Christophe Laudamiel is no stranger to confronting the fragrance industry, whether that’s advocating for the art of perfumery or more ethical practices, and dispelling consumer and industry myths. Now the perfume maverick is taking on two monoliths of 21st-century perfumery: Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s Baccarat Rouge 540 and Guerlain’s Shalimar. One is a TikTok-viral, bestselling $360 mix of hedione, ambroxan, evernyl, ethyl maltol, and safranal, originally created in collaboration with the 260-year-old French crystal house, Baccarat. In the hands of the #fragrancetok community, it became an emblem of nouveau riche frag-heads. The other is a hero of modern perfumery, the 1925 creation by Jacques Guerlain, a crown jewel of the Guerlain perfume dynasty, which became the first amber fragrance to use a synthetic note (ethyl vanillin).
Under his Naked Ghosts project, which lives in what is both a gallery and a retail space in NYC’s West Village, Laudamiel is looking to demystify these creations. His work is part of a larger callout to the industry, or as he calls it, “creating art to reshuffle the spirits,” with perfumers upholding their duty “to create true art beside commercial art.” As for what differentiates true art from commercial art, he tells BeautyMatter, “I’ll leave it to every perfumer to interpret as they wish. At the end, everything is a creation or a design. But true art has different imperatives, parameters, than the constraints and the filters torturing the perfumer and the perfume in commercial perfumery.”
Augmented Reality and Fuck the Fluff are two limited-edition “scent sculptures,” released in quantities of 263 each as a nod to the birthdate of Germaine Cellier (March 26), one of the first prominent female perfumers and the nose behind pioneering fragrances like Fracas and Bandit. “She had opinions but was not going against a system, just like what I do should not be deemed provocative. It is just the way it should be if perfumery were a well-developed, true art. I picked this number as an homage to her and her unapologetic way of going about creating scents,” Laudamiel adds.
The 263 sculptures and five artist proofs are each signed, numbered, and engraved by hand. Naked Ghosts lists all the ingredients on the packaging and advises wearers to spray both creations on their clothes rather than the skin, as compliance of the final product to IFRA (International Fragrance Association) standards is unknown. Laudamiel also puts “Sans AI” in the note descriptions for each piece, a particularly interesting point given his “day role” as in-house perfumer at AI-powered olfaction start-up Osmo. “‘Sans AI” is a label that creators should use when this is the case, because human feats and intelligence will be used less and less in the face of easier methods,” he explains. Drawing attention to the use (or non-use) of AI in perfumery is part of a larger ambition for perfumers to define an ethics system for the technology’s use.
Laudamiel sees this project as reinforcing the groundwork laid by journalists, adding a variety of expressions to this countermovement. “At a second level, we also want to show how olfaction can impact olfaction. Like adding basses to music to create a remix, starting with the original recording of the music, or dressing a statue to bring attention,” he adds. Lastly, he wishes to show that “nothing is untouchable. This taboo in perfumery has been stifling art explosion in one case, and critique in another case.”
Augmented Reality builds on the 2026 edition of Shalimar by Delphine Elk and Thierry Wasser, purchased in a reputable NYC department store and “ethically hacked” with the addition of ingredients like Madagascan vanilla and Brazilian tonka absolutes, plus a sliver of immortelle. The artwork draws attention to the reformulation of the original Shalimar creation, too often due to “outside regulators with a second agenda,” which Laudamiel identifies as “politicians, fearmongerers, labs, and pseudoscientists not backed up by dermatology boards and toxicologists in the EU, Canada, and California.” Ingredient and allergen regulations over the years have restricted the use of ingredients like oakmoss, isoeugenol, or coumarin, and reduced usage levels of other ingredients, like rose or jasmine, thereby forcing a change in the original recipe. With Augmented Reality, Laudamiel wanted to give the original scent more depth and energy, rather than critiquing the brand or creation. “I just wanted to augment its ambery aspect, to dose a real slug of vanilla absolute from Madagascar instead of synthetic ethyl vanillin, and be clever as to how to respect its top note and just make it shinier,” he says.
Fuck the Fluff augments Baccarat Rouge 540 with natural saffron, an ingredient that Maison Francis Kurkdjian asserts is not used in perfumery (the brand instead uses the laboratory molecule safranal), despite the material’s presence in other fragrance creations across the industry. But the work doesn’t stop at saffron. Laudamiel also sought to punch up the rouge factor of the creation with the addition of “rouge champaca, Ruby Rouge grapefruit, and rouge pepper. According to a press release about the project, the jasmine grandiflorum is also boosted by ten times the estimated 0.04% of the original fragrance, “as we like to respect farmers from faraway countries,” says the Naked Ghosts release.
The statement also touts the quality of the ingredients in the original Baccarat Rouge 540, followed by statements on the reduced costs and mass availability of the synthetic materials used in the fragrance. “Brands make the public believe the plants grown in the Grasse region [of France] at high costs are responsible for the signature scents of many perfumes and the high prices of bottles at Duty Free and beyond. That is just not true, and that has to go. It is very disrespectful of farmers around the world, as well as bluffing the consumers about where their dollars go,” Laudamiel notes.
The release date of Fuck the Fluff was uncoincidentally the same day ICON(S): Maison Francis Kurkdjian, The Alchemy of Senses—a documentary series produced by Terminal 9 Studios, celebrating the 10th anniversary of Baccarat Rouge 540—was released on Amazon Prime (May 14, 2026).
Laudamiel hopes the project inspires people to be more critical in their fragrance assessments and expand the possibilities of the scented medium, including its own art scene. “I want people to see and sniff that their noses can receive a multitude of sensations and messages at various levels. I want them to question the messages provided by unchecked brands in commercial perfumery. I want to unleash perfumers and demystify perfumery.”
Augmented Reality and Fuck the Fluff may only come in 15ml bottles, but the impact they can have is extraordinary.