№18 – How to Become a Fabric & Home Care Perfumer at Mane with William Levi-Valle

Who is a Fabric and Home Care Perfumer? Meet William Levi-Valle, who holds this title at MANE, one of the global leaders in fragrance and flavor. William shares his journey, including choosing educational paths and career opportunities, and (we particularly like this) embracing international moves. He also discusses the importance of maintaining a business mindset in his role.

And remember, don’t try to connect all the dots for your journey beforehand. William talks about this and how he stays open to new opportunities.

Explore More Resources:

• Discover more about MANE.
• Connect with William on LinkedIn here.
• William mentioned Mane’s Captive Aqual™
• Explore the game William mentions, Outer Wilds on Wikipedia.

Ever dreamt about going to space? Connect with Tanya!

• https://www.instagram.com/neparfumer/
• https://www.coachmironova.com/

Transcript

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I think that the students maybe only focus on the result and they don't focus on the journey, and they try to connect the dots before starting the journey. You know, for me, now that I know my story, it's so easy to connect the dots, but I don't know, 10 years ago, for me, it was impossible to predict that uh I would be recording a podcast with you about Fabric care today, you know. Hi and welcome to the How I Became a Perfumer podcast. In each episode, we explore the different roles in the flavor and fragrance industry, as well as talk to founders of independent projects. My name is Tanya Mironova. I'm a career coach dedicated to helping you sniff out the best opportunities and inspiring you to create your own projects. Feel free to book a coaching session with me using the links in the description box. And let's get started. My guest for the today's episode is William Levi Walle, fabric and home care perfumer at the US Office of Mane, one of the worldwide leaders of the flavor and fragrance industry. William, welcome to the show. Hi, Tania. uh Thank you for inviting me to the show and I'm really happy to be here with you today. Well, thank you for accepting my invitation. I'm also very pleased. So the first question will be as direct as it might be. Who is a fabric and home care perfumer? Wow, that's a tough one to start. uh I would say that uh it's someone that is interested in uh perfumery as a creative process but needs a real strong uh knowledge and understanding of science behind the perfumery because ah with fabric and home care, We are facing a lot of technical challenges and we really need this basic uh scientific knowledge, I think, and to be really open to uh rethink our creativity through this more scientific process. Basically what you just said is, you know, reminded me one of the YouTube yoga teachers who says like, do you want a challenge? And it seems like these type of perfumers is exactly the one who wants challenge. Is it so? yeah, for sure. I'm not saying that there's no challenge in other categories. Just saying that it's maybe a different challenge for fabric and home care. Because for example, when I speak with my fellow perfumers of fine fragrance, ah we don't really speak the same language. I think we are doing totally different jobs. And that's something that has really changed, I think, uh now because... I really think that in the past perfumers could really work cross categories and be good at everything. But now as we need more and more expertise in each and every category, uh I think it makes totally sense to have uh fully dedicated fabric perfumer, shampoo perfumer and fine fragrance perfumer. So yeah, we work in the same... field but not exactly the same team. So if I hear you correctly, you're saying that the world has become more complicated and the applications you work on maybe are more complicated than it was previously when one perfume could work. Yeah, the consumers are expecting more than they were expected before. uh now, for example, in a bottle of liquid laundry detergent, you have a fragrance, but you have tons of technologies too that help the fragrance to be performing. And this evolution, the perfumers, we have to adapt because uh if you start with a real good fragrance, uh you could have a really bad surprise when you put that into your liquid laundry detergent. You will have to adapt these fragrance to the base. uh And for example, when you work on micron capsulation, which is one of my uh expertise at Mann, uh it's a totally different approach. uh So uh if you want the smell to be the same or to be performing uh In all stages, it means that, for example, when you open the bottle, when you open your machine after the wash, uh when you open a dryer, for example, in the US, we use dryers. The consumers, don't care about the technologies behind uh all this process. They just want the fabric to smell good. and uh to be performing. So we need to adapt our knowledge and our expertise to all these new challenges that are becoming real from our consumers. Well, apart from hearing that you're working on a very interesting and very difficult stuff, I want to ask this question I have been having for quite a