The Making Of A Brand
There is nothing quite like scent to evoke atmosphere. A familiar fragrance can awaken memories long ago forgotten in an instant, powerfully transporting us back to a happy or romantic reminiscence with effortless ease. And it was this evocation of place that first inspired skincare and fragrance specialist Kate Crofton-Atkins to create Cochine, a luxury fragrance house creating beautiful products for the home, bath and body – and now to wear too.
When Kate moved to Saigon in 2009, she very soon began to feel that she should apply her expertise to creating a collection of scents that would capture the magic of her new home city, in all its heady style and romance. It was, for her, the details that drove the growing desire to bottle the enchantment she found, from tucked away streets filled with jasmine and frangipani to the classical French architecture.
But to distil the essence of a metropolis into a scent is no mean feat, nor one that can be achieved without much research. Kate did not take her task lightly, partnering with a New York fragrance house and spending a full year trying out essential oils from flowers and plants and trialling the right combinations in order to authentically capture the scents that punctuated her own explorations of Saigon, an olfactory echo of its naturally occurring and diverse flora.
The overarching ambition? To create a luxury British fragrance house, whose products would naturally lend themselves to becoming signature scents and transport customers straight to the tropics. Kate’s abiding ethos is that pleasure, luxury and beauty should not be reserved for best or for special moments, but instead be part of – and elevate – the every day. Simply, Cochine’s scents are designed to be life enhancing.
And now, much to Cochine’s disciples’ delight – they are available in a range of Eau de Parfum, too.
Introducing Cochine’s Hotly Anticipated New Range of Eau De Parfum
Ten years after Cochine’s launch, Kate has now unveiled a much-anticipated range of eau de parfum, all designed to encapsulate the tropics and transport wearers to an exotic world imbued both with romance and pure escapism – and, on that latter point, never have we needed it more. How? By harnessing the exquisitely rich yet delicate scents that permeate her life in the tropics.
Augmenting the existing home, bath and body ranges, Cochine’s elegant and timeless perfume collection recreates those heady fragrances, thanks to its use of oils from flowers and plants unique to the region. Featuring night flowering champa jasmine, tuberose, frangipani and tobacco flower, the blends create instantly iconic perfumes that capture the region’s romantic scents that have in turn, over the years, fuelled the wanderlust of countless travellers. Those signature fragrances have long been the hallmarks of Cochine’s home, bath and body ranges; now the brand’s many devotees can get a more portable hit of the same romance and rich exoticism and enchantment.
The collection also features a very special new scent developed with Master Perfumer and true legend, Maurice Roucel, the man behind Guerlain’s L’Instant and Gucci’s Envy. Designed to wear as an eau de parfum, Tuberose Absolute & Sandalwood is an ode to dream-like and intoxicating summer nights spent in the tropics, heady with notes of rich tuberose and leather.
Kate Crofton Atkins says, ‘For me, this collection is a dream come true. When I started Cochine in Saigon over ten years ago, I set out to bring the magic of that part of Asia to the world through fragrance. It’s always been important to us to stay true to the essence of those unique and captivating ingredients. Using the purest oils, I created a range of eau de parfum, which we then launched as a collection of home fragrances. Now, thanks to invaluable feedback from our customers and a true longing to connect with that feeling of real, romantic escape, we are elevating Cochine to be the fragrance house I always dreamed of with our first eau de parfum collection. It’s the embodiment of everything we’ve held at heart for all this time and I am really excited to share it.’
Heaven Scent: Meet The Fragrances
Tuberose Absolute & Sandalwood, 50ml, £110
The extraordinary Maurice Roucel lent his expertise and legendary nose to create this instant classic of a fragrance. Tuberose Absolute & Sandalwood is alluring and highly intriguing, combining the ultra-feminine tuberose with more traditionally masculine notes of leather and sandalwood to addictive effect. Simply, it evokes the romance of mind-expanding travel and the kind of summer nights that you never want to end. Escapism in liquid form. Buy it here.
White Jasmine & Gardenia, 50 ml, £110
This feminine scent is both irresistibly alluring and exquisitely soft, featuring white petals of rich jasmine, gardenia and peony. Romance in a bottle, it is evocative of long, hot and exhilarating summer nights spent in hot climes. Buy it here.
Frangipani & Neroli, 50ml, £110
A scent that will sweep you away to white, tropical sandy shores. This exotic fragrance blends smooth, honeyed notes of frangipani with the delicate freshness of neroli. Buy it here.
Tuberose and Wild Fig, 50ml, £110
The best scents are all about balance – as well as a shot of the unexpected. The softly and exquisitely feminine tuberose is balanced by the wild fig’s natural earthiness, as well as hints of vetiver and cedarwood. Think balmy nights with beautiful views in the dying light – all spent in intoxicating company. In short, a dream. Buy it here.
Vanille & Tabac Noir, 50ml, £110
This thrillingly brooding scent was created with the magic of sunset and the dawning of the dusk in mind. As such, it is a truly sensual olfactory delight, featuring notes of tobacco flower and vanilla blended with hints of patchouli, cardamom and basil, delicate yet rich spices so evocative of the tropics. Buy it here.
Ethically Made
Cochine’s founding mission was to celebrate South-East Asia and package its olfactory essence for an international customer base. It stands to reason then that it should wish to preserve – and never harm – the landscape that inspired it. Each product in Cochine’s collection is made in Vietnam or France using only ethically and sustainably sourced essential oils and ingredients.
So invested is Cochine in sustainability that it has a specially developed a botanical palm wax – a more natural alternative to paraffin wax – for use in its candles, which it sustainably sources from RSPO certified suppliers, alongside lead-free cotton wicks. Meanwhile, the PET plastic bottles used in its bath and body range are made from recyclable plastic, and 90 per cent of its outer packaging is made using recycled card.
But being responsible about the materials it uses is only one aspect of Cochine’s approach to sustainability. It also proactively seeks to do good by supporting other environmentally friendly causes, such as the Agarwood Project founded by The Rainforest Project, whose raison d’etre is to tackle the issue of the near-extinction of Aquilaria trees. Over-harvested for its much-coveted agarwood oil, in the fifteen years since its foundation, the charity has worked with Vietnamese farmers to plant seedlings and thus replenish some of the felled trees; so far, 200,000 new trees have matured from those seedlings, thus delivering sustainably grown Agarwood oil. This is important to Cochine both from a wider environmental perspective and from a personal one: the brand exclusively uses oil from certified Aquilaria Crassna trees from the Mekong Delta.
Trees – and specifically reforestation – are, after all, one of the greatest hopes in the fight against the rampant deforestation that harms both biodiversity and air quality and against climate change. Cochine is invested not only in the specific act of planting Aquilaria trees, but also more generally in cultivation of new forests. As such, it supports One Tree Planted, a non-profit which does exactly what it says on the tin. Cochine, as an affiliated brand, has pledged to plant one tree in an affected area of South-East Asia for every product it sells through its website. And via its invaluable work, One Tree Planted is helping to create habitats for endangered species – such as tigers and orangutans – as well as creating jobs that allow communities to live in symbiosis with nature.
Visit the website to explore more about the heady world of Cochine here.
Created in partnership with Cochine
By Nancy Alsop
September 2021
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