Olivier Durbano
Born in Cannes and raised in Grasse, the historic heart of French perfumery, Olivier Durbano grew up surrounded by lavender fields and the scent‑laden air of the Côte d’Azur. He earned an architecture degree in Lyon, where he learned to read space, light, and material. After a decade designing jewelry and interiors, he returned to his childhood love of scent, translating the geometry of buildings into fragrant structures. In 2018 he launched Parfums de Pierres Poèmes, a line that pairs each perfume with a semi‑precious stone from his own collection. The debut scent, Black Tourmaline, captured the stone’s grounding energy and earned immediate attention from niche collectors. Since then Durbano has released eighteen more compositions, each named after a crystal and crafted to echo its vibration. He splits his time between his studio in Grasse and a workshop in Paris, where he continues to fuse mineral lore, poetic narrative, and architectural precision.
The hits
Notable creations
The signature
How Olivier composes
Olivier Durbano builds his scents like an architect builds a façade. He starts with a mineral accord—often a fine powder of crushed quartz or a trace of volcanic ash—then layers natural absolutes such as Bulgarian rose, Sicilian bergamot, and Indian sandalwood. He favors transparent bases of ambergris or labdanum that let the stone’s character shine through. Each formula follows a strict proportion, a blueprint he refines by hand. He avoids synthetic shortcuts, preferring raw materials that age gracefully on the skin, revealing new facets over hours.
Philosophy
What drives Olivier
Olivier Durbano treats each fragrance as a poem etched onto stone. He believes that minerals store memory, and that scent can translate that memory into the skin. When he selects a crystal, he studies its color, hardness, and cultural myth before composing a formula that mirrors its vibration. The creative spark comes from a dialogue between tactile and aromatic, where a single drop of essential oil can echo the stone’s pulse. Spiritual curiosity drives him to explore how light refracts through quartz and how that moment can be captured in amber, citrus, or resin. The result is a collection that feels both intimate and elemental.
The houses