Andrés Croxatto: Life outside the Catholic Church cannot make sense

With 1.75 million subscribers on YouTube, Andrés Croxatto—known as Andrés Perfume-Man on YouTube—has become the most popular perfume influencer in Spanish. In a conversation with ACI Prensa, he delved into the details of his life and his history of faith, which today lead him to unequivocally affirm that “life outside the Catholic Church cannot make sense.”

Croxatto resides in Valencia (Spain), although he is Chilean by birth. He is happily married and waiting for his seventh child. Six years ago he started his YouTube channel, where he reviews and analyzes fragrances after trying them, a total success that has accumulated more than 200 million views in more than 300 videos.

After so much time with his channel, he highlights “how much fun it has been and what a fabulous job it is.” Andrés Perfume-Man is now a business you can live fromone who always tries to do the best possible, but which emerged in his life after a long journey, in which there were no shortage of obstacles and difficulties.

“I am convinced that life outside the Catholic Church cannot have meaning. It can’t make sense, because there is no forgiveness. What is natural in human beings is that kindness, generosity, and forgiveness do not exist. All those virtues that we think we can develop by our own strength, I learned that this is not the case,” he says.

“The wisdom of the Church taught me to see these things, because if you don’t hear it in the Church, where are you going to hear it? Nowhere, absolutely nowhere. Where are you going to really know who you are? The sins you may have, the inability to love that one has, the inability to forgive. Who is going to teach you reality so you can discern and look at yourself and say, ‘Ah, this is me.’ The only place I know that can teach you that is the Church,” shares Croxatto.

A young man rescued by a Catholic priest

Long before becoming the Hispanic reference for perfumes, Croxatto explains that his youth in Chile was complicated. “I have many difficulties that I have carried with me since I was a child,” he says. He grew up in a broken family, without a father figure, in which he is the second of three children, the only boy.

His mother was always a very believer; he remembers that she always invited him to accompany her to church. Croxatto’s interest in religion would be short-lived. He comments that he always wanted to make his life “what he wanted and according to how he imagined it.” The Church soon became “a limitation.”

“I wanted to develop myself in sex, in drugs, in my way of working, of earning money. Deep down, I wanted to develop my own way of living. I thought I was going to do well, to be honest, doing things the way I wanted. I tried it and I radically left the Church, because I wanted to live my life in my style,” he recalls.

At the age of 19, her first daughter was born. From then on, life, he continues, became very complicated. “I had a daughter and I didn’t have any money, I couldn’t continue studying and my job was very precarious. Also, I started smoking marijuana constantly,” he confesses.

“Not only was life very difficult, but vision of the future was impossible. There was nothing. I saw that I was in a deplorable situation, although I had a good time, but life couldn’t be that. The situation was bleak, but the outlook for the future was worse,” says Croxatto.

In the midst of this reality, he affirms that his older sister, also a very believer, was a role model. “Everything was going well for her. He got married, started his family. He was a person who seemed full, because he lived in the truth,” he highlights. That’s when a priest, a family friend, who married this sister in Valencia, enters the scene.

“It occurred to me to write you a very short and very silly letter. It was cold, without any grace and four lines to this priest that I had already met before. The thing is that this man showed up in Chile because I wrote to him. My letter touched his heart, I don’t know in what way, because there was nothing special about it. He stayed for about a month,” he shares.

During this time, in which he conversed regularly with the priest, he affirms that he spoke to God in the following way: “I am aware that this panorama is very dark and is getting worse. If this is fixed, I will have no choice but to recognize that it is a miracle.”

The priest would take him with him to Valencia, but not before strongly asking him to get away from the disordered life he had led until that moment. This was, says Croxatto, a before and after in its history.

In Spain, she came to live with her older sister for two years, for the first time in a functional family. He assures that he always kept in mind a phrase that the priest told him in Chile and that changed his life: “Andrés, you are living outside of reality and there is nothing better than reality.” This strengthened him to change his life. He never tried the drug again.

His situation changed gradually, with a lot of effort involved. He comments that, when he needed it most, he got up every day at three in the morning and prayed: “Lord, have mercy on me, I need a job.” Soon one job after another began to arrive.

“The easy thing would be to see it as a picturesque thing: ‘I ask and God gives me.’ I don’t think so, but the Lord worked a miracle. I want to tell you that for me this is not a superstition. In reality I was not looking for a job, but for my life to have full meaning. Having my whole life organized, that can only be achieved with something much deeper,” he says.

What does Andrés Perfume-Man recommend for going to Mass?

His work on YouTube is relatively recent. Croxatto says that he is not a fan of “having” perfumes, nor of “buying” them, but rather of using them and having other people interested in them. Perfumes are then a communal experience, just like faith.

“A person who says that he does not need the Church to develop his faith, from my point of view, is a person who knows absolutely nothing about himself. Which deep down is like me when I was 19 years old. Where is the source from which God speaks to you, welcomes you and reveals himself to you? Actually, that is the most comfortable position. “She is the most immature and naive,” she says.

Croxatto also highlights that the liturgy is impregnated with aromas, such as incense and holy oils. Also, remember that the Bible speaks of Christ’s sacrifice as a “pleasant aroma” (Ef. 5,2) who gives himself to God, and the Gospel passage in which Mary pours a perfume of pure spikenard of great value on the feet of Jesus (Juan 12. 3,8).

Reviewing his life, he also highlights the value of suffering and sacrifice offered to God, which “is a mystery that is difficult to understand” but is necessary to grow and achieve great things.

“God is not far from that suffering. “I know that,” he says.

Finally, he assures that his work with Andrés Perfume-Man is a miracle in itself, because of how complicated it is to prosper on YouTube, to the point that it becomes a business from which you can make a living. Croxatto is without a doubt, after a long journey, the one to turn to to find the ideal perfume for every occasion.

“For Mass, on a Sunday at noon, when it’s hot, I can recommend a very good citrus, marine, winning, masculine and rich thing. Something that projects cleanliness and is special: Acqua di Gio is very special, although it is a little old, and Dior Homme Cologne, which is also a classic smell, but it is wonderful, exquisite, masculine and has charm. Those two are appropriate,” he concludes.