while, and you mentioned micro encapsulation, and some people will right now turn off their podcasts because they will think that we go that direction. Now we will return to William's career journey, but I've recently read an article with one company which specializes in this type of technology, again offering it to another perfume house, not as big as an influential as Mon. However, is it so that each house has its own technologies in that regard? Yeah, the thing is that all these technologies are patented by the house of perfumery. for example, I assume that a man's technology for microencapsulation is not the same as our competitors. And because we protect our technology, they protect their technology. But the main goal is to deliver fragrance uh on dry fabric for everyone. So yeah, the goal is the same. I imagine that the science is not exactly the same behind that. yeah, of course you have some uh regulation differences between regions, but uh for a company like MAN, uh it's really important that our technology can be used safely in every country of the world because our consumers are all around the world. Yeah, well thank you. You're giving uh such good answers, like you know, very up to the point. Everything is clear to me and I believe to our listeners as well. So, um since it's not a scientific podcast but the career one, we will return to our questions. But thank you for elaborating on that for me specifically. I remember from our sound test that probably you've mentioned that you were interested in this particular type of products from the beginning, if I'm not... mistaken. It has developed. I can describe my journey because it's kind of a roller coaster. But I hope it can be inspiring for young students or people that just want to work in this industry. First, I never wanted to be a perfumer. Okay, like just you're not a typical guest already so uh It's not like I actively didn't want to be a perfumer. It's like uh I was not collecting flower samples or whatever the child. uh I wanted to be a film director then a rock star then I don't remember exactly but perfumery arrived really late in my life. uh I studied like science in high school. And I was not a really good scientist. I think it was because uh my friends were studying science, be honest. And then I had the opportunity to visit a flavors company in the south of France. uh wow, it was crazy because uh I could taste, I remember it was strawberry, apple, even something that tasted like meat and everything. came from chemistry, so there was this link between what I was studying and something that was somehow artistic. And the head of R &D at the time, Vincent Carpentier, he told me about IZIPCA, the school in Versailles, when you can study flavors, fragrance, and cosmetics. uh Okay, this is what I want to do. And at the time, I didn't want to do perfumery. I was really into flavors. And now I don't remember why I changed my mind and went to perfumery, to be honest. I tried to enter to the... It was the master at the time at Izipka. I remember something that a teacher from Izipka told us, a really famous perfumer. I won't say his name, but he told us that... uh in this class, if you are not doing your internship as a perfumer, forget about being a perfumer, it won't be possible. And it was so wrong, so wrong, because you know what, I remember that in our class, there was only one girl that was doing her internship as a perfumer. I think in the end, we were like 20, 20 students and half of us are perfumers right now and she's not a perfumer anymore I think so yeah that was wrong so there is no path I think there is no path to become a perfumer Just one thing I wanted to just highlight that somebody, just one teacher, told a thing which in your case didn't work out. So sometimes teachers might be wrong. Yeah, I think I was wrong. uh after graduating from IZIPKA, I didn't want to be a perfumer at the time because I just wanted to work in the industry. But there was something I really liked about the perfumery. It was not the uh artistic part of it, but more the craftsmanship. behind Perfury because I see my job more as craftsmanship than as art because uh I receive a brief from clients. I won't create the fragrance I want. I will create the fragrance my customer wants with some parameters like price, like regulation and everything. So I'm not free to create exactly what I want, but I need to put my creativity at the service of the customer. It's exactly what I really like. Going back to uh Izipka, I met this perfumer, uh Philippe Collet. Hold on to that name because I think it's the most important person in my career so far. We had a really good connection and he asked me, okay, you want to work in the field? He was working for Expression Parfumée, which is not so small, but at the time it was small. a company in the south of France, in Grasse. And I had this interview to work as an evaluator at the time. And I don't really remember how we ended with this idea, but they told me, oh we really like your profile because uh I think I was really uh business-oriented, aware of how the industry works. Yeah, but also that right now you are saying, just sort of interrupted, but that