It's uncommon scents to a virtuoso parfumier

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      Unique design, unique colour, unique whatever. The U word gets overused by the media and is usually used incorrectly, unless you're talking about Ineke Rí¼hland who is a) a parfumier, rare in itself; b) a female parfumier, even rarer; and c) a Canadian parfumier, more unusual still. Some weeks ago, she was in town at Holt Renfrew to oversee the introduction of her Ineke fragrances, a line that has found its way into the calibre of international store that makes fashionistas groan with envy. Not bad for someone who only launched her own perfume business last August, doesn't advertise, and creates almost all of her product–from formulation to package copy–herself.

      Raised in Ottawa, Rí¼hland was perfume-aware from an early age: her mother wore Tosca, while at 14, she herself dabbed on White Shoulders before graduating to Guy Laroche's Fidji, "a better fit" she says. While doing her MBA in Toronto, she worked in Holt Renfrew's fashion department, envying staff who sold fragrance, she says. Next, degree in hand, Rí¼hland headed for Europe for what would eventually be eight years in the scent-creation industry, a stint that found her developing aromas for everything from functional products like detergents to fine perfumes for famous houses. "I got hooked," she says. "Growing up in Canada, you don't think of parfumier as a profession. I learned to love fragrance in France." People wear perfume a lot less in San Francisco, now her home, she says. "When I go back to Paris, I'm constantly catching those lovely wafts. It adds this little extra to your persona. It's an invisible accessory. It makes somebody, in my opinion, much more interesting."

      But to make those gorgeous smells takes technical know-how. In her mid 30s, Rí¼hland got serious and enrolled in the two-year perfumery program offered by France's Institut Supérieur International du Parfum, de la Cosmétique, et de l'Aromatique Alimentaire, the world's only university-level perfumery school. Pre-entry tests to ensure a student isn't anosmic (has no sense of smell) sound obvious but, as Rí¼hland points out, "you can be anosmic to musks, for instance", and musks were among the 300 raw materials she studied. Comparing the creation of perfume to cooking, she says: "It's all about repetition and training and forming links between words and what you're smelling. [With training and experience] you can envision a perfume and know how to make it happen."

      When the American she had met and married was transferred back to the U.S., she initially freelanced and then, in 2004, decided to develop her own line, embarking on what would be a two-year process of formulation, packaging, and distribution. As well as selling on-line (www.ineke.com/) with considerable chutzpah, she approached the best stores in a number of countries and now has shelf space at 27 of the crí¨me, including Liberty of London, Bergdorf Goodman (among others in the U.S.), and, in Paris, Colette on rue Saint-Honoré. All are independent businesses, she points out, like her own. Her company is not only self-financed, she's also the sole employee except for her engineer husband, who works evenings and weekends (and who shot the evocative photographs on the packages).

      "I'd never created packaging before, but I think I have a good visual eye," says Rí¼hland, who also admits there was "a big learning curve". She felt stock bottles were "too generic and you can get lost". Seeking a container that conveyed quality, she eventually settled on a style she calls "ornamental modernism". A simple gender-neutral cylinder with a brushed-steel "bracelet" and square Bakelite top, the bottle–rather than the perfume inside–is very faintly tinted to visually colour the scent.

      These are lovely, wearable perfumes. Slyly seductive, they make themselves quietly heard without dominating the airspace, each one evoking the mood suggested, in photos and words, on its packaging. The names Rí¼hland came up with form her own abecedary, starting with the letter A. After My Own Heart is "lilac top to bottom. Very powdery in the base"; her vibrant green floral, Balmy Days & Sundays (a nod to the Carpenters' classic "Rainy Days and Mondays"), is redolent of honeysuckle, freesia, and mimosa–she calls it a "good weather perfume". Of this particular fragrance, with its lazy photo image of an open vintage book with a freesia bookmark set down on a lawn, a journalist in the current issue of U.K. society mag the Tatler writes, "The smell of it takes me right back to my best-loved spot in the park." The Sunday Times termed it "bottled sunshine".

      Moving on to C, as in Chemical Bonding, "a little subversive" in Rí¼hland's view in its antithetical blend of sparkling citrus and powdery musk. (There's tea and blackberry in there, too.) Aimed at men but with that lemony edge that many women like to wear too, the swashbuckling D stands for Derring-Do. (Many people don't understand the term, she was surprised to find.) Coming in August is Evening Edged in Gold. Scented with angel trumpet, it promises to be just as unique as her others.

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