Alumna makes scents out of SFSU Chemistry degree

Ashley in Paris: Alumna is the youngest perfumer at leading fragrance creation house

For San Francisco State University alumna Ashley Santiago (B.S., ’16), scent is memory: tied to a family member’s favorite perfume, a moment in high school or her freshman year of college. And it’s not just a reflection of the past. For Santiago, scent is also her future.

Santiago is the youngest perfumer at Givaudan, the world’s largest manufacturer of flavors, fragrances and active cosmetic ingredients. She is the only American perfumer at Givaudan’s Fine Fragrance Creative Centre in Paris, where fragrances are developed for major fashion houses and beauty brands such as YSL, Prada, Marc Jacobs and Maison Margiela.

Her path to that role — and to Paris, where she lives today — began early. Since she was a teenager in the Bay Area, she’s been obsessed with fragrances. She read blogs about perfume, researched ingredients and even asked her parents to drive her to department stores so she could smell the fragrances there.

“In high school, you start thinking, ‘What are you going to do?’ I Googled, ‘Where do fragrances come from?’” Santiago said. “I didn’t even realize there was a person making them. I just thought it was a factory or something.”

She soon learned that becoming a perfumer requires extensive training and a Chemistry degree. That realization pointed her toward Chemistry — and ultimately to SFSU.

Read the full SFSU News story.