Today we’d like to introduce you to Yosh Han.
Yosh, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
The first time I really fell down the rabbit hole was in the mid-1990s when I walked into a perfumery in Aspen, Colorado. I was mesmerized by the glass bottles on the wall and knew instantly that I wanted to be part of this world. I had been a florist in college so when I learned about perfumery and aromatherapy, I was hooked. I trained at The Fragrance Bar in Aspen, Colorado for about three years. I didn’t have a formal apprenticeship nor go to perfumery school per se but I learned so much from being the assistant manager.
I moved to Europe for a few years before returning to the States. I eventually settled in San Francisco in 2002 to be the Purveyor of Pirate Supplies at The Pirate Store at 826 Valencia, a non-profit writing center for students ages 8-18, founded by Dave Eggers and Ninive Caligari. I did a lot of community building, fundraising and producing events, including an annual Thumbwrestling Championship, Icelandic Film Festival and a 2000 seat sold-out comedy fundraiser starring Patton Oswalt and Al Madrigal.
While there, I created a collection of Pirate Perfumes like Swashbuckler and El Capitán and Buccaneer. This was all right before wave of The Pirates of The Caribbean so it was very timely and we were constantly selling out of eye-patches, glass eyes and peg legs!
One day, I received a mysterious letter from the Bureau of Urban Secrets asking whether I could create Urban Essence, the scent of San Francisco, with the aromas of Victorian houses, coastal eucalyptus, diesel gas and homelessness. At first, I thought it was joke! In fact, this was to be the impetus of a career change. After I created that scent, other artists and writers in the Bay Area approached me to do experimental fragrances including scientist and artist, Natalie Jeremijenko for the One Trees exhibition for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. I also created The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things for author, JT LeRoy/Laura Albert. After about two years pirating and a year of creating random custom fragrance commissions, I struck out on my own.
In 2004, I founded my own brand, YOSH. Since then, I released a collection of parfum extraits which was sold exclusively at Barneys New York and Lucky Scent initially. Then in 2010, I released the same collection as Eau de Parfum and partnered with international distributors in Europe, Middle East, Japan and Russia and sold in prestigious retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue Dubai, Liberty London, Isetan Tokyo, etc.
In 2012, I partnered with Anthropolgie to create California Aromascapes, a collection of four fragrances inspired by four unique destinations in California, : Angeleno, Zuma, Montelena and Sea Ranch. In 2014 my men’s fragrance König won the Golden Pear through the Institute of Art and Olfaction. In 2017, I traveled around the world with Remote Year and while doing so, I produced a series of events in each new country I visited each month including a seven course vegan dinner with mezcal pairing with Del Maguey mezcal and an Edible Scavenger Hunt in Medellín in Colombia, and a contemporary scented opera in Buenos Aires, called Sinestesia with ZZK Records and musician Dat Garcia.
Last summer, in 2019, I partnered with InterTrend, Daigo Daigoku, Neal Harris Fragrances, Rawfinery in Long Beach, California to produce an incredible eight-week pop-up exhibition called The Art of Bloom which recently won bronze cube for The One Club for Creativity and also won best exhibition for the Frame Magazine awards. In addition to the 20,000 petals falling from the sky, an AR room and shop, we also curated scent related events that culminated in a scented dinner with James Beard rising star, Chef Erik Bruner-Yang.
I recently produced a six-week digital scent festival during the pandemic. Olfaction and the Senses included 63 presenters, ten zoom sessions and 17 instaLIVES around Scent + Music, Scent + Design, Scent + Manufacturing, Scent + Future and more.
Presently, I’m using my platform to bring attention to the lack of BIPOC representation in the fragrance industry and also educating people on new olfactory vocabulary that uniquely decolonizes some archaic terms.
My newest fragrance designs are Eau Fraiche parfum in collaboration with Rodrigo Flores and Olivia Jan, both Givaudan perfumers.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
For a long time, people did not understand what niche or indie perfumery was. I co-produced an Artisan Fragrance Salon back in 2011 which at the time was a blimp in the multi-billion dollar industry. But now, the horizon has changed where there are many smaller well-known indie brands on the scene.
