SOPHIA GROJSMAN

photo by Hajime Watanabe

Finding the perfect scent to compliment the individual is what drives top perfumer Sophia Grojsman to create some of the most admired and recognizable fragrances in the world.  For her, scent enhances expression, and she strives to create fragrances to awaken the imagination.

Sophia Grojsman began her life-long fascination with flowers and plants at an early age.  As a child in the former Soviet Union, Sophia loved tastes and smells and focused on spending her playtime with flowers.  At the age of 15 her family moved to Poland, where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in analytical inorganic chemistry.

Sophia immigrated to the United States in 1965 and began her career a year later at International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. (IFF) as a lab assistant to Ellie Fox, a senior perfumer at IFF.  Her mentors included Josephine Catapano and Ernest Shiftan, two legendary American perfumers.  Sophia’s creative energy and passion flourished as she went on to create some of the world’s best-selling fragrances including Vanderbilt by Gloria Vanderbilt, Yves Saint Laurent’s Paris, Calvin Klein’s Eternity for Women, Lancome’s Tresor, Boucheron’s Jaipur, Exclamation! by Coty, Perry Ellis’ 360˚, Christian Lacroix, Neblina by Yves Rocher, Elizabeth Taylor’s Diamonds and Rubies, and True Love by Elizabeth Arden.

Sophia received the 1994 Cosmetic Executive Women’s (CEW) Achiever Award for her lifetime contributions to perfumery.  In 1996, she was honored by the American Society of Perfumers with the Living Legend Award.  She was elected a Corporate Vice President of IFF in 1998. Sophia was honored again by the beauty industry’s CEW in May 1999 for her lifetime achievements in the fragrance industry.  Cosmetic Executive Women cited Sophia as “having created more fragrances sold today than any other perfumer in the history of mankind.”

(Sophia Grojsman is the author of A Lab on Fire Rose Rebelle Respawn and S-Perfume 100% Love.)

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