It Started With A Rose: Ostens Co-Founder Chris Yu’s Rose-Filled Memories

An industry veteran with a contagious passion for advocating and amplifying the world of fragrance and its welcoming community, Chris Yu is a leading entrepreneur and Board Member of The Fragrance Foundation UK.

With a keen focus on the ever-evolving fragrance landscape, we catch up with Chris to explore how his inaugural experience in Grasse during the Rose de Mai harvest ignited a world of scent magic for Ostens.

When and how did you experience Rose Centifolia for the first time?

Before we launched Ostens, I had been in the fragrance industry for about 15 years, and I've been blessed to have been invited behind the scenes to Grasse for the harvest and to work with perfumers.

Oddly, I had never smelt the finished raw materials. I was at LMR Naturals as a guest of Olivier Polge when he was a perfumer at IFF. I remember very vividly, almost 10 years ago, being handed a little test strip dipped in a vial of the Rose de Mai from Grasse. I didn't realise what I was smelling was a single ingredient, I thought it was a fully-fledged fragrance! It was so beautiful and nuanced, the only way I can describe that very first olfactive encounter is through the scene in The Wizard of Oz when it goes from black and white to colour.

Even after 15 years of working in fragrance, that moment of smelling what perfumers smell every day completely transformed my view of rose. I used to have a lot of preconceptions about this flower: most of us associate it with dusty, old-fashioned smells, and here was something that smelt luscious, alive, dewy... It had facets of elderflower and an unexpected jamminess- it made me realise that all my preconceptions were completely wrong.

I was inspired by that moment to start again: let's teach myself what raw materials are like. Let's start in the world of perfumery and move from the front door once again in a way that I think customers, up to this point, have never really been invited to.

This was the inspiration behind Ostens. What if we took that moment I experienced, that perfumers get to experience every day of their life, and flipped it to give that experience to the end customer? What if anyone who was interested in perfumery could come and knock on the door of what the raw material smells like? That was the sort of birth moment for Ostens in many ways.

Can you tell us more about the experience in witnessing the Rose de Mai harvest?

I think we should all be able to experience these opportunities, because it makes us connect to the thing more clearly.

When you see how hard it is to do the work, you appreciate the value of how precious the rose that has just been picked is.

A lot of what Ostens values are the people involved in the process. We celebrate not just perfumers but everyone involved at every step of the way— from the growers to the pickers, to the processors, to the perfumers, to the bottlers.

That's what I'm most passionate about and what inspires me in the industry.
It's not about looking outwards at trends; it's being inspired by the passion.

How many industries can we think of where, no matter how jaded or tired we get, we still love what we do and love the product and the output?

It's fascinating when you're sitting next to someone whose only job is to transport the rose from the field to the distillery, and they can wax lyrical for the entire 45-minute journey in the back of their truck about why this particular harvest was so amazing and important.

When you come across those people day in, day out, and certainly during the harvest, it’s a concentration of that celebratory moment. It's really inspiring.

Harvesting is a lot harder than one imagines. It's not just picking roses. There’s a way to do it to not damage the plant so it can keep growing for another season. You tend to harvest at dusk and dawn, not in the middle of the day.

I didn't realise that. I had to wake up very early. It was amazing being out there at dawn, being able to smell it, and knowing that throughout the day it would get more and more intense.

It connects back to a craft that started thousands of years ago. What really struck me is that here I am, doing something that hasn't changed much for thousands of years, and then taking it to the distillery.

While automation may be present, the processes haven't changed. It's still either steam distillation or oil extraction. All of that technology is exactly the same process, just more automated now. It was amazing to see the many hands that touch these materials before they go into the bottle.

I love that when we ended up with a 50ml bottle of Eau de Parfum by Dominique Ropion with only 4% of rose damascena and 1% of rose centifolia, which are very high concentrations, and I think of how many thousands of hands have been involved to bring it to the shelves.

For example, the Ostens rose has over a hundred rose heads—entire heads—in one of our 50ml bottles. It’s insane that it’s taken a hundred whole heads of roses, not a hundred petals, a hundred whole roses, distilled down to be inside one of our 50ml bottles.

