Chester grew up in a Dutch-Indonesian household, where scent was part of everything. Spices in the kitchen. Incense during prayer. Rain in summer. Nothing was ever just background.
He studied art, not chemistry. His first sketches carried scent—not as decoration, but as memory. Perfume bottles sat next to pencils. Materials blurred. At some point, the line crossed over. And he stayed there.
Chester Gibs
How scent found its author
When art meets scent
On his blog Pencils & Perfumes, Chester describes his work as the point where visual rhythm meets olfactive space. He doesn’t build perfumes from notes. He feels them as colours, movements, temperatures.
A citrus opening might feel like sunlight through a window. A resin base like quiet weight on paper. He doesn’t explain it. He draws it
Published with intention
Before the World Moved Again is Chester’s first published edition with New Niche.
It began with something small. A woman in Bali. An alley. A daily offering placed with care.
He didn’t plan to stop. But he did. That moment became the core of the composition. Not staged. Just felt. The result is meditative, clear, and quietly vibrant. A fragrance that doesn’t try to define you, only to meet you, when you’re ready.
Other works that echo
— Walk With Me (2023, with Annindriya)
This perfume was developed as part of a sensory triptych—three scent journeys, each grounded in a sense of place. Walk With Me was the most intimate of the three. It was designed to follow you gently, like a companion walking beside you without speaking. The composition is soft and transparent, anchored by woods and grounded spices. More than anything, it feels human. Chester saw it not as a creation, but as a presence.
— Bouquet de Bury (2022, for Château de Courrière)
Commissioned as a room fragrance for the Château de Courrière in Belgium, this scent was developed from the atmosphere of the estate itself. It captures the stillness of historic spaces—sunlight on stone, fruit in the air, old wood and earth. In 2024, Chester returned to the château to host a perfume workshop with schoolchildren. Together, they deconstructed and reimagined the scent, guided only by how it made them feel. He later said the day reminded him why he started making perfume in the first place.
What guides his hand
Chester builds slowly. His formulas are precise, but never rigid. He is interested in balance, in contrast, and in the invisible moments that hold a scent together. His compositions are often warm, but not heavy. Structured, but never forced. He believes perfumery is a form of listening. To the material. To the mood. To what might be waiting underneath.
“If a scent doesn’t feel like someone telling me something important, I haven’t started yet.”