The following is an interview I had with Topper Schroeder, the Founder and President of Gendarme fragrances, on 11.01.97:

What did you do before you got wrapped up in the fragrance biz?

Before Gendarme took over my life, I was in the music business. For 8 or so years I rose through the ranks to National Sales Manager for a major music company and then spent the next 15 years working with my partner, Bob Adels, as a consultant to the music industry specializing in merchandising concepts. In 1986 I was having more fun with Gendarme than I was with music, so Gendarme got all my attention from then on.

How did you get into the fragrance business?

Back in the early 70's, a friend of mine who knew I was allergic to cologne asked me to be a guinea pig for a product his company was trying to market as a hypo-allergenic scent. I tried it. Liked it. But for a variety of reasons the company he worked for never made it available commercially, therefore, I couldn't buy it. The only way I could get my own personal supply was to make it myself. With the help of my friend, I made contact with the French fragrance house that had developed it originally. So we came up with a new formula, a new creation that became Gendarme … It's important for you to know that I never intended to sell it. I just wanted to make some for myself, however, they wouldn't sell me a little bit of cologne fragrance oil, I had to buy a big batch. I had no idea that their minimum quantity equated to 750 4oz bottles of finished product.. The only way I could rationalize this kind of purchase was to make the cologne to use as my corporate music industry holiday gifts….and that's what I did. In 1983 I gave out 250 bottles of cologne for Christmas. Almost immediately I started getting calls from upscale men's shops: "One of my customers wears your cologne, I'd like to sell it in my store." One of these came from Fred Segal in Hollywood. I decided to sell them as much as they could sell. Not only did they sell every bottle they ordered and re-ordered, but I started getting calls from all over the country from other stores whose buyers discovered Gendarme at Fred Segal when they were in L.A.

From the first, I was very selective about who I sold. It was a hobby, so I could afford to be. I decided to do business with people who were fun. (So far I've still been able to be true to this credo. Once in a while you inherit a buyer who's a pain, but at the moment, all is bliss.)

The business grew as fast as I could keep up with it, and in 1986, Bob Adels joined in when the work became too much for one person to handle. Now we're in hundreds of stores, and have a staff of employees. I just made a long story, very short. But the essence of it is there.

One footnote: That friend of mine who got me started in this business was the late Jim Fox. He worked with another toiletries company that shall remain nameless prior to joining Chanel and that is where he became the godfather of the concept that evolved into Gendarme.

What exactly is it that makes Gendarme NOT irritating to most people's skin?

I've been trying to figure that out for years, I am myself allergic to many things. In the development of various Gendarme Skin Care Naturals products I gave myself so many rashes and asthma attacks you wouldn't believe it! However lately, I've had a lot of exposure to the Gummi Baer products that I distribute through Maraczek and I know that the Germans who make them have very strict regulations regarding synthetic musk, I'm not allergic to the Gummi's either. Maybe there is some rational there. We don't make any grand hypoallergenic claims, but from the letters we get, we know that there are thousands of people out there that have never been able to wear fragrance, but who now wear one of ours.

As a long suffering allergic person, I wish more perfumers would take this into consideration when they formulate. Every time I work a fragrance event I hurt a lot from the "fallout". What some people have the nerve to wear on planes (not mentioning any brand names) is sinful.

I've heard a few different versions, but what is the REAL story behind picking the name Gendarme?

Remember, I was not going to sell Gendarme. I was making it as gifts for people in the record business. The working name of the fragrance was "Tonic for Men", However, if I gave music people something labeled tonic I knew they would drink it. I asked my partner, Bob Adels, to come up with a name that was both French and macho. Without hesitation he said "Gendarme". We then added the tag "the arresting new scent for men." We thought we were clever, but now the French want to buy and really think it's a stupid name.

I heard that there was an interesting story behind the "underline" of the name Gendarme in the logo...

The "swash" was a surprise when the designer (Peter Numoro who worked for Stan Evenson Design at the time) showed me the mock-up of the bottle. I picked up the bottle and tried instinctively to scratch it off. "What's this?" I asked. "Just something to make people pick up the bottle", he replied. It worked. I kept it.

Where did the name Grabazzi come from?

I made it up. I tell everybody that it's Italian for "Frujen Gladj".

What was the concept behind creating it?

I wanted a more mainstream, sexier version of Gendarme. It took 8 years and a lot of perfumers trying to outdo each other to come up with Grabazzi. I love the way it lingers and the way most women react to it. There is something in it that causes a saliva flow when you first perceive it. That's were its sensuality starts. Grabazzi will probably eventually outsell Gendarme because of its wider appeal. Of course I'm still very prejudiced in favor of my firstborn, Gendarme.

What IS that little leaf on the logo under the name Grabazzi?

Kind of leaf? Actually I created it as a stylized flame. But most people think of it as a leaf. It's Projection test What kind of leaf? All answers are acceptable.

On your Press Release, it says Love Potion #2 under Grabazzi... What's the story?

Gendarme was #1, Grabazzi, #2. I suppose Carriere will be #3 and Calista, #4. Carriere is our first women's fragrance now in limited distribution. Calista will come out after Carriere becomes more widely available.

Was the Bath Bar supposed to change color to heat? Or was that one of "those little unexpected things that happens?"

I would like to tell you it was planned, but it wasn't. Truth behind the cosmetic counter??? Maybe I better color the story. "While Dr. Watson turned from the simmering caldron of saponified vegetable oil - a natural derivative of the tropical coconut, A small Aztec child who had wandered into our formulating area inadvertently waved a ritual ceremonial feather over the vat who's crackling ingredients had just reached the critical stage and a strange spark lit up the otherwise dimly lit lab. We were startled for a moment but soon assumed that nothing in our work had been disturbed. However the next morning when lab apprentice Jason Bigger borrowed one of the newly minted Grabazzi bars for a quick pre-lab shower, the heat of his palm was absorbed by the Grand Sport Face and Body Bar and…"

Tell me something interesting that has NEVER been printed in any of your press releases...

I never before admitted that I didn't have the slightest idea of what I was doing or how to go about it when I started in this business. I'm totally "jazzed" by the success of Gendarme and even more so by the fact that other people like Grabazzi as much as I do. I don't have any real dirt because I'm too impetuous and, believe it or not, naive to have any secrets. Nobody has ever asked my age. I turned 60 last July.

Is there anything you would like to convey to the people that visit my site?

I know that I make very unusual products. The thousands of letters we have received from Gendarme junkies confirm that my products work. By work, I mean that they help instill a sense of well being and self assurance that is contagious. Women can't help but positively notice a man who is wearing Gendarme or Grabazzi. Whoops! That's neither PC nor accurate. People can't help but positively notice people who wear Gendarme or Grabazzi or Carriere. Sometimes I think they all should carry a warning, "Not to be applied by children under 18 without parental consent."

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