Our Modern Lives™: 21^st Century Fragrances for Body & Space

We’re 4160Tuesdays. We make fragrances in London, one of the busiest, stimulating, fascinating cities in the world. Sarah McCartney, our founder and perfumer, also teaches yoga; sometimes you just need an escape from all that action. With the pressure and excitement of running a business, she needs a balance, an escape from the blue screens and wifi that dominate our lives.

Five years ago Sarah made five yoga room fragrances for her own use; Our Modern Lives has developed from that project.

Every week we’re asked for two things: 100% natural fragrances, and safe scents with no allergens. People often imagine they can have both in the same bottle, or that one implies that you get the other. It’s not that simple.

The issue is that nature is naughty – there are allergens in most essential oils, including jasmine, rose, lavender, all citrus fruits and the spices - which means that natural fragrance has to be handled really carefully to be safe, to be legal and still to smell great.

Recently we’ve had more requests from people who’ve found they are allergic to the naturals oils in orange peel, which you’ll find in many fragrances, or to ylang ylang, cinnamon or geranium essential oils.

With seven years’ experience of making fragrances to both the International Fragrance Association standards on personal and environmental safety and the strict EU cosmetics regulations, we’re in a good place to launch our new venture, listening to what our customers asked for, and being open about what we use to make them.

So we’ve created fragrances that give you a choice:

• Seven 100% natural fragrances. We’re using all our experience to make these complex blends beautiful and safe.
• Two 100% synthetic fragrances which have no allergens. Here we’re choosing simple blends of molecular compounds to create soft, smooth, long-lasting sensual fragrances.

We’ve sourced organic grain alcohol (denatured so you can’t drink it), essential oils, plant absolutes and natural isolates (individual fragrance compounds from plant sources) to create fragrances for everyone who wants this option.

We’re using totally benign, clean single aroma molecules made synthetically to create a fragrance which you could safely use undiluted on your skin. (Just to compare, we’ve been tweaking our powerful natural blends for several months to make them legal at 10% dilution – that’s how tricky it is to work with nature.)

You can choose just the naturals, just the synthetics or combine both. Use them together and your fragrances will smell smoother and last longer, but it’s up to you. We’re making them as roll-ons to keep your scent in your own space, and as body & room sprays to change the atmosphere around you.

Sarah’s yoga students have been appreciating them for a few years now. We hope you’d like to share them too.

We're offering you the fragrances at early bird prices

• We’ve set the target at £4000 to be able to order natural materials from top quality suppliers. There are three companies we’d like to buy from, and each one has a minimum order value.
• The fragrances: after seven years making fragrances we are happiest making scents at a ratio of about 40:60 naturals to synthetics. Using synthetics is a bit like adding sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride to your cupcakes – that’s baking powder and a pinch of salt – it might sound scary but it makes for a better result.

Scent is for everyone

• We completely get that many people want just the naturals. We also get that one in 1000 people is allergic to something in perfume (often things that occur naturally in essential oils) so they need a fragrance that’s totally benign. For a long lasting fragrance,  you can that you wear the naturals on top of the synthetics, but if you want or need to, you can keep them separate.

The Synthetics

• OML α – a soft, mildly ambery woodsy fragrance that really lasts well, made with seven synthetic materials, completely clear in colour. Some of the beautiful aroma molecules we use here are more expensive than most naturals.
• OML β – even softer and smoother and very long lasting. We chose to make OML β with materials which are widely used in perfumery, including costly niche fragrances, but they are out of patent so their prices have fallen. We wanted to make a really good, affordable fragrance, so here you are.

The Naturals: seven shades, moods and atmospheres.

We are going to keep a few of the natural ingredients secret, but here are most of those that we’ve included. We have not economised on the materials, but as we’re making them all here in our studio, and sending them to you directly, the prices are really well discounted. Expect them to at least twice the price.

