When you first smell Folie à Plusieurs’ line of Le Cinéma Olfactif perfumes, you might detect sandalwood, nutmeg or musk. But the packaging lists the ingredients as “when eyes first meet,” “cold sweat breaks at night,” “this could be love,” “porcelain figurines forgotten by prayer” and “glitter powder” — the emotional essences of movies like “Mood Indigo,” “La Haine” and “Blow Up.” “Typically, you create a product and figure out how to make an experience,” says Kaya Sorhaindo, who founded the brand two years ago, and named it for the shared psychosis condition, folie à deux. “We wanted to look for new references, new areas of inspiration and not pull from the same pool as all of the other perfumeries.”
This led him to the introduction of the film-themed line, which represents the perfumer Mark Buxton’s response, in fragrance form, to specific on-screen moments. (“We never do any revisions,” Sorhaindo says. “There’s no feedback from our side, so it’s the purest iteration.”) In collaboration with Soho House Berlin and London — and now, New York, Chicago and West Hollywood — Sorhaindo and his team host viewings of the given movie and diffuse the scent on Buxton’s count. The seventh perfume premieres Monday on Folie’s newly launched website; based on Gaspar Noé’s “Enter the Void,” it’s perfect for those who want to smell like a mélange of “flickering silhouettes,” “lingerie falling from steel poles,” “checking into a fantasy,” “checking out of reality” and “post-death enlightenment” for spring.