I had the pleasure of hosting industry legends Chris Yu and Laurent Delafon on my latest episode of Live @ Five (my instagram live series). Chris and Laurent are the founders of Ostens, a British niche brand created for curious noses that celebrates the beautiful raw materials perfumers use every day. Working with IFF (and IFF-LMR), Ostens work with legendary perfumers (Dominique Ropion, Sophie Labbe, and Bruno Jovanovic, just to name a few), giving them carte blanche to create a fragrance inspired by a specific raw material (either a natural or an aroma chemical) which is sold alongside the isolated material. It’s a fascinating and unique brand.

In this episode of Live @ Five, we chat about Chris and Laurent’s love of perfume, how they got into the fragrance biz, what inspired them to create their own brand, and what the future holds for Ostens. We also talk about the creative process and Cedarwood Heart Impression, which is Ostens’ scent of the season. It’s a really fascinating chat and you can check it out by clicking here or by heading below the jump for the embedded video.

Join me on Periscope
Join me on Periscope

Forget your Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, because there’s a new social media app in town, and it goes by the name of ‘Periscope’. But what does it do? Well, in short, Periscope allows people to live stream to the world directly from their smart phone, meaning that social media users can broadcast whatever it is that they are doing, whether that be watching TV, baking a cake or, as I did the other day, riding their bike. Viewers can then comment, ask questions, ‘like’ the video, or ask the broadcaster to show them the contents of their fridge, as seems to be the tradition.

In an attempt to embrace this new medium I’d like you to join me in a perfumed Periscope experiment. At 20:00 GMT on Wednesday 15 April 2015, I will be broadcasting live from my living room. The subject will be my top five fragrances for summer 2015 and I will be discussing the scents, and why I like them, as well as answering viewer questions (within reason, obviously) and just generally interacting with whoever wishes to watch. Of course, this could all go horribly wrong, but I want to see whether we can use Periscope for something fun and informative. My question to you then is – will you join me?