Jean-Claude Ellena

Jean -Claude Ellena ( born April 7, 1947 in Grasse, Alpes -Maritimes ) is a French perfumer and currently the " nose " of the French luxury goods manufacturer Hermès.

Jean -Claude Ellena was in Grasse, a town known for its perfume industry, born the son of a perfumer. Due to poor grades, he was already taken early from his father from school, after which he had to work as an auxiliary force. At this time, Ellena made ​​his money in the perfume industry until 1967, the Irish -born Susannah married that still accompanies him on all his travels. After his marriage he began training in 1968 at the Swiss flavors and fragrance specialist Givaudan, where he could mix a best seller for Van Cleef & Arpels soon. As one of about 100 employees of the fine fragrances, mostly anonymously deliver the fragrance compositions to various cosmetic companies, he could do so early attention. He created more fragrances, before 1992 German Haarmann & Reimer, now Symrise, changed. In 2004, he was poached by Hermès, where he has since worked as Hausparfumeur.

His trademark is, among other things, the concentration on the essentials. Initially, he still used some 200 ingredients for its mixtures, and recently only about 20 in the autumn of 2012 at the Insel Verlag his book appears, the dreamed fragrance - From the Life of a perfumer.