you see and feel these differences. You're the first person, in fact, who emphasized it during the podcast between art and craftsmanship. So you do see oh that the value you could provide to a client. Exactly. so they told me, we want to open a new office in Mexico. ah Are you interested? can hire ah you uh in Grasse for three years and you will be working in all areas of the company. And this is what I did. I worked in the labs in evolution in production for two months during winter, even if it's south of France winter, it's still winter. uh It's really interesting to be in the contact of the industrial part of our job to see this tons of fragrances flowing in the production facilities. And so I think that was key in my career, in these three years with them, because I had a really good vision of how a fragrance company works and the different interactions you can have uh in a company and what our job really is to provide uh fragrances for our customers. The project of new office in Mexico with Express Parfumé had an issue and failed. Hmm. I worked with them for more than one year as a perfumer, but for fine fragrance and cosmetics because that was their main field. I love that. I love that because I was in the contact of the Romatills. uh I could think my formulas and I think I was really thinking my formulas more as a scientist than as a... uh as an artist, you know, I really liked small and really logical formulas, I would say. And they are John Mann, directly in Mexico. And they hired me to work as a fine fragrance and personal care perfumer. And I think I was really bad at it because after three months, my boss, she told me, okay, do you want to do home and fabric here? And that was totally new for me, but yeah, yeah, I will take the challenge because I was feeling that uh fine fragrance and personal care was not really for me. And it was the best decision of my life, I think, because I think that when I started to understand how to create a home or fabric care formula, it's when I truly understood my job. what uh I liked about my job. The technical approach of, uh for example, for a fabric softener, need linearity. means that the consumer expects the fragrance to smell the same on wet fabric and on dry fabric. It's super difficult because you don't have the same volatility of raw uh materials. to use their creativity and to cheat a little bit, you know, uh to make them think that this is exactly the same molecules that they smell on wet and on dry fabrics. wow, but these are different. Yeah, basically for, uh I think it's more than the same for shampoo, for example, because the consumers are expecting this kind of linearity. uh For example, if you are uh creating a really basic apple for a softener, you will create three apples. One for the open bottle, one for the wet stage. and one for the dry stage. So you can really go with uh infinite formulas, then your work is to simplify and optimize everything. But yeah, uh it's complicated because you have to think uh about three stages when you are formulating one new fragrance. Wow, like looking at you when you are saying all that, I feel like you are either very, feel very cool ah that you are accepting another challenge every time. And yeah, you sound like a magician when you are saying all that. It's more science than magic. That's the good news, I think, that everyone can do that. But uh yeah, you have to be really, really well organized, I think, uh to work in this uh category because raw material testing, for example, is key because you have to test some raw materials in different stages. uh open bottle and you could have a uh terrible performance on wet stage for example, but uh then on dry fabric, wow, this is super surprising and I will use that uh for my development. And then you start creating like your library of chords that work well uh on dry fabric and you play with that. It's really... easy in perfumery, think, to be overwhelmed ah by the different approaches you have with a problem. uh if it's easier to add new raw materials than to remove raw materials, but I think it's much more efficient to remove raw materials on the formula than it is to add them. Because I remember when I started as a young perfumer, ah sometimes you just watch or you review your formula and you just don't understand what you are doing because you have like, I don't know, more than uh 80 or 90 raw materials, different raw materials in your formula. And it's a mess and you're losing time. optimizing everything afterwards than if you were working well, I would say, from the start. Well, that's interesting. But m I will use again uh the opportunity as a host to ask you oh one more technical question before we will move to another topic. But this technical question is whether those laundry detergents, I will ask specifically about them, which don't have smell, don't have scent. Do they still really have a scent which masks this unpleasant scent which laundry products usually have? you mean for example, the fragrance free liquid. