So, ‘single scent products’ – how did you come up with that?
It’s for the real purists who want to smell of something, but something very simple…by just using one ingredient, one molecule, it allows space for your own chemistry to get through.

And it remains under-the-radar, a niche brand…
Well we don’t really advertise…and the artwork on our packaging is binary code, the simplest form of language. Fragrance advertising these days is all about naked women on the beach, naked women on the sofa, naked women in the arms of naked men – it’s so boring.

But despite the non-flashy campaign images, it’s one of Bloomingdales’ top-sellers right?
Yeah and that’s probably due to word of mouth…A friend of mine wore Escentric Molecules 01 to the pub – he wasn’t a Brad Pitt character or anything, just a normal guy – and within ten minutes this woman shoots around asking what he’s wearing. For me, that was the ultimate proof that this stuff is magic [laughs].

Before you branched out on your own, you worked for some pretty big brands…
In 1994 I was working on a fragrance for Diesel; in fact, I suggested the concept of Molecules 01 to the director there but even he thought it was a bit too wild for Diesel and they were doing all kinds of crazy stuff back then. I didn’t launch Escentric Molecules until eleven years later so in hindsight I think ‘f*** you’re crazy, you should have done it earlier.’

Tell me about Paper Passion, the project you worked on with Karl Lagerfeld.
Well Lagerfeld definitely had the smallest part in the whole thing – he made a drawing of a book which was the packaging for the fragrance. It’s a weird product because it was an art house sort of thing commissioned by Wallpaper magazine. The whole brief was ‘wearable paper’ so perfumistically it was very difficult. The end result is a dry, fatty scent.

So when you’re not sniffing samples, how do you spend your free time?
Well I live in Berlin, which is the place. In a way it’s very rebellious; rents are cheap and it’s very culturally-driven – media, film, fashion and art make the city tick. So you can do anything you want anytime of the week…you know whenever I’m not in Berlin I’m really pissed off [laughs] – it just feels so normal to me.