Can you bottle the smell of sex? Roja Dove has

Even if I didn’t know what Roja Dove, founder of luxury fragrance house Roja London looked like, I would still be able to spot him in a crowded room. His personal style mimics his bottles—dressed in opulence and accessorised with blinding bling. When I first met him at an intimate dinner in Mumbai in November 2025, he was dressed in a black, all-over-sequin jacket and the sparkliest brooch and rings that shone in my direction across the table. When we get on a video call a couple of weeks ago, he’s dressed down in an ocean-blue sweater—cashmere, of course—which is what he refers to as his off-duty style.

“I’m a very tactile person, so the way something feels is very important to me. I like things that feel lovely. Everything I do, everything I wear, is just because it makes me happy. Also, I never ever don’t wear jewellery; if I have any obsessions in life, they’re opera and jewellery. I would love to scent an opera at the Royal Opera House in London someday.”

His love for jewellery shows up in his crystal-encrusted perfume bottle caps, inspired by the stone on a ring of his that holds a private story. “I wanted the cap to be like a Christian Louboutin sole. If you knew what it was, you know what it is. And if you don’t, well, it’s just a sparkling cap.” Creating the iconic caps came with its own roadblocks. “I was told it was impossible to make the cap, which is, for anyone who is in the least bit creative, the worst thing anyone can say,” says the 69-year-old. “So, I sat in my office with a blank cap, sticking these crystals on the top by hand, to see whether I thought it looked lovely. And then the [vendor] said, ‘That’s great but it’s not possible.’ And I said, ‘I just made that. So, if it’s impossible, how does it exist? Your task is to find a company that will make it. And if not, I’ll sit and stick them on myself.’”

The legendary London-born nose started his journey in fragrance with a two-decade-long stint at a European luxury beauty and fragrance house. Then, in 2004, he launched the Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie at Harrods, and in 2011 took the leap with his own fragrance brand at the same store, selling out instantly.

“The beauty of fragrance is that it lingers with us forever,” he says. “It unlocks the doors of memories we thought we had forgotten and transports us there.” This is why he’s not a fan of traditional fragrance marketing. “I have such a strong view about a bottle of fragrance on a naked man’s stomach. That’s marketing and fragrance. The effect fragrance has is something else. It conjures [memories]. It’s like a wonderful silent magician that will make you stop dead in your tracks.”

He lets us into his world, recommending shopping for fragrances alone, suggesting that we don’t dis AI altogether, and reminding you to always check the cafe menu before you take a seat.

Yes, there is a foolproof way to buy a fragrance you will actually use

“Listening to your friends is the most common mistake you can make when shopping for a fragrance for yourself. Fragrance is such a personal thing. And if your friend says a scent is horrible, you have to have a very strong personality to ignore them. Always go by yourself. I think blotters are the most useful tool in the world, but they’re no more useful than looking at a garment on a hanger. Their job is to give you the idea of the shape of something. It’s only when you put it on your skin that you bring it to life.... A perfume is just like a lover. You will only know if the relationship will work when you spend a night together and live with it. What is the point of rushing and then regretting the money you spent? We don’t want any doomed love affairs. We only want ones that work. And that’s in the interest of everyone—the consumer, the retailer, and the creator.”

Billboards really don’t cut it for him

“I think traditional advertising is all so clichéd, tired, and formulaic. When I walk through an airport and I see a photograph of a well-known person, does that mean I could become that person if I buy [what they’re holding]? Also, people go on and on about ingredients. For my entire working career, I’ve always said, I wish people wouldn’t, because most people have no idea how most raw materials smell. Talk about how a fragrance makes you feel, the effect that fragrance has when you walk into a room. How a fragrance might make you feel emotionally is important.”

He’s actually pro-AI

“I think AI is a really good tool to break through a lot of the noise. It will play an incredibly important part for people making first selections. The consumer is becoming more sophisticated, and that comes through awareness. You can come into a store having discovered certain scents using AI. But then sitting down with a human being for a proper fragrance consultation, somebody who really knows what they’re talking about, not somebody who’s just trying to sell to you [makes the difference]. I’ve always believed that if people don’t try to sell, they’ll always sell more.”

But he’s iffy about buying virtually before trying

“Trying to find your perfect scent online is a little bit like a dating app. Can you find your love for a lifetime on a dating app? Some people do. While online you might not find the perfect one for a lifetime, you might find one that makes you feel happy now, which is a good thing, too. Even when you walk into a perfumery shop or a department store, it’s like going into a nightclub. You might meet the perfect person, but you would also meet a lot of toads in the room.”

He created the smell of sex

“The most unusual event I ever scented without question was at the Barbican Centre in London. They put on a very serious exhibition on social attitudes towards sex from antiquity and I was asked to create the smell of sex. It was a very proper, old-fashioned, cologne-style fragrance, which, when warmed up on the skin, smelled like a crotch. I attended the opening night and I remember telling people to wait a minute and smell it again, and they went “Ah!”, which was followed by them saying that they rather liked it.”

His most outrageous experience involved a scoop, not a spritz

“I was in Monte Carlo and it was horrendously hot. I walked past a little cafe and saw somebody eating a bowl of ice cream and I thought, I would really love to have this. So, I sat down and ordered a small bottle of sparkling water and a scoop of ice cream. I finished them, and it was delicious, and it was just what I wanted. I felt very happy with myself. And then the bill came and it cost nearly 50 euros. And I sat there and laughed because I thought it was so fabulously outrageous. The cafe was absolutely packed with people. If I’d known, I would have never stopped there.”

Layering fragrances? Yeah, maybe not

“I think the thing that people should always have in mind is that a perfumer takes months anguishing on the dosage of a single raw material [to create a fragrance]. I also make another comparison often. You might like Mozart but you also like Guns N’ Roses or Led Zeppelin. If you play both at the same time, what do you end up with? That is the answer. One thing that I don’t know if people think to do sometimes is to put a scent on one part of your body and put another scent on another part of your body rather than putting one on top of another. That’s worth trying.”

The feeling he would like to bottle is one he can’t

“If it was possible to capture absolute happiness and put it in a bottle, how nice would that be? You can be having the most horrible of all days, and you spray a little bit of perfume, and suddenly you feel much better about yourself. If it were possible in the most abstract ways to create the scent of happiness [I would do it], which, of course, it never will be, because happiness is unique to each one.”