Since 2007, Isabelle Gellé, a French perfumer based in Yorkshire has been striving to make people rediscover the smells of Nature through botanical perfumes. Ahead of her time, Isabelle anticipated that consumers would want to return to periods when natural ingredients were the only known things around.
Through her company Les Parfums d'Isabelle, Isabelle designs natural perfumes and personal care products on behalf of private and corporate individuals involved in the development of organic and natural skincare and seeking to recreate the scents of Nature according to the traditions while respecting the safety standards that have evolved over the centuries. The company also provides A-Z consultancy services related to aromas and scents and is a member of the Personal Care Group at Yorkshire Forward Agency.
Isabelle is a native of the Indian ocean islands which makes her naturally enclined to know a lot about tropical scents. She started her career in West Africa as a country manager, buying and selling spices, Arabic gum and green tea. She lived and worked in many foreign countries and her travels led her to develop her creativity for all what Nature has got to offer as well as for everything beautiful and uncompromised luxury. She started to create perfumes at the early age of 10, using gardenia flowers and other tropical plants macerating in coconut oil and scenting beeswax candles. Her extensive knowledge of the spices and aromas business in Africa, allowed her to get acquainted to the unlimited scents of Nature.
She is a self-taught perfumer with a passion and wide knowledge of botanicals and she focuses on the Art rather than the Science of Perfumery, creating a bridge between Ancient and Modern scents. Holder of a diploma in aromatherapy from Oxford College and an Indian head massage practitioner, she also holds a City & Guild Certificate in teaching in the further education and regularly organises workshops to teach and introduce students to methods of creating natural perfumes according to traditional methods (visit http://lesparfumsisabelle.co.uk/Workshopsandcourses.aspx for calendar and details).
One of the sources of inspiration for Isabelle Gellé's perfume creations Isabelle promotes the use of wildcrafted ingredients: the botanicals extracted from wildly grown fields without the use of any pesticide and is very active in the promotion of the new field of natural aromachology, the study of scents on behaviour. She is passionate about sourcing new ingredients from faraway countries to create unique perfumes.
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She is an advocate of Fair Trade for women in poorer countries. She has been actively involved in a pepper, coffee and cocoa plantation development in Togo, West Africa and deals directly with essential oils producers and cooperatives in countries such as India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Haïti, constantly striving to ensure that someone in the world benefits from her business actions. She favours finding a balance between RISK and DANGER with regard to the various and often contradictory scare-mongering reports made on some natural ingredients or perservatives which have been used efficiently for centuries. She believes the multiple certification bodies for 'natural' and 'organic' create more harm than good and cause confusion in consumer's minds so this is why she regards herself as a ''TEA PARTY PERFUMER''...