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that they just don't have fragrance and the brands they have to work hard on base to make it less smelly than regular detention base. But no, if they are fragrance free, they are fragrance free. Well, thank you. know, one thing which really caught my attention, when you were describing your, I would say, childhood, the time before Ysipka, before you even found out that this profession exists, when you wanted to be a rock star, as it was in one of the songs, you realized when you entered this flavor facility that you want something artistic in your life to be present. I don't know if it's going to be easy to answer, but how did it feel? What was that for you? I was not really thinking about it, I think, as I had a really happy childhood and I was a really happy teenager. uh But I was not thinking about I heart and creativity in my life. But uh now uh I remember it and I think there was always like heart and creativity in my life. For example, as a kid I was drawing a lot. ah Even later, as a teenager, I was drawing a lot. uh For me it was uh natural to play the music. ah And uh there was something... I've always been really into movies, but I was really interested in the... uh You know, the making of the movies, how they do that. I think that it's really linked to my approach of perfumery. for example, uh one director I really like uh is James Cameron, because he pushes the technology to the next level uh in order to create emotion. in his movies and exactly uh what I try to do at Man with fabric hair. I really like this analogy. you know, another thing which really caught my attention about you, that you were accepting every challenge as it comes. We just want to ask whether you felt resistant at some points, like, oh, well, I want to do flavors and they are offering me a value-added job. Because in your story, it sounds like everything went very smoothly. You didn't feel any tension to this Johnny. No, there are times when you doubt about yourself. Before joining Man, when all this uh new Mexico's office idea with the expression Parfumé failed, I was really bad moment, I think, in my career because I was stuck. You know what? You have to follow your instinct. You have to accept that luck is an important player in your career. because it's a small world, fragrance is a small world, so you have to meet the good people. If I have not met Philippe Collet, for example, in Mr. Waffenwelle, I would not be there. It's a fact. But I think that the students, maybe, they only focus on the result, and they don't focus on the journey, you And they try to connect the dots before starting the journey. But for me, now that I know my story, it's so easy to connect the dots. I don't know, 10 years ago, for me, it was impossible to predict that uh I would be recording a podcast with you about Fabric care today. So yeah, have to follow your instinct. Every experience teaches you something about you. I remember this uh really boring question during interviews when the... someone asks you what's your strength. oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I love those. I know I'm a perfectionist. Now I really can answer this question because I know myself and I know myself because of of the experiences I had in my career. So I think, yeah, for your instinct, everything won't make any sense before you will be connecting the dots in the interiors, I think. Well, that's perfect. I really love everything you've just said and reiterate it many times. We know that your journey did not stop in Mexico. What was next? In Mexico, I had two experiences. The first one is what like pure perfumery work for four years for home and laundry care. in 2020, I had the opportunity to become a manager. So I took the responsibility of the creation team. I managed, we were four perfumers at the time. And it was really, really interesting because as I said, I'm really like business-oriented. through this experience, had the opportunity to, uh you know, be involved in the strategy of the company, to know the customers, to see how you elaborate a plan with the management, with the sales and everything, and how you turn that into a fragrance that you will sell to a customer, and then you say you... your results and we were really successful during this year. I'm glad I could participate to this success with the team. It makes sense, you know, I really like when you have like this strategy, this plan to grow in a very difficult and challenging area like fabric and home care. And with creativity of a team you achieve like a really really strong result. I'm very happy that you really had this mindset which you could use in your work because like you're business oriented, of course it's a managerial type of thing which should be really present in the team. And the fact that you are possessing these skills and they were very highly assessed by your company, to me it really deserves respect for both you and for Man for making these choices. Thank you. And yeah, then after four years in Mexico, I asked for a change because life in Mexico City can be really stressful and I didn't choose Mexico because they gave me two options at the time. It was South Africa or Mexico and I was with my girlfriend at the time. She told me, okay, let's go to Mexico. oh We went to Mexico. We really loved Mexico. It's an