I inherited my keen sense of smell from my dad - he's a scientist. And, since I can remember I've always been making fragrances. In Norfolk where I grew up, my grandparents had an amazing rose garden. As a child I'd spend days crushing roses, mixing them with water and other herbs and pouring them into bottles. My 'lab' was an old marble topped table which sat under my grandparent's kitchen window. Every so often a parent or grandparent would appear at the window to check I was ok - give me a quick wave and disappear again - in those days, this counted for childcare
Fast forward to my life as a beauty editor (I started my career in New York as a Health and Beauty assistant on the Conde Nast title Woman). As I moved on to Tatler and then to Harpers Bazaar (UK and then NYC) I began to realise just how important fragrance was to me, and how much of an influence it could have on your life. These were the days of the early revival of aromatherapy (and where I met my friend perfumer Lyn Harris who was then an aromatherapist)..It was also the days when Diptyque candles could really only be bought in Paris! And no one else had even thought about them!
At this point I began to get frustrated about not being able to fragrance my car with anything delicious. As a beauty editor I received lots of products (those were the days), so I was never short of perfumes to spray in my car. But nothing lasted..and so, I told myself that when I had time, I would try to develop a great looking, wonderfully fragranced car freshener. I couldn't understand why no one had done it before.....I was soon to find out..
to be continued....