Oliver Valverde
Oliver Valverde emerged from Madrid’s underground music scene, swapping turntables for scent bottles in his late twenties. After years as a sound technician and DJ, he taught himself candle making and perfumery while juggling a career in user‑experience design. In 2008 he launched a modest lab in a shared studio, experimenting with raw materials he sourced from local markets. A year later he unveiled his first public collection under the banner of January Scent Project, a line that blended the precision of digital design with the tactile pleasure of hand‑crafted fragrance. The success of that debut caught the eye of boutique retailers and earned him a spot in the avant‑garde community of independent noses. In 2015 he co‑founded Avant‑Garden Lab, a platform that pairs scent with visual art and invites collaborators to remix his formulas. Today Oliver balances three creative roles—designer, painter, perfumer—while continuing to release limited editions that echo the streets of Barcelona, the cafés of Madrid, and the quiet moments of his studio.
The hits
Notable creations
The signature
How Oliver composes
Oliver favors raw, unprocessed ingredients that retain their natural character. He works often with citrus zest, green leaves, and resinous woods, layering them over a base of soft musks that act like a quiet canvas. He avoids heavy synthetics unless they serve a precise function, preferring to let a single note breathe before adding complexity. His technique includes short‑batch distillation and hand‑poured wax blends, which let him adjust a formula minute by minute. He frequently experiments with cross‑sensory pairings, such as pairing a bright fig accord with a muted metallic note to echo the glow of a city at dusk. The result feels immediate, tactile, and unmistakably his.
Philosophy
What drives Oliver
Oliver treats scent as a language he can rewrite every day. He believes a fragrance should capture a single feeling rather than tell a sprawling story. His background in UX design teaches him to strip away excess and focus on the user’s immediate response; his paintings remind him that color and texture translate into aroma. He draws inspiration from urban soundscapes, the rhythm of a subway, and the scent of rain on concrete. For Oliver, each bottle is a dialogue between material and memory, a chance to turn a fleeting impression into something you can hold. He measures success by the moment a wearer smiles, not by awards or press.
The houses