Brands like Ostens are pioneering fragrance transparency by also spotlighting the work involved behind the scenes through the power of social media. How do you think the community of fragrance enthusiasts, and general consumers, engage nowadays with sourcing and harvesting? Do you think the industry is becoming more open to welcoming the general public?

Like all great movements, they start with the people. I know that sounds extremely grand, but it's something I truly believe.

I can sit here and talk for hours about the process, how beautiful it is, and share my passion, but if you're not interested, it's not going to connect. Yet, somehow, over the 20 years I've been working in the sector, I've seen more and more people wanting to know and asking more questions about the process.

That really inspires me because this is not an industry-led movement; it's a customer-led movement. Ostens owes a great debt to people like Frédéric Malle, who put perfumers' names on the front of the bottle. Now, I'd love to think that Ostens, being one of the first brands in the world to put ingredients in front of customers, shares the beauty of the real thing.

When visiting our stockists, I invite customers, enthusiasts, people passing by to ask questions. We just want to share the whole world of perfumery, and we're really excited by that.

This message of inclusivity also comes through the variety you're offering in terms of sizes and scent experiences, from the Discovery set, or even the 9ml oil...It not only allows a democratisation of fragrance but also brings many opportunities to discovering new facets of a scent every time. With Impression Rose Oil Isparta, do you ever experience new facets or any new emotions around it?

Every time. I think this is the power of living ingredients; they're living in a sense, there's different facets that come out over time. I really am constantly amazed with Impression Rose Isparta, because it can go from extremely fresh and rain/dew-like right through to sort of spilt jam in the sun sort of smells. And I love the breadth between that. Some days I smell the leaves and the stem and then sometimes I smell the soil of the garden. I think that's why Rose has been called the Queen of Flowers for so long. In many ways, modern perfumery wouldn't be what it is without this ingredient.

Having the experience of witnessing such a lively month in Grasse and seeing how the community comes together, how do you think the industry, can still look at Grasse for advancing an open industry?

I see a lot of parallelism with the world of champagne because, through climate change, the temperatures and the tradition of that period of growth for grapes has moved across France into the UK in some ways, especially in Somerset. Now English sparkling wine is challenging the rest of the champagne world in terms of quality and experience.

And I would love if fragrance houses would invest in potentially looking at if the UK could grow its own source of rose to a level where we could harvest it to use for perfumery. Or it would be really interesting to cultivate a new view of raw materials coming from the United Kingdom. We are all so passionate in the industry, I see this, especially in a company like LMR Naturals. There's a real opportunity as the years come forward, of us of what we could do to cultivate our own raw materials here.

This is why I'm so grateful to work with LMR on many inspirations for our fragrances because they pioneer the world of raw materials; they work directly with IFF perfumers, so talents like MP Dominique Ropion will work with LMR to try and discover different facets of rose. And Dominique is a champion of rose. He's the master of the modern rose in my opinion. I am very curious about seeing the developments on up-cycled roses. All the up-cycled, re-washed, re-processed raw materials now form and inspire the palette of Dominique Ropion for all his creations!

How exciting is that, that we're attempting every single extraction method from one plant and creating with new revolutionary facets and ingredients?

With the recent passing of Monique Remy, LMR Founder, how do you think and encourage the whole industry to keep her legacy alive while pushing it forward?

Monique was a trailblazer and therefore the values that she lived by and created LMR from still very much are intrinsic.

Anyone who goes to work at LMR has a unique sense of pride for the company’s history- this was a woman in the 80s, a woman in a male-dominated field of the industry, talking about fair trade, impact on the environment, sustainability, circular economy... While the technologies caught up, that mindset of what's next is very much in LMR.

When I visited their Grasse experimental garden, I saw a robot dog going up and down the fields of roses, taking soil samples to monitor what was happening in the ground. We can predict so much now. And that is because of the values that Monique instilled.

At which stage within the creation process of Impression Rose Oil Isparta did the Turkish rose, Damascena, come through?

While I very much appreciate the prettiness and the juiciness of the rose centifolia, the Damascena for me is denser, richer, jammier, more intense, and a bit narcotic.

