You are a “nose”; what exactly does that mean? “Nose” is a nickname for a perfume maker; a person gifted with a particularly developed sense of smell, who is capable of combining mentally different smells to create unique essences and perfumes. A “nose” is both an artist and an imaginative technician. Besides creating my own scents, since 1993 I’ve organized several exhibitions and given seminars about the history of perfume and how to recreate “historical” scents from ancient, medieval, Renaissance and Napoleonic texts. In addition, since 2006 I’ve been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ferrara in the Master’s degree program in cosmetic Science and Technology. I teach two courses: “Perfumes: Art and Production” and “Aromacology”. I’ve been pluri-honored by the Italian and French Governments, the French Academy in Rome, and UNESCO.
The first smell you remember was sickening: blood and disinfectant that your mother used to clean your nosebleed after a fall at age three. What about your first memory of a pleasant smell? My early pleasant smells are all associated with my grandmother, my father’s mother Ippolita. She had a little cabinet filled with all her many different perfumes but also essences. The most special was a little wooden box, which contained the essence of Bulgarian rose. So I learned about perfumes from her. In addition the fragrances of her powders, her lipsticks. She was an artist and she had a favorite lipstick; she called its color “viorose” because it was a shade between violet and pink. She paid particular attention to beauty, painting, and music. There were always artists at her house.
Your grandmother had a particularly acute sense of smell, recognized yours, and encouraged your talent. How old were you? I was about 4 or 5. She took me to my ballet classes and pointed out all the different smells there: the resin on the soles of our slippers so we wouldn’t slip, the wood and bee’s wax of the studio, my classmates’ perspiration. But she cautioned me: “Be careful. Not everyone will understand your passion for perfumes. Pay no attention. Follow your heart and sow the seeds of this special talent of mine and yours.” It was our secret, our conspiracy.
What perfume did Ippolita wear? Guerlain’s “Mitzouko”. Its bottle was beautiful, shaped like an elegant woman’s dress. Its fragrance was very intense, musky, ambery, powdery, exotic.
At age 18 during a visit to your Uncle Samir in Cairo you decided to dedicate your life to perfume. You were born and grew up in Turin, how did you happen to have family in Cairo? Samir Karrara was married to my mother’s sister. They met while he was studying engineering in Turin. He was Egyptian. An absolute genius, he spoke seven languages. He designed viaducts, bridges, and roads. He was a very special uncle because, while he’d lived in Indonesia building roads everywhere, he sent me letters with pressed butterflies and flowers inside. I was seven or eight years old. He wrote me that there were tigers and snakes 20 meters long. So his world was fantastic. My cousins were named Aziza and Housam. In my family racism does not exist. Samir’s mother was the first Egyptian woman to pilot a plane. Uncle Samir invited us to Egypt many times. My father didn’t want me to go; he’d been and came home very upset by the poverty, but my uncle insisted because he knew about my love of perfumes. As soon as I arrived he took me to the bazaar Khan-el-Kalili, which had a street lined with perfume makers. In Egypt everyone wore and still wears perfume made-to-order; not just rich women. The perfume street was near the super elegant Caffè Fishawi founded in the 18th century. On this street there was a handsome, very talented forty-year-old “nose” named Hassan. I went to his shop everyday until he finally agreed to let me help him. I owe 80% of my training to this man.
Where else did you train? In Grasse in Provence, where I learned techniques, formulas, and rules. But the beauty of the essences from the Middle East doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world.