incredible country. uh The quality of life you can have in Mexico is really good because uh the Mexicans are really friendly. uh There is no uh big cultural difference between European and Mexican. think we have lot of stuff in common. So it was really easy to make friends and to have a social life in Mexico. And the food is incredible in Mexico. And I'm not just talking about the Mexican food, but in Mexico City, I've been to the best restaurants in my life because the Mexicans, are really good at mixing their Mexican approach to Korean food, to... French food, Italian food, etc. So it's really interesting and it's a beautiful country to visit. It's incredible. You have everything in Mexico. But Mexico City, it's one of the biggest cities in the world, one of the busiest cities in the world. Three years ago, we had a daughter. Oh, congratulations. understand that it was three years ago, but still you're a father. Yeah, young father. yeah, with the kids, Mexico City can be tough. And uh we wanted like a change, you know, to find a place that could be not as fast as Mexico City with less commute. so they offered us the opportunity to go to the US and now we are in New Jersey. So it's a really small small city New Jersey, but I really like New Jersey so far because I think this is a really good balance living in New Jersey because uh you have all the good stuff from the small cities, almost counter-sized, you you can go hiking in a 10 minutes drive, you have tons of options for sports, for hiking, for everything, and you have New York City, it's like a one hour uh from where we live. So it's a really good balance. It's a really good balance. You really like it. Yeah, I'm happy for you and for your family that it happened. And also sounds like, you know, that Mon is just such a big company that they can allow themselves to have employees in different places and just transfer them that easily. Sounds amazing. Yeah, it's all a process to move internally because uh I don't have the exact number but we are a lot of perfumers uh working at L'Anne so sometimes it's difficult to move but yeah, they try to make things easy for you. I think the most important thing in a career is try to... plan a little bit. You cannot expect a company to make it happen in one month, but if you anticipate a little bit, they would try to help you because it's a win-win for everyone, I think. I believe for you it was very important that the role your company took in this relocation. It's always great because I know that relocating is tough. I I've been relocating through Europe in the last eight years, six times. And I know that if you don't have a company which supports you in that journey, it might be a very difficult one, especially with a family, to a new culture, luckily to the same category. Yeah, exactly. And the good thing is that uh the US market for laundry care is not so different from the Mexican market. That was my next question. Yeah, well, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, you know what, because Mexico is North America. It's not South America. A lot of people think that we have all Latin America that's a block, it doesn't really work. Exactly. Exactly. I think that the Mexican market is closer to the US market than it is from the Brazilian market. Brazilian markets. different from Mexico and uh I've been working on some Brazilian project and I was trying so much to understand exactly what I wanted because it was really different and when I started working on a project for the US from Mexico but uh it was for the US, yeah some adjustments but all the fragrances you had in your collection from Mexico they You could use that as a good starting point and then try to build on top of this fragment. Have you ever thought, it will be my last question for this part, that you have, just the idea is that have you thought that your approach to things is really different than approach of many other people? So that have you thought that you really have some other skills, some other mindset which helps you to work? I don't know. You know, I think that... Well, it's tough question. It is, it is. But the idea is not exactly what you thought, but have you thought about it? Because when I'm listening to you, I feel like you are different, but it's my opinion. And I'm interested if people who have these different mindsets have thought about themselves as having a different mindset or not. I've never thought about it, about my mindset. As I said, going back to this uh boring question during interviews, uh what's your strength and your areas of improvement. uh Once you know yourself, I think it's so much easier to build on your strength and to be just better at what you do, I think. uh Now I'm not trying to be someone else, know, for example, if talking about perfumers, you have this picture of really creative perfumers or really artistic perfumers. And I think that when I was really young, I wanted to be this guy, you know, because that was the only reference I had for the perfume. And now I don't want to be this guy. I'm really happy that this guy do what they do, but I want to do my things differently. And I don't think that perfumery uh is for uh