Perfumer
Ashley Santiago is a Californian with Mexican roots and the youngest perfumer at Givaudan’s Paris office. With her husband Adrien Ollat she founded the house French Cowboy, for which she makes perfumes inspired by food and drink, such as Vanilla for Breakfast and Mezcal Chocolat.
She got into perfume at university, while working at Ministry of Scent, a niche perfumery in San Francisco, where the perfumers Ineke Ruhland and Yosh Han taught her the basics. In 2016 she went to ISIPCA, then to the Givaudan Perfumery School, where Calice Becker mentored her. Today she makes perfumes for many brands at Givaudan in Paris. The name French Cowboy is a nod to her grandfather, who was a vaquero in Mexico.
She puts notes she loves into a perfume and thinks about the person who will wear it. She often works with people from outside perfumery, such as a chef or a dancer. Her ideas mostly come from food and drink and from her family’s Mexican roots. Mezcal Chocolat was inspired by her family’s agave fields in Jalisco. Vanilla is her favourite ingredient and was the subject of her thesis. In Vanilla for Breakfast she finally got the vanilla she had been after for a long time.
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