Scent to try us

IT'S a mystery few of us have unravelled. Why is it that the perfume you absolutely adore causes your best friend/mother/sister or even husband to pinch their nose in disgust? Or you buy a new scent by the makers of your favourite one - but it smells more like the cheap bubble bath your Aunty Maude buys you every Christmas.

And who hasn't fallen for the packaging - or the fancy bottle - only to discover after a good dousing, you smell like you've been cleaning the loo all afternoon? Yes, buying perfume can be a minefield. And mistakes can cost you dear.

It's little wonder most of us stick to our firm favourite, getting a top-up each year in our Christmas stocking.

But for anyone who wants to try something new, the choice can be baffling. Each year more scents flood on to the market - especially in the run-up to Christmas.

One man expertly placed to help us navigate through the world of perfume is Roja Dove.

Roja (pronounced Roger) is the Professeur des Parfums for Guerlain, one of the world's foremost fragrance houses. And Roja is one of the leading perfume experts in the world.

The prestigious-sounding title - Professeur des Parfums - is an honorary one from Guerlain in recognition of his expertise and his 18 years with the company.

"I have a very specific role within the industry as a perfume teacher," says Roja in perfectly-enunciated English, with just a hint of a French accent. In fact he is English, but divides his time between London, Paris and New York.

"I am one of five people in the world who do this sort of work."

His students are sales people, journalists and consumers - anyone, really, who is interested in perfume.

Part of his job is explaining the history, stories, and science of perfume, and to this end, he will be coming to York next Tuesday at the invitation of the Fenwick department store in Coppergate. Tickets are available for the event, which Roja assures will be entertaining and informative.

"I don't take myself too seriously. When people see my title - Professeur des Parfums - they expect to see an old man in a white beard." As you can see from his photograph, Roja is anything but the caricature of the scatty boffin.

Immaculate would be a better description. Roja gave up a career as a medical researcher to work in the perfume industry.

"I always loved the effect of perfume on human beings, so I decided that's what I wanted to do," he explains.

During his evening event at Fenwick, he will reveal some of the stories behind the great fragrances and offer a guide to picking the perfume best suited to you.

"Once upon a time, our industry was a incredibly romantic place. Perfume makers were true artists: poets, using odour to create perfume. Most are made to marketing briefs today.

"While the great masters took up to five years to create a new scent, today's offering can be concocted in as many weeks.

"People like to hear some of the legends around a really great perfume. If you are a woman who has worn a perfume like Shalimar for years but don't know anything about its history, when you know its story, the perfume takes on a new meaning for you."

Roja maintains that most of today's perfumes are based on 20 of the greats, such as Shalimar.

"More modern perfumes like Angel or Jean Paul Gaultier would not exist if Shalimar had not been made."

His top tip for picking the right scent for you is to work out which of the three categories of perfume you like best.

Chypre is warm, dry and spicy. Floral is very sweet and Oriental is soft and powdery.

"If you know which one you like, you can instantly miss out two-thirds of what's on the market," advises Roja.

Ah, it's all beginning to make sense, I think. And while I've got the ear of a leading perfume guru, I quiz him about my favourite: Paloma Picasso.

"It's base is Chypre, it's warm and dryish," he begins to explain. "In the top are a few flowers and some sweetness. It owes its inspiration to Chanel No5 and Guerlain's Mitsouko."

Roja goes as far to say that if I were to pick another perfume, Mitsouko would be the one.

This is just the sort of advice you could get too, by attending his Fenwick event next week.

Roja firmly believes in stripping away the packaging, the allure of the name, and letting the scent speak for itself.

"I am the great anti-marketeer," he says. "A great deal of my work is in matching the character of the fragrance to the character of the wearer.

"The problem is the marketing image makes a lot of people think things smell a particular way but if they smell the bottle, they are different.

"I love to help people discover truly the odour for them."

Tickets for the Roja Dove event are on sale from the Guerlain department at Fenwick, Coppergate, York. They cost £10, redeemable against any Guerlain product bought that evening, and include champagne and canaps and entry to a prize draw: first prize £250 of Guerlain products; second prize £100 of Guerlain products and third prize, a £50 gift voucher for the Fenwick cosmetic department. The event starts at 6.30pm next Tuesday.

Don't miss next Tuesday's Impressions when we test the leading perfumes and aftershaves on the market for Christmas.