Dan Rothschild makes Manchester smell good

On the Helsinki metro, there’s a do’s and don’ts sign. It’s polite, but the one that says ‘Please don’t wear strong perfume’ is a problem for Dan Rothschild. “Someone sent me the poster and I thought, ‘Oh, f*** it. I’ll wear whatever perfume I want.’”

Dan is not based in Helsinki but in Manchester, where he has a lot of perfumes. An avid collector to the point of obsession, he has around 300 bottles. Many have been sent for review on his Instagram @fragrance_weirdo, where he has 47.5k followers, and others have been bought, including “a first edition bottle of Sybaris for quite a bit of money because it’s beautiful and I kind of love it”.

Dan got his first whiff of Sybaris when an uncle who owned a pharmacy gave him a bottle for his barmitzvah. “He also gave me a bottle of Quorum and I committed the smells to memory. I knew then that I always wanted to smell good.”

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But it was when he saw the 1990 Chanel ad Selfishwhere beautiful women roll up their windows screaming egoïste that he connected the idea of ​​smelling good to an art form. Then Dan was truly hooked. There’s something incongruous about this 48-year-old married father of two extolling the scent and collecting it for decades while working in odorless IT security. But that’s half the story, since Dan is also the creative director of his own perfume brand Sum.

Determined to find others who shared his passion for scent, about 10 years ago, Daniel explored social media and discovered an entire subculture of enthusiasts. “And I felt like, wow, I found my people,” he says from behind 30 bottles of perfume on his desk. “Through Instagram, I met Dave Wrench (now his business partner) and we started talking, meeting for coffee, trying perfumes and realized we should start something of our own.”

For the record, the formulation of SumThe perfumery, which currently includes a range of nine fragrances, began and continues with a vivid brief from Dan that is sent to the grandson of the iconic French perfumer Jean Carles in Grasse. Then Cyrille Carles begins extracting oils, blending them, aging them… Almost like a fine wine? “Exactly,” confirms Dan, who can talk about top notes of cinnamon and tobacco in perfumes like wine writer Jancis Robinson would talk about a Pinot Noir.

The smell resulting from, say, Halcyon Sum is best summed up by a fan on fragrance fanatic website fragrantica.com: “It opens with an intensely sweet combination of toffee, vanilla and honey with an addictive spicy cinnamon in the background. From here, the sweetness is perfectly balanced with a strong note of boozy rum and smoky tobacco, with hints of fizzy benzoin and soft orchid. A truly edible fragrance at a great price.”

“When I brief, I tend to think in terms of little film vignettes,” says Dan. “Capturing moments that feel cinematic, like memories you can almost see. They’re the starting point for creating something that’s more than just a fragrance – it’s an experience.”

The name Soma is Dan’s choice. “It’s Greek for ‘body,’ but it’s also the name of a drug in Aldous Huxley’s novel Admirable new world that is given to the masses to keep them calm and happy. Despite the slightly sinister tone, I think it’s a brilliant idea.”

There’s a lot more to the world of eau de parfum than just a spritz. Each year in Milan, buyers, critics, enthusiasts and manufacturers gather to Essencea prestigious perfume convention where Dan hopes to exhibit next year. With so much perfume floating around under one roof, it must be sensory overload. “You can’t smell different fragrances because there’s so much going on,” agrees Dan. “People often carry little bags of coffee beans with them, as one sniff helps reset your nose.” A handy tip for your next visit to the perfume show, where Soma should be on sale in time.

“It’s very difficult to get into big stores because they tend to work with distributors,” says Dan, comparing the dominance of blue-chip brands like Gucci and Chanel to Marvel and Disney in the movies. Sum has a devoted following, he says, “but we’re not Marvel. We sell well directly online, but one of the headaches is the cost of manufacturing official samples, like the ones you get from Dior or Chanel.”

Dan plans to launch a selection box of 10ml bottles so customers can try the different Somas without committing to a whole bottle, but admits: “It takes a bit of investment, a bit of time and love.”

And speaking of love, Dan’s wife Lisa, who “considers my perfume collection excessive,” wears Soma Serene, and his daughters Anna, 17, and Kate, 14, appreciate the unique world he’s created and would like to inhabit it full-time eventually. But as much as he loves fragrances, dog perfume isn’t in the cards.

“One of the weird things about liking perfume is that you pay more attention to the smell, and I absolutely love the natural smell of my dog, Eddie. Not if he’s rolled in the mud, but when he’s reasonably clean and lying there snoring, I’ll often bury my face in his fur and breathe in deeply.”

Dan’s ultimate connection to fragrance, however, is rooted in his family memories. “I lost my dad last year, and his signature scent was Kouros. One of the reasons I love perfume so much is because it has a memory-triggering effect, so if I smell Kouros, I immediately go back to my room like a little kid waiting for mommy and daddy to come out.”

His mother used Opium back then, but Dan introduced her to Ormonde Jayne, by renowned Jewish perfumer Linda Pilkington, which she likes. “She used Soma Halcyon for a while,” Dan says, then laughs. “I think it was just politeness, although she’s very proud of me.” Obviously!

somaparfums.com