Siberian Warehouse Worker Becomes Niche Perfumer
Sergei Danilov produces niche fragrances in limited batches with unique aromas.
Six years ago, Novosibirsk warehouse worker Sergei Danilov decided to choose perfume as a gift for his wife and unexpectedly became so fascinated with scents that he turned into a perfumer himself. Now his fragrances win at exhibitions. The Siberian perfumer told an NGS correspondent how he learned through his own experience, how he creates scents today, and why he prepares some of the raw materials for his perfumes himself.
When Sergei decided to choose perfume as a gift for his wife on a store website, he had no idea it would drastically change his life. At the time, he understood nothing about perfumes and didn«t even use fragrance. But others» impressions of scents sounded so poetic that he inadvertently became interested.
«People write, they rave,» Sergei Danilov joked. «I read the description of a scent, go to the store, and try it. Sometimes I didn»t enter the same reality [as the review author], but somehow I got hooked on this thing.«
Sergei was attracted by one simple point: people who purchased a particular scent usually associated it with nature. The man noted to himself that he had never encountered in any bottle the amazing aroma he remembered from childhood — the smell of summer in a pine forest.
«In childhood, I was taken to a camp located in Kudryashovsky Bor (a pine forest near Novosibirsk), and there the forest smelled in a completely special way. The trouble is that at some point I stopped perceiving this smell. I looked for it in nature, in perfumes… Once I was cycling with a friend and suddenly felt it again, but, accustomed to the scents of the forest, I stopped feeling it again. Because of this smell, I started buying essential oils,» the perfumer said.
Sergei ultimately couldn«t recreate the childhood scent and soon abandoned attempts to do so. The elusive aroma turned out to be impossible to break down into components if you don»t remember it in detail.
Inspired by nature, Sergei chases an elusive childhood scent that remains a phantom.
But creating scents had already captivated the Novosibirsk resident. Initially, he derived the rules for mixing components through practice: he couldn«t find ready-made formulas online, and a professional perfumer, when Sergei asked him for advice, simply ignored him.
«A perfumer from Moscow, Galina Stepchenko, helped me a lot; she told me about the »Perfume Club of Russia,« which holds exhibitions,» Sergei said. «Then she told me where she buys components, and it was like I entered another world.»
The beginning perfumer then learned with surprise that there are ready-made bases for perfumes: he poured two liquids into one test tube and with guarantee got a fragrance. However, this simple option didn«t satisfy Sergei because in this case the final version invariably resembled existing scents. The novice perfumer understood: to create something unique, you need to invent a scent from scratch, not assemble it like a constructor from ready-made blocks.
Today, Sergei Danilov makes part of the raw materials for his scents himself. Initially, the Siberian started doing this out of interest; now he continues so that his perfume compositions retain individuality.
«It all started with a discarded New Year»s fir. It smells amazing even after being thrown out,« Sergei joked. »I collected the needles, poured [perfume] alcohol over them, [and infused them]. I also made tobacco scents. Now I have a person in Stary Oskol (in Russia) who grows tobacco and sends it to me.«
Sergei emphasizes meticulous documentation to avoid creating incredible but unreproducible scents.
Later, Sergei made another discovery for himself: it«s not enough to simply mix components.
«Many do this: they mixed, smelled — it came out acceptable, the fragrance is finished. I did that too, and then people started telling me that the same fragrance smells different from me. <…> It was about the maturation of the fragrance: over time, the same scent changes, some components pull the accents towards themselves,» Sergei said. «A professional knows such things from the start, but I»m more of an amateur, and I discovered all this for myself.«
Studying in professional courses — that«s several trips to Moscow a year, time and money. Easy if you have passive income and are completely free, much harder when you have a steady job and family. The Siberian isn»t ready to sacrifice his wife and third-grade son for creativity, so he learns the secrets of perfumery through the internet and on his own experience.
Money Has a Scent
For a very long time, Sergei treated his fragrant creativity as a hobby and didn«t devote much time to it. On weekdays — work (the Siberian works as a warehouse keeper in a company that specializes in selling water supply equipment), in the evening — family matters. Only one of the two days off was left for composing scents. But the hobby turned out to be very financially costly: a lot of money went on syringes, test tubes, and other consumables.
