Dick Page

By Deborah Fulsang

We had the pleasure of Shiseido artistic director Dick Page’s company recently while he was in Toronto to introduce the brand’s new Fall 2013 collection. We segued off the topic of makeup, onto fragrance—of course!—and discovered Page’s other beauty obsession.

THE WHALE & THE ROSE: What is your favorite-smelling beauty product? 

DICK PAGE: Oh wow! I’m kind of obsessive when it comes to fragrance.

THE WHALE & THE ROSE: Oh good! I always love to hear that.

PAGE: The one I always wear is, well I am not wearing it today, today I am wearing Diptyque L’Ombre Dans L’Eau, which I love. I guess it’s summery, citrusy. But the one I always wear is Habit Rouge by Guerlain; I love; and I’ve been wearing it for years. i love that with Habit Rouge: it’s one of those crazy things that I am complimented constantly on [it], in elevators…or once in a bar [where] I was waiting for my train in Penn Station. I was going to Long Island and this guy who was full-Long-Island says ‘this is going to sound kind of crazy, but you smell great.’

THE WHALE & THE ROSE: That’s terrific.

PAGE: He said, ‘You smell great! I am going to write that one down for my wife.’ So yeah, now I guess this construction worker is walking around smelling like Habit Rouge.

THE WHALE & THE ROSE: That’s good taste! What does it smell like to you? 

PAGE: I’m sure I’m getting all the notes wrong but it has that leathery scent. I am drawn to things like that, real grandpa fragrances like bay rum. I think bay rum is one of the most fantastic smells, the woody, herby thing.

Occasionally I [wear] something a bit more girly, which is kind of good as well.  My mother is an aromatherapist, so she’s into all that kind of stuff. She mixes up oils and does mostly therapeutic kind of things.

THE WHALE & THE ROSE: What did your childhood smell like then? Your mother was an aromatherapist? 

PAGE: No, no.  She went back to college when she was 60.

THE WHALE & THE ROSE: Oh that’s awesome. 

PAGE: Yeah, she never finished school when she was younger and she said she always wanted to do it, so she went back to college to learn how to do massage and aromatherapy.

But growing up there was a lot of food smells. We grew up by the sea, so there was the smell of the sea and I guess food smells. Food smells were important.  Then there was makeup; makeup smells were important then as well. It was always a thing. My mom was an Avon lady for a while when I was younger and that was always a scent—some kind of synthetic floral thing; makeup fragrances for the most part; masking fragrances.

Shiseido is like a musk, it’s a little floral, but it’s very very light. Not like that Guerlain lipstick that will knock you across the room. Is it violet or something?

THE WHALE & THE ROSE: Well, actually we just did a piece on the scent of lipsticks, because Yves St. Laurent’s is very different than Chanel’s, and theirs is very different than Guerlain’s. Givenchy had one this spring with a fragrance that was specifically designed for it. I do think that’s part of what makes a favorite lipstick: its scent. Is there a beauty product that has a scent that you are drawn to?

PAGE: There was; hmm—I cannot come up with what brand it was—maybe it was one of the French drugstore brands that had a powder, a rose element to it. But it was soft, almost like a rose geranium. Like a little green, [not a] straight rose. I have an herb garden in Long Island as well. So you know, those kinds of smells.  Rose geranium is really good for keeping mosquitos away, which is good to know!

THE WHALE & THE ROSE: Best smelling place in the world?

PAGE: Well right now I have a house in Long Island outside of New York and there is this field that is part of a wildlife refuge and all the honeysuckle is in bloom. When you’re walking up to the fields, before you even see it, you can smell it. 

The other, which is weird and kind of coincidental: It is Iceland and the hot springs in Japan; they both have a lot of sulfurous springs, so the smell of that water. I really associate that with those places. A lot of people are turned off by it, but I love the sulfur smell.