about us

My fragrance journey starts with perfume. As odd and hypocritical as it sounds l love fragrance. I love collecting perfume, the beautiful bottle always speak to me of glamour, prestige and a sophistication that l long for. Every year as l was growing up, my Grandmother would give me a bottle of perfume, at the age of 14  was the proud owner of a bottle of Chanel No5 which l still own.

As l grew, l become a Beauty Therapist and my passion for skin care and all things beauty related flourished. I worked  in prestigious stores around the world an my access to skin care, hair care, perfumes was inexhaustible and everything was great.

Then one day l went yet another skincare company training, at these trainings you learn about the ingredients and effects of products and of course you try the product on yourself and on others. This was the first time I had a reaction, is was a sensitive skin mask that had a cooling effect on the skin. I later figured out the it was the menthol and camphor in the product that left  my skin a bright red hue which later developed into an itchy scaly rash.

   Seems l had developed an allergy to a specific ingredient. No major problem. But slowly that ingredient issues become two, then three and before l knew it l was allergic to a range of ingredients and l couldn’t name them. If l couldn’t put a name on them l could avoid them. Still that was ok, through trial and error l found products that worked for me and avoided the others.

But, working in the beauty industry you inevitably use a lot of products on your skin and l start getting rashes up my arms, scaly patches on my hands and it became bad enough for me to start thinking about a new career. And so l went off to university to become a teacher of Beauty Therapy.

This is where my fragrance story really begins. Now, everybody sneezes, some people are quiet, other are loud, and l am a multiple sneezer (17 in a row is my record). And when you are in a quiet room and you start sneezing like a mad woman everyone tends to notice. During certain lectures l would be sneezing every five minutes. One day during particular boring class it dawned on me that every time l sat next to a particular person, l would sneeze. eventually l put two and two together and realised that it was the way she smelt that set me off sneezing like a steam train.

She used a fabric softener that was highly fragrance and from here l started to realise that not only was skin reacting but also my lungs. And so began my journey to being fragrance free.