William Carius of Barrister and Mann

Profile: I grew up in the rural forests north of the Catskills, just outside of Cooperstown, NY, where my parents were bakers when I was a kid. They had a little private bakery and made baking mixes for sale in high-end grocery stores, then later sold finished baked goods at farmer’s markets. They put a huge emphasis on quality, similar to what is currently marketed as “clean eating.” No preservatives, only real butter and sugar, and NEVER high fructose corn syrup, shortening, or modified food starches.

Selling Baked Goods at a Farmer's Market

I was fascinated by what they did, primarily because the idea of combining flavors appealed to me a great deal. Still does, really. I love to cook.

William Carius of Barrister and Mann(he was about 18 months here)

My parents were really too far ahead of their time. Despite trying for nearly a decade, the business folded, and my father commuted back to New Jersey to work as a contractor, while my mother worked for various companies as a merchandiser. They both have a really profound (some would say “stubborn”) hands-on outlook, and they both encouraged me to do things that interested me. My Dad’s very mechanically-inclined and extremely well-read, while Mom’s artsier and has a thing for music and architecture. Very driven, tough people. They’ve always pushed me to do what made me happy.

 William Carius of Barrister and Mann Early DYI

My mother wore Calvin Klein Obsession from the time I was a child up until a few years ago, when reformulation forced her to abandon it. She has lots of different perfumes, though. Her little luxuries. I used to love to smell her collection (and still do, on occasion). I’m not sure that she really knew a lot about perfume then, so she didn’t tell me much about them, but my favorite way to spend my time was to smell all her perfumes and pick out which ones I liked.

William grew up in Cooperstown New York and moved to San Francisco

Perfume fell by the wayside for some years. I grew more interested in the hard sciences and didn’t pay much attention to the arts, apart from an intense love of books (probably 75% of my worldly possessions are made of paper). It wasn’t until I spent a summer in San Francisco during law school that I really became interested in fragrance again.San Francisco has a HUGE perfume culture, especially evident in Union Square.

Hermés Un Jardin sur le Nil was Jean Claude Ellena's first perfume for Hermes© courtesy of Michelyn's Interview with Jean Claude Ellena here

One of my housemates was very, VERY interested in fragrance, and she and I used to head down to the various perfume boutiques to just spend hours smelling what they had to offer, olfactory fatigue be damned. Some of the weirdest things I’ve ever smelled I smelled in San Francisco that year. I was absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. Two perfumes in particular from that time stand out in my memory. The first is Hermés Un Jardin sur le Nil, about which I had read in college, but only remembered upon smelling it for myself. The idea of capturing a scent like green mango, which couldn’t be refined from natural material and instead had to be painstakingly re-created from other components, was an incredibly cool idea to me. The second is HYLNDS Bitter Rose, Broken Spear. No offense to David Seth Moltz, but I HATED it. I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever sell such a thing, let alone buy it and wear it in public. I still describe it to people as the smell of blood and flowers, all hot iron and carnage-covered fields. But, at the same time, it was a revelatory experience: for the first time in my life, it occurred to me that perfume could smell INTERESTING. That I didn’t have to LIKE a perfume to respect it. And I respect the gutsiness of that stuff more than anything else I’ve ever smelled.

I’m currently working out of boxes

On American Perfumery: Being an American perfumer is kind of tough. Many of us are self-taught (I don’t know if it’s the majority or not), and the problem with being self-taught is that you have to prove to people that you really do know what you’re doing. Coming from the men’s grooming world, I’ve had a lot of people over the years say that I should hire a “professional" (by which they mean “professionally trained”) perfumer to create the fragrances for my products. The other thing is that American culture just doesn’t value perfume in the same way that some other cultures do. In Europe, your fragrance is part of your identity and how you present yourself. In contrast, in the US, it seems like the main criterion is that other people don’t find how you smell offensive. When you’re trying to do something really different, and you have an idea about which you’re really excited but which might be a bit “out there,” the emphasis on blending into the crowd can be discouraging.

Barrister and Mann Fougère Gothique

At the same time, there’s a certain freedom that comes with being the outsiders. We’re unencumbered by tradition, and, while many American perfumers obviously admire the great masters, there’s a distinctly fresh radicalism that is strongly characteristic of American perfumery. I like to think that the earnest joyfulness of our work is what makes it quintessentially American. Everything is new, everything is fun, and everything is possible.

Favorite American Artist: Years ago, Tom Waits recorded “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis,” a kind of musical sketch about a former heroin addict who tells the listener (“Charlie”) how she has cleaned up her life, is pregnant, and is living with her fiancé, who promises to raise the baby “like he would his own son.” She spends most of the song reminiscing about old times with Charlie, only to reveal at the end that she’s not pregnant or engaged and is, in fact, in prison and writing to borrow money to pay her attorney. The conclusion heartbreaking to hear, when all of the things about which she seemed so excited, and about which the listener is excited for her, are revealed to be fantasy. Her love of simple pleasures is infectious, even moving.I’ve thought a lot about that song over the years, about the mundane happiness of that woman’s imagined life. Perfumes are our simple pleasures, our daily joys and our special secrets. Happiness is part and parcel of what perfumers do. We bring the best of things to life.

William Carius, Founder and Perfumer, Barrister and Mann

Thanks to William Carius of Barrister and Mann, there is a fantastic draw in the U.S., Canada, EU .There are three winners who will be chosen at random. Each winner will receive a 7.5 ml vial of   Barrister and Mann Romance in Middlesex County or if you live in the USA you can choose Fougere Gothique. photos (licensed under the Wikimedia Creative Commons) and cannot be reproduced without his permission. Hermés Un Jardin sur le Nil courtesy of Hermés 

Notes for Romance in Middlesex County:Apricot, Tangerine, Ho Wood, Cardamom, Coffee, Lily of the Valley, Fresh Laundry, Jasmine, Tobacco, Musk, Oakmoss, Sandalwood

Notes for Fougere Gothique: Black Ashes, Bergamot, Lavender, Cedar, Sandalwood, Geranium, Leather, Tuberose, Burning Wood, Mushroom, Oakmoss,Tonka, Vetiver, Smooth Musk, Balsam Fir Absolute

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