Alexandra Carlin graduated from ISIPCA in 2002 and joined Symrise as a perfumer in 2007. She has since moved to IFF. Poetry, cooking, dance, literature and travel to far corners of the world all feed her work, and she likes to build each perfume around a place or an atmosphere, much as a novelist sets a scene.
Her best-known work is for BDK Parfums in Paris. Velvet Tonka pairs tonka absolute with almond, orange blossom, rose and Balkan tobacco over Madagascan vanilla; Villa Néroli pictures an orange garden on Capri as the sun goes down; 312 Saint-Honoré, made for the brand's first Paris boutique, sets pink pepper and angelica against iris and orange blossom. At Amouage she composed two of the Exceptional Extraits: Honour 43, the white-flower Honour Woman at 43 per cent oil, and Dia 40, the aldehydic Dia Woman at 40 per cent.
To mark Amouage's fortieth year she reworked Guy Robert's Gold Man and Gold Woman as Cristal & Gold, using the finest grades of each material. Five hundred bottles of each were hand-blown in crystal from the original moulds at the Waltersperger glassworks in Normandy. The Man opens on aldehydes, honey, bergamot and frankincense, moves through Damask rose, jasmine, ylang-ylang and orris, and settles on guaiac, patchouli, labdanum and civet. The Woman drops the honey and trades guaiac and patchouli for bourbon vanilla.
