The ABCs of Henri: A guide to understand our product naming convention

Fragrance is one of the most powerful and intuitive ways to explore one's memories. A smell can take someone back to a place, another person, or even an entire era of their lives. With such a powerful creative drive, it's no secret that companies specializing in fragrances ensure that their customers can make contact with the experience they're seeking. At its core, connecting someone with their memories through a fragrance is both an artistic process and inherently creative.

Organization and intention are critical components of honing in any artistic process. As you explore the Henri store, you'll notice that our creative intention is embedded in how we categorize and organize every product in our collections. In this article, we will explore why Henri fragrances are assigned an alphanumeric code in their names, how that process is developed, and how you can identify what to expect from a Henri scent without even needing to read the fragrance notes.

To the letter:

As mentioned above, every fragrance in the Henri catalog is assigned an alphanumeric code to classify key pieces of information in the development process. To start, let's look at the letter at the beginning of the code.

The first letter of a Henri fragrance code reflects the core aspect of the fragrance - something we call the accord for short. Those with experience developing fragrances may be familiar with what this is, as any designed perfume is a layered cocktail of different aromas and fragrance oils at highly specific and calculated concentrations. Traditionally, the term is used to describe broad impressions of a fragrance's scent family. For us, accord also means a commitment to how we position and describe our fragrances to others. We include the accord for two key reasons as we develop new products.

Firstly, it's a built in method to ensure we offer the widest range of products to serve as many tastes and palates as possible. As the brand develops further and more customers become available to us, we want to be sure we can hold ourselves to account and not focus too deeply on a singular type of fragrance experience. With any luck, we'll release a product for every letter of the alphabet someday. 

Secondly, it allows our most loyal customers to gain an edge as they explore our new products upon release. We want the experience of discovering a new fragrance to be as scientific and exciting for our customers to try as it was for us to develop. In this spirit, we see the accord as our way to challenge our customers to speculate, remain curious, and want to learn more about what we create every day in our studio. 

The process of assigning a letter to a scent can vary, and not all letter choices are as obvious as they would first seem on paper. Some accord letters are a simple abbreviation of the most forward note in the scent - Like "F" for floral scents, "M" for musky scents, and "C" for citrus scents. Some accords still reference the name of the key scent note, but choose to abbreviate a different letter inside the word or reference how it's pronounced, like "R" for neroli, "U" for patchouli, or "K" for chypre. Some letters are higher concept, referencing ideas related to the scent - such as how "O" relates to aquatic scents (and sounds like the French word for water, eau). If we ever offer a scent with hemp as the heaviest fragrance note, we plan on using the letter "J" for similar reasons. We even have five accords per generation of fragrances reserved for our most daring and unclassifiable scents, fragrances so distinct that it would feel irresponsible to describe them as anything else. If you see a fragrance with a accord of either "X", "Y", "Z", "D", or "Q", it's part of this category. 

Painting by numbers:

The second part of the alphanumeric code serves just as important of a purpose - it allows us to future-proof our product lines and ensure that every scent we develop has a unique identity outside of its name. While many brands number their products in order of when the product was released, we choose to do this based on when the product was developed instead. That's why the numbers in our current fragrance lineup don't follow a perfect sequence. 

Some fragrances are great, but they might be prohibitively expensive or time-consuming to produce if they become popular. Others may be more practical, but might be too similar to a fragrance releasing in the same calendar year. The numerical parts of the code allow us to log every experiment we create in the fragrance lab - building a private vault of new collections we can release when the business and market conditions are right for them to launch in the right way.

To help us think about our creative process in the long term, we plan on dividing our fragrances into categories called generations. A generation is comprised of the most recent 99 fragrances developed before the numbering system resets to "1" again. At our current rate of development and expected growth, we hope to move onto the next generation of scents at some point between 2030 and 2040, depending on market demand and our ability to scale. 

The other reason why the numerical code matters is its ability to ensure we continue developing a wide range of fragrance types - there will never be two Henri fragrances with the same accord and number. This means that out of the 2,500+ possible fragrances we can generate with this naming convention, there will never be more than 99 with the same primary scent. 

In Generation 2 and beyond, the locking of the alphanumeric code will challenge us to explore new fragrance opportunities as codes fill up. We will never develop an aquatic scent as the first of a generation ever again, the seventh will never be a neroli, the eighth will never be a floral etc. 

Love at first sight:

Now that you know the importance of the letter and numbers in each fragrance name, you can approach the products in the Henri store with a heightened sense of curiosity and inspiration. 

See a new letter in the collections list? Now you can take a guess at what that fragrance's accord may be based on the name or fragrance notes. 

See a new product with a really low number in the code? Now you know that fragrance has been waiting a long time to make its debut to the world. 

We encourage all customers to explore our fragrances with an investigative and curious spirit of discovery - after all, you're a Henri insider now! If you're still wondering about why we've chosen a letter or the importance of a number in a product you're researching, we'd love to help you make the most informed decision possible. Please don't hesitate to contact hello@henriapothics.com for any product or fragrance-related questions. 

Thank you for your support as we continue to design a more beautiful and delicious world. 

Until next time, 

-Henri