Perfumer
Nicolas Bonneville is a French perfumer at DSM-Firmenich. For Nissaba he made Sulawesi, a perfume of Indonesian patchouli, nutmeg and clove.
He fell for perfume as a boy, on a trip to Grasse. At first he taught himself by experimenting, and later he learned from the perfumers Jacques Maurel and Francis Kurkdjian. He graduated from ISIPCA, worked at Takasago and Fragrance Resources, and then moved to Firmenich. He has made perfumes for Acqua di Parma, Givenchy, Jo Malone and Affinessence, and three for Jaeger-LeCoultre. In 2024 the Fragrance Foundation France gave him an award in its niche category.
He says style and freedom of expression are part of every perfume he makes. He travels to the harvests of natural ingredients. In India he helped pick jasmine sambac, and in Tunisia he followed the orange blossom harvest. In Paris he grows plants and flowers in his own garden. He works with few ingredients and uses a lot of the main one, so it comes through stronger and lasts longer. Sulawesi is named after the island that grows most of Indonesia’s patchouli. He says it brings together earth, woods and spices, the best-known scents of Indonesia.
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