Ashley Santiago
A California-born perfumer at Givaudan in Paris and co-founder of French Cowboy, whose collaborations bring food and performance into fragrance creation.
About Ashley Santiago
Born in California with Mexican and Caribbean roots, Ashley Santiago is a perfumer at Givaudan in Paris and co-founder of the niche brand French Cowboy. She works across fine fragrance commissions and her own brand, bringing collaborators from food and performance into the creative process.
Career
After earning a chemistry degree from San Francisco State University, she moved to France in 2016 to study at ISIPCA, then trained at the Givaudan Perfumery School before joining the house's fine fragrance team in Paris. During her university years, she worked at Ministry of Scent in San Francisco, where independent perfumers Ineke Ruhland and Yosh Han introduced her to the fundamentals of fragrance creation.
Creative Style & Philosophy
Santiago gravitates toward gourmand structures, exploring the space between familiarity and surprise. She sometimes maps out a scent's texture, color, and personality before writing a formula, while other times the fragrance flows out intuitively. Through French Cowboy, she collaborates with dancers, chefs, and other creatives to make perfume a more open and communal form of expression.
Signature Works
- *Egocentrique* — a Coreterno composition contrasting yuzu, amyris and black vanilla.
- *Mezcal Chocolat* — co-created with chef Mathis Molinié, pairing a mezcal accord inspired by her family's Jalisco agave with a chocolate mousse accent.
- *Pear Pavlova* — co-created with dancer Allie Goodbun, expressing pavlova through an airy whipped musk rather than a literal dessert.
