The Stories Behind Zoologist Perfumes (Part 1)

Harmony Kingdom Figurines © Victor Wong

(Note: A Facebook perfume group named “Perfumed Passion” recently invited me to spend a week there introducing my perfume house. The group was set to “secret” and it had about 200 members. I thought I should repost them here so that 20 more people would have a chance to read them, too.)

Hello everyone in Perfumed Passion, thank you for having me. I will talk a little bit about me and my perfume house, Zoologist Perfumes.

I come from a Hong Kong family of nine siblings and I am the youngest. When I was 10, I was already an uncle to my niece. I came to Canada to study at the age of 18, and slowly fell in love with the beautiful, multicultural and slow-paced country, and decided to stay after graduation in computer science.

My friends and coworkers often ask me, “why perfumes?” To be honest, if a fortune teller told me 4 years ago that I would be running a perfume business, I would die laughing. Perfumes didn’t truly enter my life till 2013, when I first discovered a Le Labo Rose 31 scented hand lotion in a hotel where I was staying. I will skip the part how I quickly became a crazy man and couldn’t stop reading Fragrantica, Basenotes, Facebook perfume groups, writing nonsense perfume reviews and purchasing more and more perfumes.

The second most-asked question is, “How did Zoologist come about?” You might think I am crazy about animals and love to visit safaris, rainforests and endangered animals sanctuaries… well, while I do love animals, I am not an adventurer, but more an introvert nerd who love video games, comics, photography, graphic designs, and most importantly, collectibles.

I collect a lot of things, from pocket size LCD games that were popular in the 80s, to Starbucks mugs, many things… but the collectible series that influenced me most is something called Harmony Kingdom figurines. Harmony Kingdom is a British collectible company, and they make animal figurines that are actually lidded boxes, and you can put little things in them. Their in-house sculptors often pick unusual animals for their subjects and I was hooked on them since the discovery. Later I read a book about that company and the owner talked about how to run a “collectible business”, why it was important to discontinue certain products, etc. The whole business idea had planted a seed in my head.

Now back to where I was crazy about perfumes… one day I was walking home from work, feeling a bit frustrated and worried about my career, and I wondered, what if perfumes were designed as collectibles? I could make a series of perfumes that are animal-themed, and the cap of the perfumes are little animal busts, and they all wear Victorian style clothing…