Can you remember the smell of the seaside? Of fresh rain on a forest? Scent is one of our most powerful scents, but perhaps tricky to market in the online space. How do you do this?

Today on the podcast, I have the perfect guest to answer this question -  Sasha Lord from LORDS Fragrance House. LORDS Fragrance House offers scents that are inspired by & named after wonderful places across the planet. Colourfully made in Oxfordshire by industry experts with a mission to add joy to a saturated market of boring branding & the same interior scents.

Sasha talks about her experience as a scent marketer and how she started her own fragrance brand, inspired by her travels and memories from amazing places around the world.

You'll learn about the practical process of creating scents, how to use scent marketing, and the ups and downs of running your own business. Sasha shares how she stayed true to her vision, even when the fragrance industry tends to stick to the same trends and aesthetics.

This episode is packed with inspiring stories and practical tips for anyone looking to launch a product that stands out. Sasha's journey shows the importance of being authentic and passionate about your work. Tune in to get inspired and learn how to create a product that not only looks good but also makes a real emotional connection with customers.

The Bring Your Product Idea to Life Podcast  - Best Business Podcast Award, Independent Podcast Awards 2023

USEFUL RESOURCES:

Lord’s Fragrance House

Lord’s Fragrance House Instagram

The Aroma Company

The Fragrance Foundation

DISCOUNT CODE:

Podcast listeners can get 15% off LORDS Fragrance House products with the code: producttolife

This episode is proudly sponsored by my own book - Bring Your Product Idea to Life

Have you ever had a great idea for a product? Or does creating a product to sell appeal to you? Where do you begin? How do you come up with a product idea? Or, if you have an idea, how do you know if it’s even viable?

In Bring Your Product Idea to Life, I take you through the process of creating your product, step-by-step. From developing your product idea, to finding suppliers and launching your product we cover it all.

The book includes advice on how to price your product, where to sell it and how to find out if anyone will actually buy it. Designed to help you make real progress, Bring Your Product to Life is both practical and motivational.

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Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast.

This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd

like to create your own product to sell. I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product

creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly,

practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses.

Let's get started.

Today on the podcast, I'm speaking to Sasha Lord from Lord's Fragrance

House. Lord's Fragrance House offers scents that are inspired by and

named after one places across the planet colourfully made in

Oxfordshire by industry experts have permission to add joy to a saturated

market of boring branding and the same interior scents. This was

a really interesting conversation. We spoke so much about scent

and how you design scent and what scent marketing

is. Lots of things scent based as well. Of course,

the challenges and the good points about running your

own business and being able to choose to do things your way. This was a

great conversation. Sasha had so much to share with us and I

would love to introduce you to her.

So. Hi, Sasha. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, yeah, no problem at

all. Lovely to be here. So, can we start with you? Please give an

introduction to yourself, your business and what you sell, of course. So,

yes, I am Sasha, but Sasha Lord, so founder of Lords,

and we create unique scents based on

memories from travel and sort of inspiration from the

world, primarily in the home scent sector, but

currently reaching out to other products.

Amazing. Thank you. Now, if you don't mind, I wanted to talk a little

bit about your background working for the Aroma Company. So what the aroma

company is and your role there, just to give people a little bit of context

before we start talking about Lord's Fragrace House. Of course, it's like how

I got into it and I still very much do that role. I have,

I work with both hats on all of the time and we run both out

of the same office. So, yeah, it's, it's

a really interesting job role. It covers

anything and everything to do with fragrance. So. And it's how

my love for this came about and how Lords even came about. So

it's, what we do is very broad. It

can be when you, whenever I meet anyone in the street and they say, what

do you do? How long have you got? Because it can be anything

from creating and designing sense for brands that don't have them,

that are looking to do something engaging and sensory. So we do a lot of

work with drinks, brands and things like that through

to brands that already have fragrances, that are looking to

utilize scent marketing. So it can be anything from, like,

immersive sort of touch and play and sniff

events through to printing with scent.

It's quite broad. So, yeah, it just depends on. So, you know, we've just finished

an amazing project with Guinness, for example. So at

their storehouse, we've developed some scents for them that take you on the

journey of how they make a pint of Guinness. So the water, the yeast,

the barley, all those sorts of things, through to working

with. With the big brands that just want to promote their perfumes. So, yeah, it's

very broad and a very interesting job. That's. That is so

interesting. I have so many questions because so sent marketing, is

that like. So, for example, you know, when you go into a clothing store

and sometimes there's a particular smell, I don't think you're meant to notice the smell,

but I'm told that they do have smells and I think some stores, you can

notice it and others, maybe it's more subtle. Is that the kind of thing? Yes,

that's one of the areas, absolutely. It could be like hotels, for example, like when

the receptions all smell lovely and you get that holiday mood instantly, which is from

the smell. Yes, absolutely. Our opinion is that if you

can smell it really strongly, they're doing it wrong. Because if it's. If

it's done well, it's supposed to be just creating a feeling,

rather than it being so strong that you really notice that there's an

obvious fragrance in there. We can all pinpoint the

ones that are doing it and we really notice it.

