CHENNAI: A mere few words into this sentence and I’m already guilty of sniffing my wrists more than once. It smells sweet; a tinge of vanilla followed by a subtle hint of peach and a musky undertone. It’s the remnants of the spritz from a perfume titled ‘Maliblu’, it’s one in the inaugural line from Ensens — a vivacious young city-based perfumery spearheaded by perfumer Shrey Paun, and his sister-in-law, Varsha Namra Paun.
Walking into the duo’s home base, on first glance, Shrey’s little perfume lab looks deceptively empty with its long desk, bare white walls and brown cupboards. But a few more steps in, and you see the bottles — rows and rows of them. There are solvents, mixers, concentrates, beakers, droppers, perfume strips and then a few more. It’s how one would imagine a mad scientist’s workspace would look like, except, in this case, it belongs to a centred 26-year-old with a sweet smile.
An architect by profession, Shrey Paun’s journey progressed from working on healthier architecture in Auroville to becoming a professional perfumer in a span of a few years. Joined in the new venture by his sister-in-law, Varsha, she manages the business, while he tinkers around experimenting in his little lab of beautiful smells. “I absolutely need to feel inspired to create a new scent. I was in Bali recently and the whole atmosphere — the beach, the sand, the blue skies, the coconuts — that’s the inspiration behind ‘Maliblu’,” explains Shrey. But although a perfume might be one other beauty item to some, to Shrey and Varsha it’s about creating a situational experience. And hence the idea of creating customised, do-it-yourself perfumes based on personalities was born.
Stepping to the work-slab, I decided to give it a whirl myself. Shrey starts with a few generic questions such as — Are you an extrovert or an introvert? And moves on to much harder ones such as — Mountains or the beach? I’m sorry, what can I say? I’m indecisive. Once he notes a few answers down, we look to the universal perfume pyramid of top notes, middle notes and base notes, as he offers a few scent suggestions based on the traits. For my self-described ambitious and social personality, I settle on Vanilla Burst and White Musk for a deep base note, Rose, Tropical Waters, and Vanilla Berry for my heart note, and Fresh Marine, and Orange oil for my top note. To this playful medley, Shrey adds a drop of what he calls ‘Amber Max’, also possibly my favourite concentrate in the mix.
In the half-an-hour that it took to arrive at this assortment, I sniffed almost all the bottles on the work table, from the smoky Egyptian Musk to the cinnamon-y Oriental Spice, and the quintessential Chennai classic, Jasmine. The most peculiar of them all is the ‘Civet Animalic’, which in Shrey’s words, “smells like pee.” Well, the concentrate is made from the Civet cat’s urine, so he’s not wrong there. Shrey admits that despite using alcohol and synthetic chemicals in his perfumes, the dosages are incredibly safe and aimed at making the product long-lasting and consistent in quality. With new fragrances and projects such as a subscription box in the works, Shrey and Varsha look geared to take on 2020 head-on. While I, the latest perfumer, albeit for just a day, patiently wait for my scent to mature in the next seven days, I fill the time today with one more sniff of my wrist. For more details about Ensens, visit @ensensbyshrey on Instagram.