Batchig’s Tactile New Vision for Fine Fragrance

Founded by longtime friends Janelle Bolatova and Clara Boyadjian, the Parisian brand is transforming solid perfume into an intimate ritual, a refillable accessory, and an object made to become more personal with time.

Perfume may be one of beauty’s most emotional categories, yet the way we wear it has remained remarkably fixed. We apply it from a glass bottle in the morning, leave it at home, and hope the fragrance still feels right for every version of ourselves the day requires.

Batchig was created around a more flexible idea.

The Parisian fragrance brand makes highly concentrated solid perfumes designed to be touched, carried, reapplied, layered, and changed according to the wearer’s mood. Each alcohol-free balm sits inside a refillable case inspired by jewelry and vintage compacts, giving perfume a place in the hand and handbag as naturally as any favorite accessory.

For co-founders Janelle Bolatova, Batchig’s Creative Director, and Clara Boyadjian, its Managing Director, the opportunity went beyond making fragrance portable. They wanted to give solid perfume the olfactory complexity, creative ambition, and physical presence of fine fragrance.

Their vision is captured in a straightforward phrase: perfume for real life.

From Fashion to Fragrance

Bolatova and Boyadjian met while studying in Paris, became friends, and later worked together at Sézane. Their experience inside the fashion brand showed them how a distinctive world is created through hundreds of connected choices.

“It is never only the product,” the founders explain. “It is the image, the service, the way something feels when you receive it, and whether all of that tells the same story.”

Fashion also shaped the way they thought about objects. A handbag, compact, or piece of jewelry becomes part of someone’s life through repetition. It is carried, touched, marked, and often valued more deeply over time.

Perfume holds similar emotional power, but its traditional format rarely allows for the same kind of relationship. Most bottles remain at home, while the ritual is typically completed before the wearer leaves for the day.

Meanwhile, the rest of beauty has become increasingly mobile and spontaneous. Consumers carry products with them, change their makeup according to the moment, layer fragrances, and move between aesthetics without committing to a single identity.

Solid perfume already existed, but Bolatova and Boyadjian rarely saw it approached with the ambition of fine fragrance. It was often treated as a novelty, a travel alternative, or a secondary version of the real product.

They saw the potential for something more complete: a fragrance with the complexity of perfume, the intimacy of a balm, and the presence of an object someone would genuinely want to carry.

A Memory Rediscovered in Florence

The earliest emotional seed of Batchig came from a childhood gift.

When Bolatova was young, her mother gave her a small solid perfume from Fragonard. She loved the fragrance, but her attachment to the object continued long after the balm was gone. She kept it for years as a small talisman connected to her mother and to her first personal encounter with perfume.

The memory returned during a trip to Florence.

With fragrance embedded in its history and craftsmanship, the city helped the founders imagine perfume as part of a broader way of living. Santa Maria Novella became a particular point of inspiration, demonstrating how scent, place, ritual, and object could exist within the same world.

Florence also gave them distance from the conventions of the modern perfume bottle. They began asking what fragrance might look like if it were designed around the palm, the handbag, and the changing rhythm of an actual day.

The memory of a childhood object, their experience in fashion, and Florence’s relationship with fragrance began to converge. Batchig moved from an interesting idea into something they felt compelled to create.

Pick Warm Kiss

Batchig means “kiss” in Armenian. The name connects the brand to Boyadjian’s roots while also describing the gesture of applying the perfume.

The ritual is distilled into three words: Pick. Warm. Kiss.

The wearer picks up a small amount of balm, warms it between the fingers, and presses it onto a pulse point. The scent gradually opens through the warmth and movement of the skin, remaining close to the body rather than filling the room.

“Batchig is not meant to enter the room before you do,” the founders share. “You notice it on yourself first, and then someone else discovers it when they come closer.”

That proximity gives the experience its sensuality. The wearer can apply the balm to the wrists before a meeting, behind the ears before dinner, along the clavicle before going out, or simply revisit it in the middle of the day.

There are no strict rules about placement or frequency. Each person can develop their own habits and decide how present they want the fragrance to feel.

Batchig does not position solid perfume as a replacement for traditional fragrance. The founders still wear sprays and layer their balms with scents they already own. Their goal is to introduce another way to experience perfume, one that is portable, precise, tactile, and responsive to the moment.

“Real life is more changeable,” they explain. “Sometimes I use perfume for confidence, sometimes for comfort, and sometimes simply because I want to reset my mood for a minute.”

Translating Fine Fragrance Into a Balm

Creating a solid perfume with the complexity and evolution of fine fragrance required more than placing an existing fragrance concentrate into a wax base.

Batchig worked with the women of Studio Flair, who approached the solid format as its own olfactory experience. Each scent was developed by a different perfumer: Camille Chemardin created Medusa, Anne-Sophie Behaghel developed Cœur d’Abricot, and Margaux Le Paih Guérin composed Charcoal Latte.

The fragrances contain concentrations of approximately 20 to 25 percent, depending on the formula. Batchig’s laboratory also developed a vegan, alcohol-free base in France that melts easily, feels comfortable against the skin, and allows the perfume to evolve rather than flattening its notes.

The technical balance was exacting. Increasing the fragrance concentration could alter the texture or affect how the balm set. Each formula needed to remain stable in a handbag, through travel, and across changing temperatures while still melting smoothly beneath the fingertip.

