How Jouissance bottled the scent of London’s favourite lesbian bar

Picture a breezy East London summer night out; you’re feeling sexy, and you step into a candle-lit wine bar. The soft smell of incense and the smoky haze of imported cigarettes coming from the cement-tiled courtyard fill the air. All the attendees are impeccably dressed, and their warm chitter-chatter reverberates through the crowded space. 

It’s that feeling and atmosphere that JOUISSANCE’s creative director Cherry Cheng wanted to encapsulate in her latest special-edition fragrance, and what better inspiration than London’s lesbian community favourite spot? Designed by Studio Popelo and Wet Studio, it’s clear why La Camionera has become so beloved (and a hottie magnet) among the FLINTA+ circles, offering a trans-inclusive sanctuary and event space in the heart of Hackney.

The London-based fragrance house feels like the perfect match for the location, with its debut collection inspired by sapphic female writers and artists, translating their erotic experiences, fantasies, and creative expressions into scents. The term jouissance itself comes with a rich history in feminist and queer theory, often associated with pleasure, desire, and a sense of creative liberation. For Cherry, the concept represents something beyond its academic definition: a belief in desire and erotic experience as a source of creative inspiration that she channels in her practice.

For its latest release, the parfumerie turned its attention from the individual to the collective, collaborating with La Camionera to create more than just a fragrance, but an olfactory portrait of the bar itself, capturing the warmth of its community, the intimacy of its atmosphere, and the feeling of a night full of possibility. “We all agreed from the very beginning that we wanted to create the scent of a sexy night out,” smiles Cherry. Inspired by the smoky notes, candlelit glow, conversations, and connections that make La Camionera so unique, the fragrance was created through an ongoing dialogue between Cheng and co-owners Alex and Clara. The result is a scent that blends sensuality with nostalgia, combining jasmine, spices, vanilla, tonka bean, and the unexpected sweetness of marzipan to evoke the magic of a night that refuses to end.

The day after the launch, I spoke with Cherry about the inspiration behind JOUISSANCE, the creative process behind the collaboration, and why community, desire, and imagination remain at the heart of the brand.

Can you tell me about your journey into creating fragrance? Was there a specific experience that drew you to that world?

I started learning about fragrance during the pandemic. I think a lot of people became interested in scent and perfume during that same period, so I started learning too, especially because my background has actually nothing to do with chemistry or perfumery. I studied art history, and I was also working for an art advisory at the time. I just started learning online and from books, and after the first lockdown was lifted, I signed up for a short course at Grasse Institute of Perfumery, so officially it started from there. I was introduced to enough people in the industry to get the brand started, and since then I’ve kept learning as I go.

I was really lucky to meet Antoine Lie, who’s a really important French perfumer, and he has been mentoring me privately for the last two years. I’m also going back to school to study fragrance at ISIPCA from September to March. I guess it’s every independent perfumer’s dream to attend the school, and only people who had a Master’s degree in chemistry would get in, but now, because they’ve tried to rebrand the school to be a little less stuffy and sciencey, they’re accepting people who don’t necessarily have a chemistry background, but have relevant experience in the industry.

I’ve had the idea of creating a fragrance brand inspired by female writers who explore desire and eroticism in their work for a long time, because those are my favourite writers.

Congrats! I love that you have an impressive background in contemporary art, which you also collect. How has that expertise come into play in your perfume line?

I think my background definitely inspired me a lot in how I position the brand. When I started it, I wasn’t an expert on raw materials, and I also didn’t have access to the best quality of naturals. So for us, the angle was really about playing with narratives, as I like to really tap into the aspect of fragrance as an art form, but also as a narrative device, and a form of expression. Our core collection is actually a collection of fragrances inspired by different female writers from the 20th century, and those scents come from a lot of literary and artistic inspirations.

The word jouissance has a long history in feminist and queer theory. What does that term mean to you today beyond its academic definition?

I’ve had the idea of creating a fragrance brand inspired by female writers who explore desire and eroticism in their work for a long time, because those are my favourite writers. That’s the kind of stuff I read all the time! When I was at Goldsmiths, I was introduced to Hélène Cixous’s essay The Laugh of the Medusa, and that’s the first time I encountered this use of the word jouissance. I think that essay spoke so much to me, and I felt like it really summed up what I love about these writers. They use erotic experience and pleasure – because eros in Greek means life, so it’s like a life force – as a source of inspiration for creativity, and that’s kind of what it means to me too, and what I really want to do is create and inspire everyone to use their own desires, and fantasies as a source of creativity.

