Céline Herbette
Céline Herbette did not choose perfumery. Perfumery chose her. As her hearing began to fade in childhood, her senses recalibrated, sharpening her smell into something extraordinary. What might have been a limitation became the very thing that set her apart. She trained in fine fragrance with characteristic intensity, building the technical foundation that would later allow her to move freely between restraint and boldness. She joined CPL Aromas in 2020, progressing steadily through the ranks to Perfumer — a trajectory that speaks to both her talent and her relentless drive. In 2026, she was named a finalist for Rising Star at The Fragrance Foundation UK Awards, a recognition that placed her among the most watched new voices in contemporary perfumery. She works between England and her native France, bringing a bicultural perspective to her compositions that infuses them with a particular kind of cross-cultural intuition.
The hits
Notable creations
The signature
How Céline composes
Herbette's aesthetic resists easy categorization, but certain instincts recur. She is drawn to texture — the way a material can feel rough, velvet, crystalline, or warm before it is even named. She gravitates toward ingredients with tactile quality: resins that seem to hold weight, woods that carry depth, florals with an almost sculptural presence. She has spoken publicly about her interest in maximalism, particularly for Middle Eastern markets, where fragrance is worn as an extension of identity rather than a background note. She brings boldness without sacrificing nuance. In her own words, her work tends toward compositions that feel fully alive — layered, vivid, and refusing to disappear.
Philosophy
What drives Céline
Herbette treats fragrance as a language that bypasses literal meaning entirely. She is drawn to the way a scent can carry cultural memory, emotional weight, and sensory texture simultaneously — without ever needing to be translated. Her work is emotive before it is technical. She approaches each brief as an invitation to explore contrast: heritage ingredients and contemporary chemistry, quiet spaces and maximalist statements. She moves fluidly across fragrance families, distrusting any formula that would flatten the complexity of what she is trying to say. For Herbette, a fragrance is finished not when it performs a function, but when it makes someone feel something they cannot quite name.
The houses
Maisons Céline composes for
In the same league