I began my perfumery training with a company in Holland which is now part of Givaudan (one of the top perfumery companies), after studying Chemistry at Oxford University. Becoming a classically-trained perfumer involves a basic training which takes at least three years.
In this time I learned to recognise over 2,000 ingredients – committing them to memory and being ‘blind tested’ every day. It takes up to five years to become a moderately competent perfumer, and up to 10 to become a capable perfumer.
— UK-based perfumer Ruth Mastenbroek, in My Odd Job: As a perfumer I want to translate emotions into smells at Metro.
Lots of more-than-capable indie perfumers these days who didn’t waste 10 years in and out of European perfume schools. The old guard is always gatekeeping who is and isn’t a competent perfumer, perhaps resentful that people are shifting toward a new breed of creators.
That seems apples vs. oranges to me….being able to create and market your own perfume on a small scale is not really the same as being able to respond appropriately to the next brief from Yves Saint Laurent or Yves Rocher, or Tide, or Coca Cola, etc.
I adore many indie perfumers, but I see nothing wrong with the big fragrance and flavor companies wanting their own employees to have substantial training and to work their way up through a mentoring system (she does not mean 10 years of sitting in classrooms). It’s a very different job.
Perhaps she was a bit loose with her language, but I see no qualifying remark indicating she’s only talking about perfumers who are handed a brief. Lots of competent perfumers who didn’t need a decade of training, but I understand where you’re coming from as well.