Last weekend the Global Art of Perfumery trade show took place in Berlin. The organisers moved it here from Düsseldorf in a bid to re-establish the show concept and, from rumours I’ve heard at other trade shows, help boost visitor numbers which had fallen off in recent years….!
But I’m not here to judge! I’m here to visit the show which is what I did. More on Global Art of Perfumery 2013 after the jump (as one of my favourite Berlin blogs – IheartBerlin – always says….!)
Global Art of Perfumery was initially conceived in 2009 as a very exclusive forum for the German fine fragrance industry. And the event I attended 2010 in Düsseldorf (I was in town for Beauty International) certainly was very elegant indeed; all the big fragrance luxury brands and distributors were there and the visitors were high-profile to match. However, the focus of the show has now changed to niche cosmetics and fragrance brands, with a new location and new marketing concept.
Global Art of Perfumery 2013 took place in The Station near Gleisdreieck with some 80 exhibitors from the perfume, C&T, home fragrances and accessories sectors. Mostly from Germany but there were also companies from other European countries.
The show really has changed its character entirely, I was surprised by how many cosmetics brands were there – Dr. Hauschka, for example, and mbr Medical Beauty Research from Germany or Sparitual from the US. However, I also discovered several brands and companies that were new to me (mostly they were new on the market too). And that is after all one of the main reasons why one attends trade shows: to discover new and interesting brands!!
Here is a (completely subjective and by no means comprehensive) list of the companies at Global Art that I liked:
My Kamia from Bamberg in Southern Germany was established in late 2012. They manufacture on-demand organic cosmetics. You order the product online and receive the creams, lotions and so on a few days later, freshly made and personalised. A rather interesting concept – I’ve come across “fresh cosmetics” companies before but there are not that many in the German market, so it will be interesting to see how Kamia will fare over the next years. Global Art of Perfumery was their first trade show, the brand is only available online at the moment but they are looking to move into bricks & mortar retail in the future.
BioEffect is an anti-ageing skin care from Iceland, they’ve been around since 2011. The BioEffect products contain EGF (Epidermal Growth Factor) which is claimed to boost cell-regeneration and therefore help to counteract the effects of skin-ageing. Their best-seller is the BioEffect serum and the ingredients actually look rather promising – over the last year I’ve started to mostly use organic facial skin care so I pay a lot of attention to INCIs.
April Aromatics is an organic fragrance company, founded by German perfumer Tanja Bochnig in 2008. They have a gorgeous line-up of fragrances which retail at 169 Euro (yes, premium prices, but the quality is excellent), perfume oils, Chakra aroma oils and room and body mists. April Aromatics products are available at the more premium department stores in Germany – Q206 and KaDeWe in Berlin, for example, or Oberpollinger in Munich. I loved “Calling All Angels”.
Olfactive Studio is a fragrance house from France which was founded in 2011 by perfumer Celine Verleure. Verleure’s concept is cool and rather unique – she loves artistic contemporary photography and wanted to combine this with her passion for fragrance. So, what happens is the following: Verleure chooses a photograph she likes, decides on a name for the fragrance and then lets her perfumers come up with a scent that is inspired by the photo. The more eccentric and unusual, the better.
At the moment Olfactive Studio has five fragrances all of which are astounding. I really couldn’t decide which was my favourite: Flashback (based on a photo by Laurent Segretier, created by Olivier Cresp), Lumière Blanche (photo by Massimo Vitali, fragrance by Sidonie Lancesseur), Still Life (Frédéric Lebain, nose: Dora Arnaud), Autoportrait (Luc Lapôtre, nose: Natalie Lorson) or Chambre Noire (Clémence René-Bazin, nose: Dorothée Piot). Distribution in Germany is very selective indeed; the fragrances are only available in small independent perfumeries.
J.F. Schwarzlose Berlin – ahhhh, I love the Schwarzlose fragrances. And the brand concept. And the brand heritage. I’ve come across Schwarzlose before, they are in Galeries Lafayette, for example, but also in independent perfumeries like Belle Rebelle, my April feature for Mintel and The Different Scent in Krausnickstraße. The brand history is on their website but here is a quick recap:
Berlin-based drug store and cosmetic manufacturer.J.F. Schwarzlose was initially founded in 1865. In 1870 they became royal fragrance supplier (back then Germany still was a monarchy) and in 1895 Schwarzlose aquired a fine fragrance manufacturer, after which their business really took off. Schwarzlose perfumes were sold across Europe and even the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, was said to have purchased Schwarzlose fragrances. The company survived two world wars and came to an end in 1976.
A few years ago product designer Lutz Herrmann came across the Schwarzlose brand, researched it and decided to purchase the rights to the Schwarzlose brand name. Together with Tamas Tagscherer and perfumer Véronique Nyberg, Herrmann relaunched Schwarzlose in 2012. They currently have a line-up of four fragrances, two of which – Treffpunkt 8 Uhr and 1A-33 – are based on original Schwarzlose fragrances from the early 20th century.
Engels Kerzen: a third-generation family owned candle manufacturer who started out making church candles. Today they have a huge product portfolio of scented and unscented candles. I love high-quality scented candles so I spent quite a bit of time at the Engels Kerzen stand at the show.
Another new thing at Global Art of Perfumery: there was a Blogger Café operated by Styleranking. Styleranking is a Düsseldorf-based online fashion portal which also organises blogger events at different fashion shows. The Blogger Café at Global Art of Perfumery was sponsored by companies like Manhattan, Aussie, Garnier, Coty and Sally Hansen – mainstream mass market brands, which made for an interesting contrast to the rest of the show.
The café was teeming with bloggers that were aged – on average – 20 to 25 years, max; so I felt rather – shall we say, mature! – compared to the rest of them. I did like the café though. One of the sponsors was Point Rouge, an new online cosmetics store that I had only read about, so I had an interesting chat with their nice PR lady. I’d like to do a company profile on Point Rouge some time, they belong to a new generation of online perfumery retailers that have a much more comprehensive concept than simply selling stuff online.
TRENDS. TRAVELS. AND BERLIN 