Saigon Style

“I’m pretty laidback, and I try to keep everything in perspective,” laughs Kate. Still, she’s quick to point out that developing those all-important first products wasn’t exactly plain sailing. “In Saigon, I used to cycle to the local boulangerie to get bread for breakfast, and was struck by the beautiful scent of champa jasmine in the air,” she remembers. “It’s indigenous to Vietnam, and is totally different to the jasmine in Bangkok or the UK. I had this idea to make unusual fragrances using the plants I’d found in Vietnam – champa jasmine, delentii orchid, water hyacinth and agarwood – and I knew there were local factories who could make products like candles and diffusers for me. So I read the books, purchased the kits and thought: if other people have done this at home, then so can I. Well, it was impossible! Nothing worked the way I expected it to – for a start, the champa jasmine oil didn’t smell anything like the plant! My main problem was that I didn’t want to create just any old fragrance; I wanted to produce beautiful eau de parfum, which would sell in Harrods alongside luxury brands like Roja Dove and Frederic Malle. I realised there was a big gap between what I could do, and where I wanted to be.”

Fortuitously, help was at hand in the form of a chance lunch meeting with a New York-based perfumer, who was passing through Saigon. He loved Kate’s ideas, and so Cochine was born – on the back of a napkin in a French restaurant. Today, Kate sources the keynote oils for those beautiful scents from Vietnam, and works closely