Dominique Ropion told me about his love for that intoxicating side of the rose, rather than the beauty of the ethereal petal-like prettiness. We wanted to explore that almost boozy nature of rose, an eau de vie sort of feel to the Damascena.

He shared with me a sample of Turkish rose from Isparta, we smelt the raw material, and it ended up being the main protagonist of the composition. We chose the oil for its density, thickness and syrupiness.

Was Dominique somehow always in your vision for an Ostens rose fragrance?

We could not have done it without him. I love perfumers because they are the true creatives. They would not like me calling them artists- someone like Dominique would be very shy of that-, but I do believe that they paint with fragrances. And Dominique is a hundred per cent, in my opinion, the master of today's roses. He was a hundred per cent in control of the final jus. I was just along for the journey, I am grateful for those conversations that we had around Rose shared throughout the process. This was his creation. I'm just a fragrance fanatic, like most of our customers. I love this industry so it was almost like a fan moment for me to share that creative process with Dominique.

Considering the creative freedom you give to perfumers, what would you still identify within an Ostens DNA across the collection?

Someone asked me once, what is the signature of Ostens? I think Ostens formulas are very blended. I like complex formulas, not for complexity's sake, but considered. Luckily for me, Dominique is a very sophisticated formulator. He doesn't do brushstrokes, he does whole paintings. And I personally love that tradition of very full paintings. I remember the IFF creative team in Paris, all the perfumers said, ‘’Chris, you're like the ultimate customer!’’

At Ostens we have the privilege of witnessing perfumers formulating. It'd be like a playwright writing with an audience in front of them or, a chef's table where you as a dining customer sit right in front of them and the chef gets to see your face react to certain ingredients. We wanted to be the first brand that allowed anyone interested in smelling the inspiration, smelling the raw material to access it. So why not give you the 9ml of the highest legally allowed concentration of rose oil Isparta in a 9ml to use on its own or to layer or to do whatever you want with it?

I think this is where we really want to encourage and empower customers to play with fragrance.

What does an Osten brief look like for a perfumer?

Our briefing is: we love this raw material, we can tell you why we love it, describe our favourite facet or feeling. And perfumers then take whatever time they need.

A lot of perfumers would choose particular materials that they want to work with. When we did our patchouli fragrance, for example, we had two perfumers competing over the project because they both love the ingredient. And I love that. Let's not bend people in a direction that they don't want to go.

Let's lean into the natural talents of certain perfumers that like certain ingredients.

In which Ostens creations do you see your fragrance preferences the most, and where does Ostens co-founder Laurent’ taste come out in the collection?

I have to admit, Impression Rose Oil Isparta is very much his style. I find it more of a nighttime-y, elegant event type of scent, for example, I wore it at The Fragrance Foundation UK Awards 2024.

I would say that my personal fragrance style is a little bit more casual, coming out more through our Cashmeran Velvet, whereas Laurent loves a more Baroque, traditional style of fragrances, including our

Cedarwood Heart or Patchouli. There's a slight duality in our brand: Laurent is slightly more traditional, and I like a more modern style.

Considering your work as a Board Director for The Fragrance Foundation UK, and the entrepreneurial and creative vision for Ostens, do you have any advice an tips for people who want to expand their education on raw materials?

In Europe, there are many industry sites, especially in France and Italy, that allow visitors to knock at their doors and have a tour of the facilities or fields, particularly in Grasse, where you can potentially take part in harvests.

But learning how to expand your vocabulary and how to describe raw materials is also very important. We all have different scent memories, preconceptions, and understandings of smells, and I find that the best way to exercise my vocabulary is by when I walk my dog to the office every morning as I go through the park, and consciously zone into what I'm smelling and try and describe it in my mind. Traditionally, we're not as encouraged to talk about smells. And this is why I joined The Fragrance Foundation UK as a board member, to encourage education around our sense of smell.

During COVID, I worked with the NHS to help people suffering from anosmia or parosmia, and I did this exercise with them of putting a slice of lemon under their nose, and like a parlor game, I had to use words to describe the smell without relying perfumery technical language, to get someone to try and click their brain back into what was right under their nose. It taught me a lot about how to talk about raw materials and how to experience raw materials.