My fragrances are also attuned vibrationally with chakra energies and numerology. As a professional clairvoyant, I also match people’s auras with a specific fragrance. When I started this in 2004, people were a bit skeptical. Now, you can’t go into a shop without someone selling crystals, palo santo or other spiritual tools and many more fragrances designed to support spiritual transformation.
I also found that the fragrance industry has historically been European and East Coast Centric and often white male. So I’ve sought out female founders and also BIPOC and have co-created a council of perfumers to address this more. It was a struggle initially for sure, but we are growing!
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Y O S H – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
I feel that my platform is more conceptual and avant-garde. I have always been ahead of the curve and starting trends. Innovation is in my DNA partly because I come from a family of entrepreneurs but also, it’s part of being an Angeleno and San Franciscan. California is a place many people come to build their dreams, so I feel it’s in my bones to try new things and be original.
I feel really enthusiastic about all the events I’ve done in my life like Women and Whiskies program for Campari, educating women on how to enjoy the aromas of gold spirits. The blending of food and flavor is not unique per se, but the way it’s experienced is. The edible scavenger hunt in Colombia, for example, is one of my favorite events, as was The Art of Bloom in Long Beach, California with eight weeks of programming ending in a Hearts and Flowers scented dinner with James Beard rising star, Chef Erik Bruner-Yang inspired by the Symbiosis scent for the pop-up with 20,000 petals falling from the sky.
One of my most proud moments was speaking in front of 2000 at UC Berkeley with Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket. We created a custom scent on stage together. That was so fun!
But truthfully, I feel more than ever now, especially after producing the six-week digital scent festival, that I have a platform for change. There is a distinct lack of BIPOC representation in the fragrance industry and I hope to bring more attention to this and change this. There is also archaic colonial vocabulary that I’m working on to de-colonize some vernacular and create new words based on organoleptic profiles, not geography. It could be a new field of study, olfactive anthropology! And beyond that, there is also amazing new opportunities for Scent + Technology with AI and biotech. The future is scented!
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Great question. I’m working with a coterie of diverse perfumers to create a global database of BIPOC perfumers and evaluators and paying attention, especially to black voices. We are formulating that now and it is really exciting to be connecting with new talent and like-minded leaders from the Middle East, Asia, across the Americas, and Europe.
With the success of the Digital Scent Festival, I’m already working on 2.0 with more masterclasses and another Scent + Startups session. That one was really popular, kind of a like a Sharktank / Project Runway type event for new fragrance brands.
I am also currently the Creative Director at Scent Trunk, a perfume publisher who collaborates with new perfumers each month producing Original Editions. We have big plans to introduce a new category of layerable fragrances and fabulous membership program for scent lovers.
When I’m not perfuming, I’m sailing and swimming in the open ocean because I plan to circumnavigate one day. So I’m constantly learning and pushing my boundaries. There is a lack here also of BIPOC and female sailors and I believe there’s a connection here, spiritually between the ocean and our spirits.
“Sentir” in French means to smell and to feel. I believe that if we use our olfactive senses more, we would be more in-tune with our emotions because we already know, scientifically, our ability to smell is more closely linked with the part of our brain that is associated with our emotions and memories.
So instead of navigating the world through only our eye-sight, where we have problems ‘seeing color’ then we could shift our gaze so to speak, learn to tap into our other senses, and navigate the world through our other senses to be more integrated humans.
Our sense of smell is the only one of our six senses that requires breath. So if we can’t breathe, we are not alive. I smell; therefore I am.
Pricing:
- Eau Fraiche collection $95 each
- Aura reading $250/hour
- Custom scent starts at $1500 by appointment only
Contact Info:
- Website: www.eaudeyosh.com
- Phone: 1-415-238-7474
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @eaudeyosh
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eaudeYOSH/
- Other: @scent_festival
Image Credit:
Tommy Ly Photo portrait; Sven Wiederholt products
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