«It»s very difficult to calculate everything: I seemed to have accounted for everything, sold perfumes at the last exhibition, then bought components — and it turned out that I broke even,« Sergei Danilov lamented. »I forgot to account for the cost of disposable consumables. Moreover, if you heat a flask incorrectly (to dissolve some components) it cracks or bursts — that«s already 2,000 rubles (approx. $22 at current rates).»
The components themselves cost Sergei the most: he orders not only tested scents but also exotics, which have to be chosen based on textual descriptions. Today, only upon opening the package, the beginning perfumer already understands what scents are hidden behind beautiful words and poetic descriptions.
«If you live in Moscow, you can come to a store and smell what you»re buying. I have to order them blind. For example, I didn«t know how tiare (Tahitian gardenia — a flower with a strong sweet smell, reminiscent of honey and tropical fruits — ed.) smells. I only smelled it after buying it. Only when I open [the bottle] do I start getting an idea in my head of how this smell can be used,» Sergei Danilov said.
At some point, the Siberian thought that part of the money spent on the hobby could be recouped if he sold the resulting perfumes. He had little experience: mainly he sold others« fragrances that he didn»t like.
«In the gift, I included a sample of my perfumes. I hoped that buyers would say, like, what are these wonderful perfumes, I»ve never encountered such before, and really want to buy. And here I appear on a white horse and sell my scents,« the perfumer joked. »But this strategy never worked, and I just put my perfumes up for sale. No one looked at them, no one bought them. And then I participated in a perfume exhibition, and that, apparently, worked: someone from the Savoir brand liked my bottles, and the perfumes started selling little by little.«
Today, Sergei Danilov creates scents predominantly by individual orders. The largest batch, 10 bottles, he said, he made when bloggers talked about him — Golos Borisova from Novosibirsk and Mikhail Markin from Moscow.
By 2023, lovers of niche fragrances already knew Sergei Danilov as a talented perfumer. He started maintaining a page for his own brand on the social network VKontakte, actively participated in exhibitions, and even received certificates. However, until 2025, all this happened remotely. For the first time, the Siberian himself attended the VAST perfume salon exhibition in November 2025, when it was held in Novosibirsk.
Familiar perfumers, Sergei Danilov said, reproach him for dumping. Russian brand perfumes cost approximately 7,000 rubles (approx. $78) for 15 milliliters of finished product, whereas the most expensive fragrance that Sergei composes, he sells for half the price: 6,000 rubles (approx. $67) for 30 milliliters.
Colleagues tell the Siberian, like, you charge cheap — you«re valued cheaply. But he still tries not to raise prices, and if some imported components become very expensive, the Siberian strives to change the formula and use something local.
«So I had to change »Altai«: for it I ordered Philippine oud. Lately, they»ve been sending something else, and I reshuffled the pyramid to get a similar smell,« the perfumer said.
A Scent Not for Everyone
Selective niche perfumery — pleasure not for everyone: authorial scents often don«t resemble the familiar classics that can be bought in chain cosmetics stores. Sergei is sure that in the end he will remain a small brand that works with a limited number of fans and creates individual scents. Sometimes even too individual.
«When I just started, I made a scent that I really liked myself. One guy at hockey training also liked the smell, and then he says: »My wife spent a long time looking for the source of the stench in the apartment, rewashed my hockey uniform, and couldn«t find it. Here I came with the perfumes, sprayed them, and she realized what smell she couldn»t get rid of. We were crazy about this aroma, but for her — a terrible stink,«» Sergei shared the story.
Since then, in the team, he«s jokingly called the Perfumer, and he doesn»t talk too much about his creativity.
He notes that niche perfumery often yields minimal profit or breaks even at best.
Sergei«s wife supports his hobby but never gives advice on composing scents to her husband. She says she doesn»t understand anything. At the same time, she doesn«t use the perfumes created by her husband.
«She says: there are normal perfumes, and then there are yours,» the perfumer laughed. «Although she likes »Shivera« with fir and spruce and »Shaman« — tar-like, with brutal leather. In general, she likes what no one buys, the most unusual.»
Today, Sergei Danilov experiments with retro scents and classics, but ready perfumes will appear not soon. Their creation takes the perfumer from 2 weeks (if assembling the scent on a wave of inspiration) to one year (if something doesn«t come together in the process).
Sergei is not the only Siberian who turned a creative hobby into a profession. Recently we wrote about a girl who makes candles shaped like old Christmas ornaments. They are indistinguishable from glass figurines in appearance.