artists only. uh I think you can be really good at it uh when you are mixing your creativity and your scientific and pragmatic approach and business oriented approach to uh to uh projects. This episode should be called the art of mixing, you know, because this is still art. Yeah, well, I really love your answers, William, and I really love talking to you. And I have a few more questions, but in another format, like a Blitz format. Are you ready? So the first one, one ingredient you cannot imagine working without. We have a captive atman, which is an explosive molecular which is called aqual. It's not the sexiest molecule ever. It's super strong for fabric air but I couldn't work without that. Very interesting. We will also leave the link to this captive in the description. What's the last scent you smelled yesterday? The last tent was a a fragrance for a dish I made because I'm working on dish too. And it is a citrus aromatic, really marine note. wanted to work on marine notes. as well. Well, I always when the guests saying something like that wonder how it smelled but I believe like in a few years it's going to be possible for us to smell things at a distance. So the most challenging fabric scent to create. I think it's like uh Gourmand notes, microncapsulation. Well, I feel what you're saying because each time I smelled something like that, they smelled a little bit artificial. Like it may be not the best word to describe it, but... It's not just about the smell, only it's the technical challenge it is to encapsulate this kind of frightness because for encapsulation I won't enter too much into details but you have really strict rules for your creations uh just in order to be technically possible and all the aromatales you use for this... gourmand kind of fragrances, are all in the blacklist. And this is when you have to use your creativity. So how do I do really direct vanilla for microencapsulated fragrance without using all this stuff? Well, best fragrance you've ever developed for a laundry product. Best in your opinion. Not necessarily for the market or for other evaluators or perfumers. Yeah, there is this fragrance that I tried on a different basis. In the beginning it was a liquid laundry fragrance and then we tried that as a and then I tried that as a scent booster, know, like the scent beads like you had during your process. And it worked in every basis, it was a really good surprise to see that it's a really, really good fragrance that uh can perform in every basis in our fabric field. m So it sounds like if it's a send booster that it just highlighted the send of other. Saint Boutreaux are like small beads with a really high amount of fragrance in them and you add them to your washing process and it just like delivers a huge boost of fragrance. Well, okay, I got it. So, thank you again for the comment, not the Bleeds question one, but still very useful. If you were not a perfumer, we already have a few answers to that, but what profession would you have pursued? Knowing yourself right now, I would add. Maybe there is something you would recommend for the listeners to inspire them. Maybe even not related to perfumery. that's tough. I will recommend a video game actually. Look, I couldn't have guessed. uh a video game that obsessed me. It's not really famous, it is called Outer Wilds. I've never heard about a nutrition. And basically, it is a video game that places you as an astronaut and you are locked in a loop when the solar system will end after 22 minutes. Each time you die, you just go back to the beginning of the loop and you have to find why the solar system is... dying and how to fix that. And I think it is exactly what I like about my job. It is a good mix of science because you are an astronaut and you are like, uh you are traveling from one planet to another. And in each planet, you will find a puzzle to solve and the problem to fix. it asks you some really profound questions like the meaning of life. Sometimes you just have to let it go. For example, when you hear the music that is telling you that the solar system is starting collapsing and you don't have time to finish what you were doing but you know that. you will be able to go back in a few minutes. So you just wait and watch the solar system collapsing. I think that it's really, uh really beautiful, to be honest. Here I'm totally bored. And like is the number of rounds limited or not? Because like you said that one round is 22 minutes. So you could take as many rounds as possible or... Yeah, exactly. And you know, you could finish the game in theory in 22 minutes. If you knew exactly what to do, you could finish the game in 22 minutes. And what I really like about this game is that you cannot play it again. Because once you know how to fix everything... you lose all the interest of the game because you just rush and you finish it in 22 minutes. So it's not interesting. It's one experience only and then you will have to live with the memory of this fabulous experience. That was again a very special recommendation. So thank you, William. I enjoyed talking to you and I really wish you all the successes. Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you. you