Atelier de Parfum · Ghent
A perfume is a composition in three movements. In this atelier you learn to write one — on the same organ, from the same raw materials, under the same discipline a working perfumer uses.
Most people can name a smell. Very few can build one.
Naming is recognition — you meet a scent you already know. Building is the opposite discipline: you decide what a thing should smell like before it exists, then find the materials that get you there and the proportions that hold them together.
That gap is what we teach across. Not fragrance appreciation, not blending a few oils into a bottle to take home. You sit at an organ of 240 materials, you learn what each one does to the ones beside it, and you write formulas in parts per thousand the way the trade actually writes them.
Every course ends with a composition that is yours: the formula on paper, signed and archived here, and the perfume itself in a 30 ml flacon.
Each course is listed the way we list a perfume: by what you will actually compose in it, in parts per thousand. Materials shown are the teaching formula — your own proportions will differ by the end.
I
One evening · 3 hours
An introduction for people who have never touched a pipette. You build a simple three-movement chypre and leave understanding why it holds together.
| Top | Bergamot, pink pepper | 180 |
|---|---|---|
| Heart | Rose de mai, violet leaf | 300 |
| Base | Cedarwood, white musk | 520 |
II
Six sessions · three weeks
The working course. Olfactive families, accord building, tenacity and diffusion, and how to correct a formula that is almost right — the part nobody teaches.
| Top | Neroli, elemi | 120 |
|---|---|---|
| Heart | Orris, jasmine sambac | 340 |
| Base | Sandalwood, tonka, ambrette | 540 |
III
Twelve weeks · by interview
For those who have finished La Structure or already compose. No set brief — you arrive with an intention and spend twelve weeks making it hold.
| Top | Yours to determine | — |
|---|---|---|
| Heart | Yours to determine | — |
| Base | Yours to determine | — |
ORRISVEIL occupies two rooms in Patershol: a weighing bench, an organ, and enough chairs for a class that stays small on purpose.
Our courses are taught by perfumers who compose commercially the rest of the week — for independent houses, for private clients, and for their own lines. That matters more than it sounds. Teaching from practice means you hear what actually happens when a formula fails at the third week, not the tidy version.
We keep groups to eight because the organ has one of everything and because a formula in trouble needs someone standing next to you, not across the room.
Eight places per course. Write to us with which course you want and we will tell you what is left — no deposit until you have a confirmed seat.
Ask about a place