Who were your mentors and what did you learn from each one? First and foremost Hassan, but also Serge Kalouguine and especially Guy Robert in Grasse. Guy Robert is one of the greatest “noses” of all times. Yes, he was in Grasse, but he came to Florence often, which is where I met up with him on many occasions. He was particularly impressed that I was the first “nose” ever to create perfumes inspired by works-of-art. My first dating to 2004 was “Artemiris”; it was inspired by Artemisia Gentileschi’s painting, “Aurora” (1627) still in a private collection in Rome. The fact that in 2005 the Director of the Hermitage, Michail Piotrovskij, who is particularly passionate about perfumes, commissioned me to create a perfume inspired by Caravaggio’s “Lute Player” (commissioned by the banker/art collector Vincenzo Giustianiani and painted here in Rome in 1595/6) on display there was a very important moment for my career, but also for the museum. Mine is still the only perfume sold there and of course also sold here in Rome at my two stores. It doesn’t have a contemporary scent, it’s scent is 16th century. .Caravaggio is my favorite artist. I love him especially because of all the rebus hidden in his paintings. All the objects in his paintings were chosen for a reason My favorite period of art is Roman Baroque because there is always a hidden element that you have to uncover. A decade later In 2015 I created °Lavanda di Leonardo”, based on a recipe he’d hidden in the lines of the “Atlantic Codex” ( Sheet 807r, Vol. III). It’s based on lavender and rose. In 2019 Piotrovskij asked me to create a perfume based on “Flora”, a painting in the Hermitage by Francesco Melzi, Leonardo’s favorite disciple. 
How do you create your fragrances? What’s the procedure? Where is you production laboratory? First in Milan, then in Turin and now it’s in Verona. The studio where I create my scents is here in Rome on Via dei Coronari near my first shop. I opened my second in November at Via di Campo Marzio 35. Here I create the formula. I smell it over and over again. It always starts in my head. It’s a long and complicated process. Some formulas are perfect from their very beginning; others will never be. When I’m satisfied with my formula, I send it to Grasse. I buy the essences I need to create my new scents in Grasse, only in Grasse because they perfect them there and they never oxidize. The quality of all my scents is certified by LIFRA, I never use dyes. My scents are the colors of their ingredients. I send 5 grams of my formulas, after I’ve registered them, to Grasse; there they produce 100 kilos of essence from my formula. Once I approve Grasse’s sample of the essence, my scents are produced in my lab in Verona. In the 30 years of my career, I’ve sometimes had to modify my formulas because some of their ingredients don’t exist anymore or are forbidden because they are in danger of extinction.
Your bestsellers? “Cortile delle Zagare” (“The Orange Blossom Courtyard), Vi which is vetiver and bergamot, La Regina di Taif which is rose-based, and “The Incense of Rome’s Churches”.
How long can a fragrance last? The essence can last a maximum of six months; the perfume made from the essence can last many years because the essence is added to alcohol and alcohol is a splendid preservative; it’s odorless. A perfume’s high quality lasts as long as it’s kept away from heat and out of direct sunlight.
How do potential clients learn about you? I am very well known as a “nose”. I’ve been working in this field for 38 years, since 1986. I was the first perfume maker in Italy to create custom-made fragrances and am still one one of the few women “noses” worldwide. I started working in Milan on Via Brera, Immediately I had famous clients like Armani, Caroline of Monaco, the movie actress Ornella Muti, the singer Ornella Vanoni, the ski champion Isolde Kostner, and the soccer champion Francesco Totti, and very soon well-known international clients from everywhere. Then I started working with the multi-nationals, Unilever and L’Oréal thanks to my creativity. But that wasn’t for me because “the nose” who creates the perfume doesn’t know the company who requested a certain scent from the multi-national, for example aimed at a 30-to-40 year old woman which costs X, and who has asked the multi-national for such a perfume doesn’t know who is the “nose”. This was a big problem for me because I want to know who my clients are. My work is philological. I want to know my clients.
How many fragrances and other products do you sell? More than 800. I have over 55 different perfumes plus their hand and face creams, body lotions, soaps, shower gels, cosmetics, candles, home scents, and sanitizers. I love all my perfumes. I think of them as my children. They are all available on line from my website: www.essenzialmentelaura.it; a few are available on e-bay.
Since you are a torinese, why Rome? Yes, a seventh-generation torinese, but Rome is the city of my heart and of my rebirth after a very difficult life experience. Whoever comes through my shop doors has to be treated like royalty, no matter who they are. You never know who’s standing in front of you.
