Linen Tutu Fragrances

I’ve established many enjoyable relationships in the fragrance community, but only a handful have been happily fortuitous. My connection with Peruvian-American artisan perfumer, Daniela Carrasco, is a good example of this. A mutual perfumer friend, Helida Dodd of Marbella Perfumes, introduced us, confident that we’d get along. She was spot on! Daniela is warm, thoughtful, and very easy to chat with.

We arranged a meeting and bonded over our shared passions for perfume, natural raw materials, and musical theater. Throughout our conversation, we found that we are also interested in how fragrances can beautifully link us to other sensory adventures.

Daniela’s recently launched brand, Linen Tutu, explores the connection between scent and the other senses, especially sound and touch. To support this concept, each Linen Tutu fragrance is thoughtfully matched with a unique tune and texture.

The brand’s name combines “linen”, a natural and biodegradable fabric, with “tutu”, a delicate garment crafted from airy tulle. If I were to highlight a shared characteristic that unites Daniela’s scents, it would be their radiance. The fragrances radiate brightness, lightness, and effervescence. They exude sophistication while being effortlessly wearable, conjuring images of pristine white attire, strolls in the park on a crisp morning, and a life of luxury.

Here are my thoughts about the fragrances, each one influenced by the anticipation of a particular time of day.

Up @1 – This solar and vibrant creation is an ode to Daniela’s Peruvian family tradition of taking a spoonful of orange blossom water to soothe the mind before bed. The vivid clementine opening is one of the most realistic I’ve ever sniffed. I smell freshly squeezed mandarin juice and the green zing of the grated rind. The orange blossoms soon come through. They are brilliant and sunny and interlaced with spices and orris, which lend an enveloping sensation.

Notes: orange blossom, clementine, coriander, orris butter

Texture: French linen

Tune: prelude

Hearsay @3 – What I really enjoy about this scent is how well the zesty brightness of bergamot blends with the airy quality of vegetal musk and the rich depth of amyris. Together, they evoke the feeling of a comforting tea drink with a hint of cream, something I could see myself sipping in the early afternoon.

Notes: bergamot juice, hibiscus musk, ambergris, amyris

Texture: glittered tulle

Tune: concerto

Lately @5 – The most assertive of the four creations, this fragrance stars a romantic and self-assured jasmine (Sambac), enhanced by a blend of spices and gentle woody undertones. The jasmine unfolds on the skin, radiating its sparkling green essence, while saffron introduces a luxurious, velvety touch. The hinoki wood adds a soft, clean quality, leaving a subtle hint of lemon and a touch of earthiness. Daniela crafted this fragrance for her wedding!

Notes: jasmine sambac, wild foliage, saffron, hinoki wood

Texture: vintage lace

Tune: waltz

Afterthought @7 – This fragrance is fresh and spicy, capturing the smells during a stroll alongside a running stream. Violets are scattered throughout the nearby meadow, their scent mingling with that of greenery and wood. The violet scent stands out, offering a realistic and restoring olfactory experience, while the hint of fennel evokes memories of Mediterranean waters and landscapes.

Notes: freshwater, violet leaf, sea fennel, driftwood

Texture: rippling water

Tune: symphony

For extra fun, Daniela suggests layering the scents with one another or pairing them with beverages. Wear three sprays of Up @1 and 1 spray of Lately @5 to evoke a luminous wildflower bouquet. Wear Lately @5 while sipping rosé wine outside!

Daniela Carrasco creates small batches of her fragrances using essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts, and aroma molecules of plant/natural origin (natural isolates, green chemistry/biotech ingredients) in her Hudson Valley, NY based laboratory. Her brand is committed to transparency, long-term sustainability, and responsible material sourcing.

All fragrances are available as 30 ml bottles and 2 ml vials as part of a discovery set.  Learn more by visiting the Linen Tutu official website.

I thank Daniela for kindly sending me this discovery set. The packaging is thoughtfully designed, showcasing an unadulterated elegance that perfectly complements the stylish fragrances in the collection.

Photos are my own or kindly provided by Daniela.

Interview

Daniela graciously told me about the journey that led her to become a perfumer, her passion for sensory searches, her collaborations with other artists, and her commitment to long-term sustainability.

Daniela, tell me about your path to perfumery. How did you become curious about scent and determined to become a perfumer?

Eight years ago, I was living and working in NYC and my anxiety was at an all-time peak. I decided to take a week off work and signed up for an aromatherapy course in the East Village. I had always been intrigued by (and hyper-aware of) scent, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized I had a burning desire to formulate fragrant things that help people feel good.

My curiosity about fine fragrance formulation grew. I was more drawn to the aesthetics of scent formulation and their ability to connect with humans in an emotional way, in contrast to clinical aromatherapy practices. So, I embarked on an adventure to take every fragrance formulation course I could in the states (also to find any and every perfumery text I could get my hands on). But theory is limited if you can’t apply it, so I made a little studio for myself, invested in raw materials and began formulating. It was a lot of trial and error, and many lessons learned over the years.

Fast forward and I was in graduate school at Parsons School of Design, where I had the ability to select my own area of research and independent study. Unsurprisingly I explored olfaction and its connection to the other senses within the practice of multisensory design. The curriculum in designing with the visible and invisible helped solidify my creative perspective as applied to scent.

Some perfumers say they are classically trained, others are self-taught. I can’t say I’m either. I have an academic background in design which I apply to the medium of scent, and I’ve spent years learning from fragrance instructors (and some of life’s greatest treasures, books). So, to say I’m self-taught wouldn’t be entirely accurate for me. I carved a bit of a different path and created a custom curriculum that was right for me, but I have many instructors, mentors and advisors to be grateful for.

