, specifically the classic Guerlains and Carons: l'Heure Bleue, Shalimar, Après l'Ondée, Vol de Nuit. These are the olfactory equivalents of 19th century French literature—smelling Chamade today is in almost every aesthetic sense identical to reading Stendhal today: the sentiments, reference points, emphases, and values all differ from those (or those most common) of our time, and you can find yourself lost. They require work. I've spent years with them, and I'll never have an instinctive love of them...