Shopping for scent
Patience and hard work needed to succeed in niche professions, Yu Ran reports.
In the past decade, a large number of niche occupations have emerged to help young people get their ideal jobs that seem to combine interest with income, as well as offer new alternatives to evade some tougher fields. However, the reality is far crueler than their dreams.
For 23-year-old Lou Tianyou, co-founder of Mobius Fragrances, it took him almost eight years to become a qualified perfumer after experiencing curiosity, complacency and failure.
Lou got a chance to learn how to compose fragrances for perfumery products at the age of 15 from a French perfumer who came to China for a tour. After two to three years of practice, he believed that he was capable of creating the perfumes and felt confident enough to launch his own brand when he turned 18. Unfortunately, the failure smashed his pride into pieces.
“I used to think being a perfumer was pretty easy, but the more time I spent on exploring fragrances and techniques, the more I found that I had to obtain step-by-step knowledge if I wanted to be a distinguished perfumer,” says Lou, who grew up with the scent of incense stored in his childhood memory.
The failure forced him to realize that there was no shortcut to gain success. Therefore, he spent three years to understand raw materials of fragrances and another three years on enhancing his techniques, and knowledge of regulations and organic chemistry.
“Through years of exploring, I’ve started to learn the meaning of fragrance, which can be expressed with feelings, emotions and understanding of what I’ve experienced, just like words that I can write down,” says Lou, who is currently a third-year student majoring in material science at Pennsylvania State University in the United States.
In Lou’s mind, a professional perfumer should be sensitive to discover the mystery in the raw materials like a scientist and be creative to have an aesthetic concept on creating the perfumes like an artist.
“It is essential to master certain professional knowledge to ensure that the mixture of chemicals is safe, so composing a fragrance is like doing a chemistry experiment with artistic elements, and the perfume is a combination of chemical products and artwork,” says Lou.
In April, his perfume Divined was nominated as one of the finalists for the Art and Olfaction Awards, which has similar reputation as the Cannes awards in the film industry.
It was the first achievement of his second brand, Mobius Fragrances, which was launched in 2018, in China, during Lou’s gap year. The brand has cooperated with many fragrance companies since then. Lou was inspired by traditional Chinese raw materials for fragrances and applied Western techniques to showcase his special memories and feelings attached with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, with Divined.
“There is never a lack of nice scents in the world, but a lack of the special scent that evokes the memories and allows people to have spiritual resonance. That’s my main focus and determined goal,” says Lou, who is also keen to discover and introduce traditional Chinese scents to the world.
In the past two years, Lou noticed that young people contacted him to inquire about how to become a perfumer because they thought it is a cool and simple occupation. Most of them changed their minds after being told it required many years of knowledge about materials, organic chemistry and so on.
“However heated-up it looks like at the moment, it eventually will be a niche industry as this seemingly cool occupation requires not only talent but also sufficient patience, continuous hard work and professional knowledge of years,” adds Lou.
From 2019 to 2021, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security issued notices on 56 new occupations to the public. The list added 18 new occupations in June.
“The new occupations became hot topics on the internet, allowing young people to choose their careers with interest, but the seemingly popular niche jobs mostly require high-standard ability to offer personalized services,” says Yu Hai, a sociology professor at Fudan University.
The occupation of personal shopper is raising the interest of young female job seekers. Wang Yan from Xiamen, Fujian province, tried it in 2017, with the intention of having more to do whatever interested her and spend valuable time with her two kids.
It seems appealing to young women because “we can dress up in exquisite outfits, have access to luxury goods, deal with wealthy people and earn thousands of yuan (in short time),” says Wang.
She took a two-month training course on image management in 2017 after working at an e-commerce company for a few years. She then worked as a tutor in the training institution and as a freelance personal shopper for three years. She found that the seemingly glamorous job actually requires more hard work than she had imagined.
A personal shopper has to discuss with the client the details such as her personalities, preferences of clothing, current fashion styles, future plans and target styles, usually for about two hours before on-site shopping. During the shopping, a personal shopper has to provide five to six sets of outfits within two hours to meet the requirements. The client still may contact the shopper for advice on styling afterward.
“Image consultant is the professional term of ‘personal shopper’, which sounds like our duty is just to help the clients buy clothes, but we have to offer far more detailed and customized services with great effort for our clients,” says Wang.
She also spent time on studying fashion design, styling and psychology because she gradually realized that a qualified image consultant must obtain a variety of knowledge to be able to read the minds and understand the precise demands of the clients.
This job was far more challenging than she expected and she noticed that some of her fellow personal shoppers had given up, while many young people lost interest after learning about the professional responsibilities.
“Take the example of personal shopper, the position requires the imagination of a designer, vision of a psychologist, persuasion of an insurance agent, and more importantly, communication and interactive abilities, which are too challenging for most young people,” says Yu from Fudan.
In 2019, Wang launched Shangyan Image, with the slogan “so young” in order to share her experience with more people who are willing to be image consultants and offer services to more ordinary clients instead of wealthy people only. In 2021, Wang introduced online courses for people who wanted to be confident with their outlook and online training courses for talents who wanted to be image consultants, in addition to providing personal shopping services for the wealthy.
“With image management, everyone is able to become more charming, and turn stylish in outlook, and confident and full of energy,” says Wang.
There is never a lack of nice scents in the world, but a lack of the special scent that evokes the memories and allows people to have spiritual resonance. That’s my main focus and determined goal.”
Lou Tianyou, co-founder of Mobius Fragrances