Dan Rothschild makes Manchester smell great
He got his first fragrance as a barmitzvah gift, now Dan sells his own globally
On the underground in Helsinki, there is a signpost of dos and don’ts. It’s polite, but the one saying ‘Please Don’t Wear Strong Perfume’ is a problem for Dan Rothschild. “Someone sent me the poster and I thought, ‘Oh f*** that. I’ll wear whatever perfume wherever I want.’”
Dan is not in Helsinki but Manchester, where he has a lot of perfumes. An avid to the point of obsessive collector, he has in the region of 300 bottles. Many were sent for review on his Instagram @fragrance_weirdo, where he has 47.5K followers and others were purchased, including “a first-edition bottle of Sybaris for quite a lot of money as it’s beautiful and I sort of love it.”
Dan got his first whiff of Sybaris when an uncle who owned a pharmacy gave him a bottle for his barmitzvah. “He also gave me a bottle of Quorum and I committed the smells to memory. I knew then that I always wanted to smell good.”
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But it was when he saw the 1990 advert for Chanel’s Égoïste, in which gorgeous women close shutters shrieking égoïste that he connected the idea of smelling good to an art form. Then Dan was truly hooked.There is something incongruous about this married 48-year-old father of two exalting scent and collecting it for decades as he works in odourless IT security. But that’s the half of it, as Dan is also the creative director of his own perfume brand Soma.

Determined to find others who shared his olfactory passion, about 10 years ago, Daniel explored social media and discovered an entire subculture of enthusiasts. “And I felt, wow, I’ve found my people,” he says from behind 30 perfume bottles on his desk. “Through Instagram, I met Dave Wrench [now his business partner] and we started talking, meeting for coffee, trying perfumes and realised we should start something of our own.”
For the record, the formulation of Soma, which currently includes a range of nine fragrances, began and continues with a vivid brief from Dan that is sent to the grandson of iconic French perfumer Jean Carles in Grasse. Then, Cyrille Carles starts extracting oils, blending, ageing… Almost like a fine wine? “Exactly,” confirms Dan, who can talk about top notes of cinnamon and tobacco in perfume as wine writer Jancis Robinson would a Pinot Noir.

The resulting smell of, say, Soma Halcyon is best summed up by a fan on the fragrance fanatic site fragrantica.com: “It opens with an intensely sweet toffee, vanilla and honey combination with an addictive spicy cinnamon in the background. From here the sweetness is perfectly balanced with a strong boozy rum note and smoky tobacco, with hints of a fizzy benzoin and soft orchid. A truly edible fragrance for a great price.”
“When I give the brief, I tend to think in terms of little movie vignettes,” says Dan. “Capturing moments that feel cinematic, like memories you can almost see. They’re the starting point for creating something that’s more than just a fragrance – it’s an experience.”
The name Soma is Dan’s choice. “It is Greek for ‘body’, but it’s also the name of a drug in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World that is given to the masses to keep them calm and happy. Despite the slightly sinister overtone, I think it’s a brilliant idea.”
There is much more to learn about the world of eau de parfum than a spritz. Each year in Milan, buyers, reviewers, enthusiasts and manufacturers converge at Esxence, a prestigious perfume convention where Dan hopes to exhibit next year. With so much scent wafting under one roof, it must be a sensory overload. “You can’t smell different fragrance because there’s so much going on,” agrees Dan. “People often carry little bags of coffee beans as one sniff helps reset your nose.” A useful tip for your next perfume hall visit, where Soma should be on sale in time.
“It’s very hard to get into big stores because they tend to work with distributors,” says Dan, likening the dominance of premier brands such as Gucci and Chanel to Marvel and Disney at the multiplexes. Soma has a dedicated following, he says, “but we’re not Marvel.We do okay selling direct on the internet, but one of the headaches is the cost of manufacturing official samples, like you get from Dior or Chanel.”
Dan plans to introduce a selection box of 10ml bottles so customers can try the different Somas without committing to a full bottle, but admits: “That needs a bit of investment and a bit of time and love.”
And talking of love, Dan’s wife Lisa, who “considers my perfume collection excessive”, wears Soma Serene and daughters Anna, 17, and Kate, 14, appreciate the unique world he has created and would like to inhabit it full-time eventually. But as fond as he is of fragrance, dog perfume is not on the cards.
“One of the weird things about being into perfume is you pay more attention to smell, and I absolutely love the natural smell of my dog, Eddie. Not if he’s rolled in mud, but when he’s reasonably clean and lying there snoring, I often stick my face into his fur and breathe deeply.”

Dan’s definitive connection to fragrance, however, is rooted in his family memories. “I lost my dad last year, and his signature scent was Kouros. One of the reasons I love perfume so much is because it has such a memory-triggering effect, so if I smell Kouros, I’m immediately back in my bedroom as a kid waiting for mum and dad to go out.”
His mother wore Opium then but Dan has introduced her to Ormonde Jayne by renowned perfumer Linda Pilkington, which she likes. “She did wear Soma Halcyon for a while,” Dan mentions, then laughs. “I think that was just politeness, although she’s very proud of me.” Obviously!
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