Besides the fragrances you sell to the general public you also make personalized perfumes for private clients? It’s common knowledge that my most famous client was and still is Queen Elizabeth II. It took me a year ( 2008) to perfect my first fragrance for her. I created 12 fragrances for her to choose from. She narrowed them down to a possible four and then one. Besides the rose-and amber-based perfume, her personal perfume, I made similarly-scented candles, sachets, and home scents for her. Only I know its formula and I can’t let anyone smell it. Then in 2011 the British consulate asked me to create a scent for the 60th anniversary of her reign. It’s called “Lilibet”, which is her family nickname. I also created a second perfume for her guests at celebrations of that anniversary called “Tiara”, but it’s not for sale. Several princesses of the Saudi royal family are also my clients; they introduced me to the magical rose Taif. It’s a very rare rose which lives in the desert at 50° centigrade during the day and -10° centigrade at night. Its perfume is very intense. Every year the princesses invite me to its harvest and give me a kilo of petals for my perfume production.They also introduced me to helping less fortunate women in their Kingdom. There is no income tax in Saudi Arabia, but everyone is expected to donate 10% of their earnings to help the poor. The princesses have a foundation called “Alnagda” which mean “rebirth” to help abandoned, battered or ill women, widows with children to bring up.
Several hotels have also commissioned fragrances from you? The San Clemente Palace on the namesake island in the Venetian lagoon (2003); the Park Hyatt in Milan (2003), voted by “WALL PAPER” , the best fragrance ever created; the Hotel Danieli in Venice (2008); and my (2016) Mytha Scent Collection Anthology of seven fragrances created for Turkish billionaire Ferit Șahenk’s Doğuș Group’s hotels: D-Maris Bay in Dacia, where as a child Șahenk used to spend vacations with his parents; The Capri Place in Capri; The Aldovrandi in Rome; Villa Magna in Madrid; The Argos in Cappadocia; Villa Dubronik in Dubronik; and Il Riccio Beach House in Bodrum, a resort town on the Turkish coast.
Besides people, museums, and hotels you have produced perfumes for? Wine producers; Lancia cars; scents mentioned in literature for London’s Waterhouse Bookstore; Rolls Royce; Montegrappa pens; scents inspired by films for Italy’s famous weekly “Panorama”; for Italy’s Embassy in Tokyo inspired by Botticelli’s “Primavera”; Montblanc pens; scents inspired by Italian opera for the music publisher “Ricordi” for its 200th anniversary in 2008; Vinitaly; and Nespresso, to name a few.
Another “nose” you admire? Lyn Harris.
You are not a flag-waving feminist, but you have helped many other women. When I still lived in Turin, I held a course for women in jail for horrific crimes on how to make perfumes and we sold them in some of Turin’s most exclusive profumerie. It was especially moving for me because women in jail are not allowed to wear perfume. Perfume bottles were considered dangerous because they’re made of glass and alcohol is inflammable. One woman, a Sicilian, fainted after we produced an orange-based perfume. She had not smelt this very Sicilian scent for over 20 years and was overwhelmed by the emotion. Since 2000 I have created a collection of home fragrances called “Sotto lo stesso cielo” (Under the same Sky); all the proceeds go to support OAF-1- Organizzazione di Aiuto Fraterno,-a torino-headquartered non-profit, which supports children and young people in Italy and the Third World, especially in Brazil and Mozambique.
Your latest creation? A home scent called “Laudemio” based on the flora and fruits near and in the Frescobaldi’s olive groves (2021). It has the same name as their olive olive. It’s the closest combination of taste and smell that I know of. In addition, a line of perfumes etc. called “Essential Memories” (2021) for the Belmond hotels. Like the Doğuș Group’s they’re meant to remind the guest of the location after her departure. For examples, the Splendido in Portofino, the Caruso in Naples, the Villa San Michele in Florence, the Cipriani in Venice, the Timeo in Taormina, Italy’s most beautiful hotels. Belmond wanted perfumes from me that would remind their clients of their stays. I studied the places, their history, the surrounding nature to create these scents, the various hotels’ clients, I’m a voracious reader as well as a history, cinema, and opera buff.
A work in progress? Products based on the grounds and gardens of the Vatican Palace in Castel Gandolfo, where the popes until Francis traditionally spent their summers to get away from the heat of Rome. In 2020 the Vatican Museums commissioned me to create three fragrances, on sale there and in my shops. An obvious choice was the Vatican Gardens. 
