Fragrance house

Notes de Bas de Paje

Notes de Bas de Paje was founded in 2023 by Alice Gensse and Pierre-Jr Menana, who met in 2020 while preparing for the bar exam and decided in late 2021, while still at law school, to create the brand. They left a legal career path for fragrance, bringing their legal and intellectual-property background to the brand’s development and operation. The name refers to a footnote, an annotation that adds detail and context to a text; for the founders, scent adds another layer to personal stories. They describe perfume as a universal language for expressing memories, lived experiences, people, places, and decisions, with each fragrance serving as a footnote to their individual and shared histories. The initial collection comprised Prolégomènes, Olatua, and Towédé, built around a meeting between strangers, a summer memory, and the life and displacement of the founders’ mother. By January 2026, the brand had unveiled Carambolage, inspired by Pierre-Jr Menana’s experience of a car accident and associated with resilience. Towédé was identified in a 2026 interview as the fragrance most often chosen by customers and as an homage to a journey from Benin to Europe.