Q & A with Bastille Paris CEO Sophie Maisant

on complexities of developing natural perfumes, why she chose to buy the brand in the first place and which are her personal favourite Bastille scents.

Last weekend I profiled a niche natural parfum brand Bastille Paris and am very much enjoying reading your comments and impressions, both here and on my Instagram, as the brand clearly resonated with some of you in the way it did with me when I first came across it in the summer. While fragrance is a booming industry and more and more brands are launching perfumes, fewer make a lasting impression - even though fragrance is a very personal thing to each and every one of us. It also feels more intimate in some ways than our skin or bodycare. You can read my review of Bastille Paris Discovery Set and personal insights into each of eight Eau De Parfum here and now I also have a great pleasure to introduce brand’s CEO Sophie Maisant to you.

Sophie and I had a long conversation in person a few weeks ago (before I started testing Bastille Paris parfum samples), which helped me to have a much deeper understanding of the brand, from the way ingredients are sourced and how Sophie’s work at Bourjois and Chanel informed her long-term professional mindset to importance of retaining the true French essence and ethos on which the brand stands. Bastille Paris is quite unique and I say this not as a perfume expert, which I am not, but as someone who has smelled and bought her own share of perfume bottles over the years. In this instance there is also meticulous attention to detail even when it comes to 2 ml samples - each fully filled and with exterior high quality packaging, as well as a little paper pull out ‘tongue’ on which you can spray the perfume before applying it to your skin.

This is not a short-term, nor a vanity venture - it’s a brand where the CEO, Sophie and her business partner Pascal want to offer unique, predominantly natural scents that will be customers favourites through the years. Some Bastille Paris Eau De Parfums are sumptuous, others are fainter, like a whisper on the wind. None of them are overpowering, but some are most certainly tantalising, opening a vortex that let’s you discover something that you might not describe in words but rather feel emotionally. To create such emotions through scent, especially when it is 95% natural and only 5% synthetic takes a masterful and confident team. So please welcome to Galina’s Curiosity Gap spotlight Sophie Maisant.

When did you become interested in perfumery and what was the first perfume you used yourself?

Sophie Maisant (SM): I started to collect perfume miniatures, like many little girls do, from an early age and I think that’s how I fell into perfumery. My godfather as well was working for a fragrance house and he was always bringing samples of new & famous perfumes when he was visiting. The first perfume I wore was “Parfum D’Hermès”, which sadly does not exist anymore. I also remember being gifted Chanel’s “Cristalle” and this was my second encounter with Chanel perfumes, after trying N°5 as a teenager - and I remember I did not like it. I think this is a woman’s perfume that you need to grow into it.