Douglas Bender of Charenton Macerations  (Photo: Hope T. Davis)

Profile: Most of my family moved to America in the early 1800‘s, counting themselves amongst some of the earliest settlers of Pennsylvania and the Ohio. They immigrated from Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and England.  The Bender surname is Prussian, and is derived from what appears to be the early Bender specialty craft: the bending and shaping of wooden slats used to construct barrels for wine and ale storage.

Doug with his Dad gardening

I grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania, a small town just north of Pittsburgh, the youngest of three children and the only boy. As kids, my sisters and I spent a lot of time with our grandparents.  My grandfather, George Bender, was an avid beagler.  It was through his love of beagles that I first realized the power of my nose.  Beagles are amazing tracking dogs, gifted with an incredible sense of smell.  When I was 5 years old, Pap put me in charge of running Misty, a red beagle and lifelong champion.  I still remember taking Misty out into the fields, down on all fours, smelling and howling together.  The more I learned about her nose, the more I learned to appreciate (and use) my own.  Thus began my obsession with “smelly things.”  If it had an odor, I wanted to capture, catalog, and remember it.

When not playing outside, I was feeding my obsession for media. I read and watched everything I could get my hands on, enamored by the world beyond our small town.  Every night, I would close my eyes and dream of a new adventures waiting for me.  My room was always filled with clippings, notebooks, photographs, tapes… my possibilities for the future.

Doug as a senior at Vassar

I finally left Butler in 1996 to attend Vassar College.  Initially I was there to study medicine, but realized that my true passion for science was in the field of chemistry.  For me, chemistry involves breaking things down to their smallest pieces in to better understand their underlying relationships.  It’s like the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle.  Some of my most interesting chemical research involved examining mixtures housed inside Ancient Minoan and Mycenaean urns brought back by the Archeology Department.  Turns out these urns used to contain ancient perfumes.  My job was to analyze and recreate their formulae using gas chromatography: my first direct connection to the fragrance industry.

As a Liberal Arts institution, Vassar strongly encourages its students to explore disciplines outside their major, which led me to the Philosophy Department. There I met a great mentor of mine, Uma Narayan.  Uma reminded me of the historic relationship between science and philosophy by reintroducing me to Aristotle’s work on “natural philosophy,” illustrating how he had spent large portions of his life contemplating the objects of natural science (i.e. biology and physics).  The rational approach of the scientific method is deeply rooted in the philosophical world.  Uma also exposed me to the works of the Marquis de Sade, whom I would later write my senior research on (and name Charenton Macerations after).  Not only Sade’s writings on decadence, but his life itself, has been a major source of inspiration for my work.  I owe a great deal to Uma, as it was the combination of the two disciplines, chemistry and philosophy, that put me on the path to perfumery.  After graduating in 2000, I took my first job in the fragrance industry, working for a raw material supplier, and have been playing with perfume ever since.

American Perfumery: I see American Perfumery as a perfect mirror for the kaleidoscopic nature of American Culture: a multi-dimensional panoply of art, ritual, and tradition.  Those of us working in this world represent not only a varied and vibrant approach to fragrance creation, but also a wide spectrum of philosophical reasonings driving that creation. My own inspiration for fragrance creation stems from a fascination with the mixing of aesthetics, as well as a general love for storytelling. I founded Charenton Macerations as a collective: a group of artists, in and out of fragrance, coming together around a common inspirational thread.  Through our shared work, we collaborate and challenge each other, bringing seemingly divergent worlds together in order to make a larger statement.  Because of this process, my fragrances are assembled in a style similar to that of constructing a collage.  Each piece of that collage, each person’s contribution, is part of a larger unfolding story … a story meant to continue with each new wearer of the scent.

Robert Mapplethorpe Gardenia 1978

Favorite American Artist: While not American, my artistic interests are best summed up by the following words from René Magritte:“Everything we see hides another thing. We always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” I look for works of art touch me at my deepest emotional core; compositions of complex layering that make me want to experience them again and again: the erotic, the visceral, the surreal… the inescapable.  I long to unlock their secrets hidden within.   Take for example the photographic work of Robert Mapplethorpe, and how they compell us to confront our own definitions of morality.  I am in awe of how he was able to transform simple objects like flowers into larger iterations on human sexuality.  Mapplethorpe forced us to question our standards of “decency” all in one or two clicks of a camera.

Matthew Barney, Cremaster 1, 1995 and Movie Poster from 1977 Eraserhead

I am similarly drawn to the work of Matthew Barney. I consider his epic “Cremaster Cycle” to be a brilliant multimedia exploration of sexual development: pure potentiality brought to life.  This same fascination spills over into my love of film, where I have been known to worship at the altar of David Lynch.  From “Eraserhead” to “Mulholland Drive,” his jarrring dream worlds, not to mention his gift for distorting time and space, have had a huge impact on my own creative need to push the boundaries of traditional expression.   My personal tastes are tied to an exploration of decadence and this idea of desire and nature unbound.

– Douglas Bender, Founder of Charenton Macerations

Editor's Notes:  Doug and I spent 2 hrs on the phone, and spoke of matters more personal than professional.I will share that  during our conversation I learned that Doug is formerly Yann Vasnier's Assistant  when they were at Quest.  He is working on two new fragrances which will be remarkable, even more remarkable unlike other perfumers he is not rushing them to market even with retail pressure. If this is your first exposure to Christopher Street, it is an artistic collaboration with Ralf Schwieger and you can read Mark Behnke's review here.  The Charenton Macerations blog is recommended reading; one of my favorite posts is called You Smell Like A Girl. -Michelyn Camen

“Out of the Bottle, Into the Street”

For our draw, Doug is offering a ounce bottle of Christopher Street to a U.S reader. To be eligible please leave a comment about what you found fascinating (and there is so much, isn't there) about Doug Bender. Draw ends September 26, 2013

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