Your brand is called Linen Tutu, a very specific garment made of a unique fabric. Can you share how you came up with this name?

Linen Tutu is about the juxtaposition of two textures that represent the DNA of the brand. Linen fabric is made of flax and both biobased and biodegradable in its unaltered form. Tutu, quite inspired by my ballet days, references tulle — which is fluid, full of movement and transparent. If it were a visual art medium it would be watercolor.

On our logo you may notice that “tutu” is halved by a colon. The emphasis is on “tu” which in my native language of Spanish means you. I have always wanted my fragrances to feel like an extension of the wearer. I believe that a fragrance should feel like it’s close to you, part of you — enhancing, not masking.

Each one of your fragrances is accompanied by a specific tune and texture. Do you smell more in sound or texture?

I smell more in texture and in visuals. But while I am more visual and textural-leaning, I also perceive relationships between different fragrance raw materials and pitch (for example: aldehydes might indicate a high pitch, oud more of a bass sound).

That said, I am not a musician, so I turned to artistic partnerships to bring this part of the story to life. I worked with a composer, Bradley Thomas Turner, now also a friend, to translate the fragrances into melodies. I sent him samples of each of the fragrances, in addition to the stories behind the collection, and ultimately this came to life in the music.

I also wanted to capture these stories specifically in movement, so I turned to local filmmaker Marina Barham, who partnered with Bradley (she was the one to recommend him from the start). Marina came over and we smelled each of the fragrances together; the fragrance interpretations informed how we told the story in the mini film collages.

What other sensory experiences, emotions, and art forms are mostly connected to your work?

The way I compose fragrance heavily relies on visual art principles, including contrast, balance, emphasis, and movement.

After I create my initial brief or concept, I select a palette of materials that can help me tell the story, and then I start visualizing possible relationships between them, which brings me to formula “sketches.” Then of course I obsess, rethink, try again, typically go through dozens of mods, and polish before landing on the final olfactive portrait that best tells the story of my brief.

I’ll also share that while each of the four fragrances in my debut collection are unique, they are tied together by the creative vision to explore the human perception of time. Each fragrance name has a distinct time of day and memory that connects back to feelings of anticipation, presence, and reflection. I composed them during a time in my life when I was grappling with getting older, missing the past, looking forward to the future and trying my best to be present.

I understand that neroli is one of your favorite materials because it taps right into your childhood memories. Can you share more about that?

I have struggled with anxiety my whole life and when I was a child, my family used to give me a little bit of orange blossom water (“agua de azahar” in Spanish) as a home remedy to calm the nerves.

To this day, the aroma of the orange flower brings me tremendous comfort. I love working with both neroli (steam-distilled) and orange blossom absolute (solvent-extracted) in different ways; they capture different aspects of the same flower.

The orange flower to me is the smell of a siesta, a late Saturday morning after sleeping in. This is the inspiration behind up @1, which I wear both to start my day, and to bed.

Speaking of scent memories, which are your oldest and fondest ones?

A few other scent memories come to mind. My lime-scented scratch-and-sniff sneakers when I was 3 years old. The smell of an apple-scented shampoo that a loved one no longer with us used to wear. Walking by a boulangerie in Paris at 6 am. A wild, green jasmine that is reminiscent of my wedding day.

Do you have any favorite classic fragrances?

It’s hard for me to choose favorites but I’ll name one contemporary classic (90s) that brings me back to my tween and teen years: CK One. This is one of the first fragrances I fell in love with while growing up. I am still a fan of its simplicity, crispness, and versatility.

You are a natural perfumer who works with various raw materials. Can you share more about the palette you use?

I’ll start by saying that I love all different types of materials, and I learned to formulate with an expanded palette of naturals and synthetics. For me, understanding fragrance composition at the chemical constituent level was important.

I chose to formulate the entire Linen Tutu debut collection out of 100% bio-based, natural origin materials for two reasons: 1) as an ode to plant therapeutics, featuring select raw materials with scientific evidence behind their effectiveness in supporting mood, and 2) for the creative challenge of formulating scents that are entirely bio-renewable and biodegradable.

The palette I use in my collection includes what I like to call “whole” naturals: essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts, and aroma molecules derived from renewable plant sources. The latter includes molecules that have been isolated from the “whole source” via fractional distillations and some of my favorite ingredients to work with — those created via white biotech.

I am endlessly excited about newer molecules that are bio-based, derived from renewable feedstock (for example, sugar) and synthesized via fermentation. Some examples are Clearwood by Firminich, and certain manufacturers of Ambroxide utilize these methods of production as well.

What does the perfume industry need more of?

More access to perfumery education for people who want to learn. We’re already making great strides with an increase of perfumery courses that have become widely available, and nonprofits like the Institute of Art and Olfaction, which exists in favor of a mission to democratize fragrance.

More transparency. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, which in my opinion is sometimes exacerbated by the fact that the way perfume is made and what is in it remains a mystery to most. It’s a complicated topic because disclosing formulas isn’t feasible for many. However, I think that a higher degree of transparency — whatever that looks like for each brand or perfumer — would only help.

More nuanced conversations about long-term sustainability. We spend a lot of time talking about fragrance safety (the present), which is unquestionably important, but I think our discussions around sustainability (the future) remain at the surface level. What renewable feedstock can be used sustainably to create more bio-renewable ingredients at scale? What can we do to more responsibly farm and harvest plants for distillation?

I also hope for a safe space where we can all humbly share our perspectives, questions, and shared visions. We’re in an era where nuanced conversations are sometimes oversimplified. Let’s bring back curiosity, openness, and humility.