Perfume man Edwin Bruce helps people find their scent

• Published date: 28 April 2022

At their two-bedroom home in Clarendon, the smell of succulent fruits that were not sold during the business day permeated the atmosphere

"That was helping me become what we call in perfumery, a 'nose'. I was being trained, unintentionally being able to distinguish different scents because I was constantly in the presence of those fruits," Bruce admitted from his perfume store, Prince D'Bruce Perfumery, in Kingston. There persons can create their own fragrance as well as purchase other skin care products.

His journey to perfume making started in 1991 when he migrated to New York to work as a lab technician and met a group of Arabians who sold perfumes.

"They asked me to do labelling. I was able to do the labels just by smelling and I was able to distinguish and make all the different notes of all the different oils in the product. They were just amazed at how I was able to do that. Then it moved from me doing labelling. They now wanted me to assort the oils. So because I was able to say 'This is grapefruit, I can smell it', they couldn't understand. But this came from me being in the little space with my family and it was the memories in my subconscious that made it easy for me to distinguish the oils," Bruce said.

Bruce ditched his plans to become an attorney and went to Colombia in 2001 where he spent five years under the tutelage of master perfumer Mario Galindo, head of the perfume house called The Lab. Bruce learnt to appreciate the art of perfumery and said it provides an opportunity for persons to find their personalities in particular scents that are unique to them.

"Scent is subjective, so it is an art because you have to understand someone's body chemistry. So I want to know what evaporates beautifully for your body, will it be irritating for you and the longevity. It is an art that has to have the DNA of each person. It is the individuality that I intend to capture in a bottle,"...