Head: Nose for business

Head: Nose for business

"Get away from the

'spray and pray'

brigade, who are just trying to sell product"

Lee Randall

Roja Dove is wearing a shirt that looks as if it's composed of Hermes scarves, and his hands are weighed down by a collection of eye-popping bling. But even if he pitched up in a boring banker's suit - as if - he'd command attention as the most interesting person in the room, especially if what interests you is perfume.

And with the Ghost of Christmas Present hoving into view, who isn't thinking about perfume? Last year Bluewater, one of the UK's largest retail outlets, sold a bottle of perfume or aftershave every four seconds during the holiday season.

Dove wears many hats - all fragrant. He's an internationally recognised expert on scent - and the world's sole Professeur de Parfums - an author, a perfumer in his own right, and a retailer, with a chic boutique on the fifth floor of Harrods.

Obsessed with scent since infancy, Dove would raid his mum's stash for sneaky sniffs as a lad, and saved his pocket money to buy flacons of scent. He studied languages and science, with a view to a career in medicine, and jokes, "I thought I'd like to go be a scientist in Russia - too many James Bond movies." Luckily he wound up following his heart, instead.

At 16 he discovered the house of Guerlain - "the Vatican of perfumery" - and, obsessed with learning all about them, launched an exhaustive correspondence with the company. They eventually gave him a job on the basis that, "he'll be less of a nuisance in house than out."

He tells me, "We are born with no preconception of good or bad smells, we learn it. The first time you smell something, who you are with, and so on, affects how you'll respond. The principle of my fragrance consultations is the idea that you learn your responses to odour in the first ten or twelve years of life. You're constantly adding to it, but you've come across the main things by then.

"There's a direct psychological link between your reaction to fragrance and your personality, but today we're so convinced by all the marketing spin. People buy scent by brand image and not smell. Eventually, when the buzz of that purchase has gone, you find that you didn't really like it. The proof is all those abandoned bottles sitting on top of dressing tables.

"The point of my work comes from the idea of truly discovering your olfactory palate. The language we use about perfume is emotional. The proof of that is when people come in and say, 'Don't give me anything strong.' What is that? A strong smell is something that you don't like on your skin, so it's omnipotent. But if you love it, it isn't strong at all."

In Dove's ideal world, fragrance aficionados would splash out on his custom Odour Profiling session. But failing that, what advice can he give about shopping for one's self, or another?

"Find a magazine you really like and get copies from consecutive months. Look on the beauty pages. The magazine will know their readership well enough to do an edit for you. Write down eight to ten scents that sound the most interesting. Or, go on to a good perfume blog and see what people are saying.

"You're ready to go shopping. You need to get away from the ‘spray and pray' brigade, who are just trying to sell you their product - it's what they're employed to do.

"Find the blotters and write the name of each of your fragrances on each one. Spray that fragrance on the blotter, then turn it upside down, so you no longer see the name. Don't smell it.

"Pick up all the scents you've marked, making sure the blotters don't touch. Then leave. Don't even smell them, because the top note is so fleeting that it's a doomed love affair: it's not going to last. What you want to know is, a bit like a lover, will it work overnight? You need to know how it lasts, and how it's going to develop.

"Find a quiet place away from all the smells. Take two blotters - don't look at the names. Pick one up and really let your nose get saturated with the scent. Do that with the second blotter and ask: ‘Which do I prefer?' Do it by a process of elimination.

"You'll end up with one or two scents you really like. Go back to the store. Spray a little on one wrist, and the other fragrance on your other wrist, and walk around for a few minutes. If you feel one sits with you a little better, spray yourself with it and leave. Wear it. Then if it's great go back and buy it; if it's not quite it, repeat the process."

What about buying perfume for someone else?

"I've always said never buy scent as a gift, and nothing will ever make me change my opinion about that. If you know they love something specific, that's different, otherwise you can waste so much money.

"Having said that, a sweeping rule of thumb is this: If the person has a very happy-go-lucky, sunny disposition then in feminine perfume, they suit a floral scent. Flowers are the simplest gesture. This is someone who has an uncomplicated approach to life. In masculine perfumery, it's the equivalent of the fougere (meaning fern-like). The easiest way to spot a fougere is if it has lavender as a key note.

"In both masculine and feminine, we have the chypre. People who like a chypre are generally very black or white in their approach to life. They cannot abide wishy-washy. They have very strong personalities. They have been through a journey, and finally come to like themselves, and that makes them strong. They don't understand compromise: they will always go without until they find just what they want. You never hear them begging for attention, but if they come into a room and they're not happy about something, you feel it.

"For both sexes, oriental fragrances are the show-offs. This is the person who loves being the centre of attention and loves everything luxurious - they are driven by it at every level. That larger-than-life personality is, in fact, a form of self preservation, because under the big person is the little shy person. In oriental accords, the main raw material is vanilla, which comes from childhood memories of sweets and ice-cream and everything that was a treat when we had no stress and pressure."

How should you store scent? "Ideally, in the dark, and cool. Not very cold, just chilled, like wine."

For more information, visit www.rojadove.com, or visit his 5th floor boutique at The Urban Retreat in Harrods, (tel: [phone]). Roja Dove's The Essence of Perfume is published by Black Dog Books, at 19.95.

still searching for that elusive signature scent? let fragrance expert roja dove guide you through the olfactory maze to find your perfect perfume