• Red – Harvest – Gratitude: A sense of security, nature’s bounty, reaping what we sow. For us it feels like a rich red berry in colour. Materials include: hay absolute, Turkish rose absolute, raspberry leaf absolute, oakwood CO2 extract, hazelnut CO2 extract, labdanum, wine essential oil, davana essential oil, pink peppercorn C)2 absolute.
• Orange – Sunset – Peace: A sense of serenity as the sun goes down, lighting up the sky in shades of blood orange, Materials include: neroli essential oil, Honeybush CO2 extract, vanilla absolute, cocoa absolute, peach natural liquid, bran absolute, rose geranium essential oil, Virginian cedarwood essential oil.
• Yellow – Sunrise – Hope: A sense of vitality, but because it’s early we’ve added in a dash of coffee for a touch of real life. Materials include: lemon petitgrain, fennel, cardamon, clementine, yellow mandarin, blood orange and sweet orange essential oils, coffee absolute, narcissus absolute and cabreuva essential oil.
• Green – Leaf – New: A sense of revival. The smell of spring when green shoots appear from the cold and dark. Materials include: jasmine tea CO2 extract, green mandarin essential oil, Calabrian bergamot essential oil, cucumber natural liquid, bergamot mint essential oil and spinach absolute.
• Aquamarine – Waves/WiFi – Clarity: A sense of connection. The colour of the clear warm sea, and sharp hit of citrus and deep seaweed. Materials include: white grapefruit and rosemary essential oils, olive fruit CO2 extract, jasmine sambac absolute, blue hemlock essential oil, organic English lavender essential oil, seaweed absolute.
• Blue Screen/Blue Horizon – Perspective : A sense of balance. We spend too much time looking at screens, not enough at the horizon. This is a scent to help you meditate. Materials include frankincense essential oil, lavender absolute, vetivert absolute, eucalyptus mint essential oil, patchouli essential oil, hyacinth absolute, organic English lavender essential oil.
• Indigo – Into the Night: A sense of the infinite. A 3a.m. scent of total darkness, when night feels endless. Materials include: Cognac absolute, black tea CO2 extract, osmanthus absolute, Atlas cedarwood essential oil, jasmine sambac absolute, labdanum absolute, rum CO2 extract.

• Personal fragrances: we’re making 10ml rollerball sizes so you can apply your natural fragrances without filling the air around you, if you prefer that. They are eau de parfum strength.
• Body sprays: these are less concentrated fragrances 100ml bottles, and are safe for use on the body, and also for use as a room spray. We had these in mind for yoga teachers who have to go into a studio after a fast paced (sweaty) aerobics class just happened.
• Skin scents: for now, we’re putting these in 50ml atomiser bottles at eau de parfum strength. Wear them with the naturals to make them last longer, feel smoother and smell more like perfumes usually do. Wear them on their own because they don’t have any allergens at all and because they smell fantastic.

To go ahead, we need materials in bigger quantities

• We’re a tiny company, but now we’ve grown just about big enough to approach specialist suppliers of rare essential oils. We need to buy a minimum amount. If we can buy by the 100g or the kilo, then we can afford to produce these fragrances affordably. Through crowdfunding we generate enough orders in advance to buy what we need.

Your commitment and our promises

• We know that fragrance is a personal thing, and that committing before you buy is a brave step. For that reason we are setting the prices far lower than they will be when we launch officially in September.
• Even if we don’t reach the target, you will still get your fragrances. We’ll have to buy small quantities and we might not be able to launch the whole range later this year, but all our backers will come out smelling great at the end.
• If we smash the target, we’ll have room for random acts of kindness, and we’ll happily accept ideas. One is to help establish community gardens, another to raise money for food banks. We’re acknowledge that we’re fortunate to be here setting up a business idea.

We’ve done this before; it’s gone pretty well so far.

• Look us up and you’ll see that this is our seventh project. They’re small but special, and we’ve always fulfilled our perks and our promises.

• Why does the world need more scents? We could ask why the world needs more books, films, paintings or songs. We see fragrance as a creative way to make the world more beautiful. It also employs people, pays its taxes and makes our customers happy. These particular scents answer two needs which we can fulfil, naturals that actually smell great, and synthetics which have no allergens in them.

Realistically, could this go wrong?

Here’s what’s already in place:

• The formulas
• The safety and environmental checks
• The stability testing
• The beautiful scents!
• The bottles

What might hold us back?

• Availability of more materials – but we’ve contacted the suppliers and they are ready to go.
• We get struck by lightning, or similar. We’ll try to stay out of harm’s way, but there are some risks we can’t avoid. We’re fully insured though.
• We get too many orders and can’t cope? We’re setting the numbers of perks realistically so that we really can fulfil all our orders ourselves. After that, we plan to launch the brand in September.

Who do you know who might love what we do?

If you like this, do please share it with your social media contacts.

The one in 1000 people who are allergic to something in perfume probably won’t be looking at this. If you know one, perhaps you’d like to direct that person to our safe synthetic fragrances.

Maybe you know some people who are finding it really hard to find interesting, affordable, genuine 100% naturals. You can send them straight to us, confident that we do exactly what we say.