"Everyone's just winging it!" Lizzie Ostrom on being an outsider in fragrance

Meet Lizzie Ostrom, the pioneering fragrance specialist and
writer, who helped revolutionise how we experience perfume. Known
by her stage-persona "Odette Toilette", Lizzie identified a
crucial gap in the fragrance world fifteen years ago and created
her fun experimental fragrance events, where she would mix
fragrance with subjects like psychology, music and cinema. She is
also the author of Perfume: A Century of Scents which tells the
stories of one hundred fragrances through ten pivotal decades of
the twentieth century (including the iconic 99p body spray of the
1990s: Impulse 02).


We explore how her background in PR and early exposure to online
fragrance communities led to her breakthrough realisation that
there was nowhere to engage with perfume in a relaxed, accessible
way outside of intimidating beauty counters.


She also shares the story behind her groundbreaking Somerset
House exhibition and reflects on what made her events so popular.
We also touch on creativity, entrepreneurship and the art of
making meaningful connections through scent.