Why did you choose La Camionera as the cultural space for Jouissance’s first place-based fragrance, and what about the bar helped you choose the notes for this perfume?

I feel like it came about so naturally. The first time I went there was for a friend’s birthday, Jacob Rackham, who’s a writer and a chef, and I have so many mutual friends that go there. I was just like, “Wow, this is such a beautiful place,” and everyone there looked amazing. Then I started following La Camionera a little more closely. I saw that they do regular book clubs, and they had film screenings. I think last year they showed Y Tu Mamá También, this Mexican film about a road trip and a threesome, which was so fun.

You usually begin with writers and artists, but this time your muse was a living and breathing room full of people. How did that change your creative process, and what was the feeling you wanted someone to experience smelling this particular fragrance for the first time?

This collaboration was very much dialogue-oriented. With our core collection, we work around the writings of authors who were more active in the past century, so it was very much my own interpretation of their lives and their worlds, and it was more about interpretation and adaptation.

Every time I went to La Camionera, I was really immediately captured by the beautiful, sweet incense burning in the background, so that was the starting point.

But this time I was working closely with Alex and Clara directly throughout the entire process. In the end, I presented three rounds of fragrance proposals in total. I shared three different directions with them, and they picked the one they liked best; then they gave me suggestions about what they thought would work, so it was very much dialogue-based. I just kept reworking it and reworking it until we got to a point where we were all happy. We all agreed from the very beginning that we wanted to create the scent of a sexy night out. Every time I went there, I was really immediately captured by the beautiful, sweet incense burning in the background, so that was the starting point. The base was very much about using different smoking notes, like patchouli, vetiver, and other smoky elements. Then, to create the sweetness, I added a lot of vanilla and tonka bean. In the beginning, I also put some aldehydes to create metallic notes on the top. But then we decided that was maybe a bit too Chanel No. 5, a bit too old school. So we decided to tweak the direction to make it more gourmand and more of a younger, more contemporary scent. The spicy notes were added later, like cinnamon and Nutmeg.

Similarly to how La Camionera has established itself as not just a lesbian bar, but also a community space supporting independent and queer businesses, Jouissance feels bigger than a fragrance brand, as you host salons, screenings and conversations. Why is community as important as the product itself?

I think everybody is craving experience and a sense of belonging more and more. For me, if I buy a product, I appreciate it as a beautiful object or for its sensory aspects, but at the end of the day, I want to feel like I belong to something where I can connect with like-minded people through this object. It’s also much more interesting from a creative perspective to actually work with people and meet people through our events. A lot of people who came to our events as friends of friends later became collaborators, and I think that’s actually the most rewarding part of building the brand. I also have so much to learn from everybody, so that’s actually the part I enjoy doing the most.

Your fragrances deliberately reject the trend for clean, invisible scents in favour of compositions that provoke and deliver sensuality. What are you pushing back against culturally?

I think, especially from the ’90s onwards, fragrance has become increasingly less murky, more clean, and more airy, and that’s also partly due to the new materials that are being pushed for perfumers to use. It’s a trend that has been affected by the technological changes in the industry. These types of synthetic materials are very safe to use in large quantities, but they are also very cheap, which is why they have become so popular. It’s also easy to make them smell good. But for me, I’m very interested in nostalgic fragrances from the early 20th century, where they used a higher level of natural materials. They don’t smell so clean because there is so much more complexity, as every single natural material is composed of more than 100 molecules. In a way, a good comparison is digital versus analogue photography. I feel like I’m more drawn towards the nuances and the granularity of something that is a bit less clear and not as immediately easy to understand. And then, from a narrative perspective, I think it’s much more interesting.

I’m very interested in nostalgic fragrances from the early 20th century, where they used a higher level of natural materials. They don’t smell so clean because there is so much more complexity, as every single natural material is composed of more than 100 molecules

I noticed you have a great sense of style and your outfit last night was gorgeous. Does fashion have an influence on your creative process?

I love clothes. It might be a shallow interest, but I guess everyone’s a victim. I haven’t had much experience working with fashion brands, but this is actually something I want to explore more. I feel like there are so many wonderful independent designers in London, and I would love to create fragrances for them.

Literature is also at the base of the creative inspiration behind your fragrances. Do you have a favourite poem or book that you haven’t yet translated into scent?

There are quite a few. It’s actually going to happen. We already have some books that are in the planning for the next collection. We have a fragrance that is ready, and we are about to launch it soonish, maybe later this year. It’s inspired by an English writer I really love and her work from her Paris years, but I don’t want to give too much away. That’s what’s coming next.

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