Stéphane Humbert Lucas was a painter before he was a perfumer. In the south of France he learned tempera from a Flemish master, then continued at the Beaux-Arts in Paris under Jean Cardot. He later opened a boutique and laboratory on rue Quincampoix, pairing canvases with perfumes. He is a synaesthete: each colour reaches him with a smell attached, and he builds accords the way he once mixed pigment.
Nez à Nez, the house he started in the early 2000s, first sold its perfumes at shows of his paintings. Its early scents were made with Karine Chevallier, but Nez à Nez Hiroshima Mon Amour and Nez à Nez Immortelle Marilyn were his own work, guided by the Grasse perfumer Henri Sorsana. After The Hype Noses and soOud, he launched his own house in 2012 and showed it at Esxence in 2013. La Collection 777 looks to the Middle East: Stéphane Humbert Lucas 777 Khôl de Bahreïn, Black Gemstone, Une Nuit à Doha and Soleil de Jeddah, in bottles capped with honeycombed metal and a faceted stone.
La Collection Serpent followed in 2022, ten perfumes drawn from snake myths. Stéphane Humbert Lucas God of Fire belongs to it. It honours Xiuhtecuhtli, the Aztec god of fire. Mango, lemon, pink berries and ginger open it, blue coumarin, jasmine and dry woods follow, and oud, nagarmotha, musk and amber stay to the end.
