Gino Percontino
Gino Percontino fell into perfumery almost by accident. He was deep into a chemistry degree, charting a path toward medical school, when a lab technician position at a fragrance house pulled him off course. He never looked back. That senior perfumer he worked alongside became an early mentor whose influence still echoes in how Gino approaches a brief. By 2002, he had joined Robertet Group. Three years later, he moved to Fragrance Resources, where his palate sharpened and his voice as a creator began to take shape. Drom recruited him in 2014 for their downtown Manhattan studio, placing him alongside veterans like Jean-Claude Delville and Agnes Mazin. He brought that same intensity when MANE hired him as Senior Perfumer in 2015. A staple on the industry circuit, Percontino has represented MANE at The Fragrance Foundation's Miami events and earned a spotlight during International Fragrance Day for his steady hand and unexpected ideas.
The hits
Notable creations
The signature
How Gino composes
Minimalism with dramatic tension defines everything Percontino builds. He works with a disciplined hand, often starting from a single accords before expanding outward to see how materials will collide. Pepper in its many forms—black, pink, Sichuan—turns up repeatedly as a structuring agent in his work, lending brightness and a quietly animal heat. His fragrances tend to move in clear lines: an opening that announces itself, a middle that shifts rather than drifts, a finish that lands rather than fades. He gravitates toward ingredients with inherent character, things that do not require layering to prove themselves. The result reads as sophisticated without ornamentation, the kind of scent that holds attention because every element earns its place.
Philosophy
What drives Gino
Gino Percontino does not follow convention, and he will tell you that plainly. He likes to break the mold and create sophisticated scents that feel unexpected, even strange, without tipping into chaos. His instinct is to strip things down, to find the essential note in a formula, then introduce a sharp contrast that makes the whole composition lean forward. He has called his own style minimalist, but the word deserves context coming from him: it does not mean quiet or safe. It means controlled intensity, a focus on what a fragrance needs to do instead of what it couldinclude. Pepper, specifically, has long held a place close to his nose and his identity.
The houses
Maisons Gino composes for
In the same league