Founded in c. 1297 during the papacy of Nicholas III, they cover approximately 57 acres or about half of the City. Its “Roseto” or Rose Arbor, built by Pope Leo XIII (r.1878-1913), was one of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s favorite meditation spots so rose and jasmine, which borders all the Gardens’ paths, so omnipresent here and all over Rome, are the predominant fragrances of my “Giardini” or “Gardens” . Instead my “Terra Marique” or “Land and Sea” was inspired by the Museums’ Gallery of Maps. Commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII in 1580, its frescoes by Friar and geographer Ignazio Danti depict individual topographical maps of Italy’s 20 regions. On one side of the Hall are the regions with Tyrrhenian coastline; on the other those along the Adriatic Sea. Here my scents, a mixture of the smells of flowers, orange leaf, woods, fields, and sea, evoke Italy’s landscapes. In November 2019, after extensive redesigning, Pope Francis reopened the Vatican Ethnological Museum, which houses over 80,000 objects and works-of-art, often made of wood and/or leather, from all over the world, especially Oceania and Amazonia, and he renamed it “Anima Mundi” or “Soul of the Earth”. At its inauguration the Museum’s Director Father Nicola Mapelli said that this new name reflects the belief that: “When we display objects, we don’t display a dead reality, but something that expresses the spirits of a culture through its art.” So my “Ethos” with its masculine scents of leather and wood mixed with honey, because honey nourishes almost all civilizations, aims to achieve this ideal.
Up to now you’ve told me about Laura Bosetti-Tonatto the “nose”, but I’d also like to know more about Laura Bosetti-Tonatto the person. For example, a “nose” has similar talents to a sommelier, what are your favorite wines? Sauvignon Blanc from the winery Baron de Ladoucette in the Loire Valley, but my absolute favorites are Romanée Conti, a very special red from Burgundy,, and Frescobaldi’s “Nipozzano”, a splendid Chianti..
What are your first memories of food and their smells? Peaches filled with a homemade almond biscuit and chocolate paste are a family memory; lots of typically Piemontese dishes: agnolotti gobbi or a kind of Piemontese ravioli filled with three three different kinds of meat,, boiled meats and their many and varied sauces, roasts, but I also love Sicilian cuisine with all their citrus peels and spices.
A dish you dislike? Innards, liver, tongue.
A smell you dislike? Butcher’s shops.
Your favorite cuisines besides Italian? Thai, Lebanese, Indian, Moroccan, whenever I can I eat ethnic foods. I love the world.
You are a world traveler, your favorite places? The magnificent Fiji islands; Al Ula, an archeological site very similar to Petra in Saudi Arabia, which wasn’t opened to tourism until 3 or 4 years ago so completely uncontaminated; the Farasan Islands; Australia; and St. Petersburg, another city close to my heart because its inhabitants love culture. Russia is probably the country where culture is appreciated the most, especially its own; that’s why I love going there.
Red is your favorite color and roses from Taif your favorite flower? Yes, my mentor Guy Robert taught me that to make a special perfume you need only two ingredients, but one must be a rose. There are so many different roses, all with different scents, to choose from. Every country has its rose. To the rose you can add then amber, bergamot, violet, aruncula; each perfume belongs to a world of its own, whatever one you choose.
Fruits are in many perfumes, your favorite fruits? Citrus peelings give a unique touch to a flower, for example tangerine combined with jasmine, orange blossoms with lavender which smell like Yves Saint Laurent’s gardens,“Les Majorelles”, in Morocco.
Your zodiac sign? Libra.
Chefs are known for having collections of fast cars, motorcycles, and expensive watches, do you have a collection? Yes, of paintings of St. Mary Magdalene, the patron saint of perfumers, most of which date to the Roman Baroque period. The backdrop of my counter at the Via dei Coronari store is a collage of my paintings of her. We have reproduced it as our wrapping paper. I adore Bernini and Borromini.
Many women always wear the same perfume; what about you? How do you choose which perfume to wear? I like to try out on myself some of the different fragrances I create, but I usually wear the one I’ve worn for more than forty years. I first created it in Egypt. Its ingredients are moss, amber, orange blossom, and tuberose. I can change their percentages, but the ingredients remain the same. I don’t sell it. It’s mine.