Marina Barcenilla

“Perfume protects our memories and emotions.
No matter what happens, he is there like an unconditional friend”

Independent Spanish perfumer, originally from La Rioja and based in London, with a double career as an astrobiologist and scientific researcher at the University of Westminster and the Natural History Museum in London, she graduated with honours from the University of London. She has an extensive career as an autodidact in perfume and her passion for dissemination has led her to become a mentor and trainer of young talents. She describes her perfumes as precious stories and personal memories for which she spends years working and researching. In 2011 she created The Perfume Garden, a small artisan perfumery that seeks to return to the most traditional ways of creating perfumes. Years later, she began her AromAtom project, a project to disseminate science and bring astrobiology closer to the general public for which she has composed different scents of the solar system and our galaxy based on synthetic molecules that allow her to create olfactory concepts that are not found in nature.

Deeply knowledgeable about natural perfumery and the value of molecular perfumery, she has received multiple international awards and recognitions, including two awards from the Fragrance Foundation for the best independent fragrance.

She stands out for the integration of perfume with her scientific life as an astrobiologist, creating science-based fragrances that speak of space smells, such as the Moon, Mars or planet Earth, which serve to teach space science around the world in museums and educational centers – from Houston to the Natural History Museum in London – as well as in conferences at the Lunar & Planetary Institute and NASA in the USA.