The founders also wanted every scent to have a recognizable opening, heart, and base. Alcohol creates immediate projection, while a balm releases its notes more gradually through the skin’s warmth. The goal was to embrace that intimacy while preserving a complete fragrance experience.

The work behind the formula is highly technical. The experience of using it is intentionally effortless.

An Object Designed to Stay

The refillable case carries as much creative importance as the perfume inside it.

From the beginning, Bolatova and Boyadjian knew that one part of the experience could not compensate for another. A beautiful case paired with an average fragrance would become a gadget. An exceptional fragrance housed inside an object that felt disposable would also miss the opportunity they had identified.

They developed the case and fragrance together.

Looking toward jewelry and vintage compacts, they paid close attention to weight, proportions, durability, and the experience of opening the case. It needed to feel substantial in the palm while remaining practical enough for everyday use.

Each case is adorned with a natural stone, allowing subtle variations to give every object its own personality. Cœur d’Abricot is paired with agate on a beige case, Charcoal Latte with Dalmatian jasper on black, and Medusa with turquoise on silver.

The stones were selected to complement each fragrance’s mood, although their meanings are intentionally left open. A wearer might choose a stone for its color, symbolism, or simply the immediate attraction they feel toward it.

The case is also the foundation of Batchig’s refill system. Customers purchase the object once and replace the fragrance inside, with each refill lasting approximately three to four months depending on how frequently and generously it is applied.

Because the case and refill were developed at the same time, refillability feels integral to the product rather than an environmental message added later. The wearer can remain loyal to one perfume or change fragrances with the season, mood, or memory they want to create next.

“Luxury, for us, is about making something well enough that you want to keep using it.”

The founders welcome the idea that the case may collect small signs of use. Those marks indicate that the object has traveled, been handled, and become part of someone’s life.

A Fragrance Wardrobe

Batchig’s debut collection introduces three distinct fragrances designed to function as a wardrobe of scent.

Cœur d’Abricot is the most tender of the three. Armenian apricot and jasmine tea rest against a soft woody base, creating a fragrance associated with misty mornings, warm tea, and a grounded beginning to the day.

Charcoal Latte has more depth and presence, combining charcoal and almond milk with powdery iris. The inspiration began with New York and the energy of an iconic creamy drink, while the finished fragrance feels comforting, polished, and unexpected without becoming overly sweet.

Medusa is the freest expression in the collection. Caspian salt and fresh ginger lead into white flowers, coconut water, and a warm musky base. It calls to mind skin after the sea, late afternoons, and the temporary feeling of being somewhere else.

Each fragrance can be worn alone, layered with another Batchig scent, or paired with a traditional spray. Cœur d’Abricot and Medusa bring salt, brightness, and minerality to the fruit. Medusa and Charcoal Latte create a stranger contrast, with freshness cutting through the creaminess of almond milk.

The precision of the balm makes experimentation feel approachable. One fragrance can be worn on the wrists and another behind the ears, or small amounts can be blended together on the same pulse point.

The brand offers possibilities rather than a correct formula. Over time, the wearer creates combinations and associations that become entirely their own.

Armenian and Kazakh Roots

The founders’ Armenian and Kazakh backgrounds are present throughout Batchig without becoming a literal theme.

For Bolatova, her Kazakh roots connect to landscape, movement, and elemental materials such as stone, salt, tea, and smoke. Armenian influence appears most visibly in the brand’s name, but it also informs the warmth of its application ritual.

In both founders’ family histories, objects carry emotional significance. They are kept, gifted, and sometimes passed from one person to another. That understanding shapes the refillable case, which remains while the scents placed inside it continue to change.

Batchig is a Parisian brand with products made in France, although its emotional world reaches across multiple places. Those cultural influences emerge through language, materials, fragrance notes, and personal memories, giving the brand greater depth without turning heritage into decoration.

Creating Another Fragrance Reflex

Fragrance has become one of beauty’s most crowded categories. A distinctive note or compelling story is no longer enough to guarantee that a new product will earn a lasting place in someone’s life.

Batchig offers a different answer by beginning with the gesture.

The balm is portable and precise. The fragrance is highly concentrated, vegan, and alcohol-free. The case is refillable and designed to remain in use. Every element contributes to a new way of interacting with scent.

Since introducing the brand, Bolatova and Boyadjian have been struck by how quickly people understand Batchig once they touch it. The weight of the case immediately establishes it as a real object rather than disposable packaging. Warming the balm against the skin reveals the comfort, intimacy, and pleasure of the ritual more effectively than a lengthy explanation ever could.

People take the case out, pass it around, compare stones, and begin imagining how they might use it. The product naturally creates conversation.

The founders are now focused on deepening the world they have built. They plan to add fragrances to the wardrobe, although each new scent must introduce a distinct mood and reason for existing. More choice only becomes meaningful when every option offers another way to experience perfume.

They are also building a selective physical retail presence in France and internationally. Batchig is a product that benefits from being held, opened, and applied, making the right retail environment especially important.

Longer term, the brand may explore new formats and gestures, provided each addition makes fragrance feel freer, more tactile, or easier to incorporate into everyday life.

The founders believe beauty should always feel alive. It should move with us, make room for instinct, and grow more personal through use.

By placing fine fragrance directly into the palm of the hand, Batchig is giving perfume another way to become part of who we are and how we live.