Yeah. Am I right in thinking The Aroma Company is a family

business? So. It is. It is

currently run by my mum. My mum is the managing director,

but originally was founded by us, a guy called Simon,

who's still involved in the business. But, yeah, it's. It's very much now

run. Me and my mum are running it on a daily basis, so. Yeah.

And how. So I know that we will talk about your products in a minute.

I promise. I promise. I would love to know, how did you get involved, you

and your mom, how did you get involved in this? Because the whole. I don't.

Do you go somewhere and study? Yeah. Like, how do you do it? I know,

it's funny because we do a lot, you know, we work with The Fragrance Foundation

quite a lot and they are always sort of trying to

pioneer, show people pioneering ways of getting into the fragrance

industry. And I always feel a little bit like, I don't really know how I

got into this job, but there are so many different jobs in the fragrance industry.

It's super interesting, but I definitely didn't study,

I suppose, for this role. My mum fell

into it because she, truth be told, it

was almost a location thing. The job came up,

Simon, they knew each other already and

her background was finances and banking and stuff, and so she kind of fell into

the role and then has learned over the 20 years of working here,

the industry. Me, I started, I actually worked for Space NK for a long time.

So my background was, I was a makeup artist and was

always luxury cosmetics.

And essentially she had someone go on maternity

leave about twelve years ago, eleven years

ago, something like that. And I just thought, I don't

suppose you fancy doing it for six months, because I was, I was working for

a brand, but I was traveling a lot and I was very tired. So I

thought, oh, we'll just give six months ago of just sort of working somewhere that

was more local. And I just fell in love with fragrance. I was

already, you know, in love with cosmetics and

makeup and all that side of things, but fragrance wasn't something. I loved wearing it

and I loved, I've always loved candles. I've always been a candle burner,

but it wasn't where I originally thought my life

would go. But, yeah, I just fell in love with it

and never left. So. Yeah. Well, thank

you. And so thank you so much for giving us that background, because I think

that just gives us some context for, you know, the next part of your journey.

Absolutely. So can you tell us a story of how and why you

created Lords Fragrance House? Absolutely. So it was

after, I suppose, three to four years of doing the other

role and falling in love with it. I

suppose it was something that, in my mind, I

would dream of. Wouldn't it be amazing to have my own range

and put down my ideas of what I could do scent wise?

I've traveled a lot, I've had some amazing experiences,

you know, creating memories around the world. And I

suppose for years the idea was building

of, if I was to have my own brand, what would I do? How would

I do things differently? What would, what would I do if I was to get

the chance to do it? And then

over lockdown, I suppose we,

everything we were doing at the roman company kind of came to a standstill,

as with lots of people's jobs, but we were very event based and

travel industry and all that sort of stuff was where a lot of our

work was. So I just had a bit of time on my

hands and I thought I had went through a bit of a tough time

personally, relationship ending and all that sort of thing, and I just

thought, right, I've got to give it a go. Give it a go. And the

ideas, once I started, it just came pouring out.

The scents are very much inspired by memories,

so I sort of sat there and cried out a lot of stuff,

but relived past trips that I've

had, you know, amazing times and nature, inspiration

from, and, yeah, the eyes, the scent ideas were

already all there. It was always like picking out my key favorite places that I've

traveled to that really have something distinctive. So, for example, like the

Yellowstone National park, it's got such a distinctive

absent memory ingrained in my head

and. Yeah, so, and I think in terms of

the idea of how it was going to look and all that sort of stuff,

it's. The industry is,

in my opinion, quite known for, especially in the homescent industry,

I always feel you are a bit stuck. I am someone that loves colour

and if you like what I call, like, dopamine decor,

so colourful, fun, joyful pieces

in your home, you tend to have the option of

really naff smells. So you have, if you

like those beautiful vessels, you normally get

quite synthetic, in my opinion, not all that pleasant

smells, they're not my choice of scent. Whereas if you're looking for those beautiful,

like, really essential oil base or complex fragrance notes, it always tends to be in

quite neutral packaging. It's always black and white or it's brown or.

Yeah, so I wanted to meet in the middle, I wanted to offer really

unique, beautiful scents, but in joyful packaging.

So, yeah, it just came. They just came out. I don't

even really know, because obviously that time period for all of us is such a

blur and it does. Sometimes I really have to

sit and think, like, how have I got here? Because I don't really feel like

it's been three years or however long I suppose the idea has been, but

been looming for ten, but

three years since we properly launched and I don't really know what's happened in the

last three years. I think that's probably

because it all just makes so much sense, because I guess you've been

working for other brands, maybe creating products for them, and I

suppose while you can have input, you can only have so much input because it

belongs to somebody else. Yes. So I guess it must make sense that while you're

doing that, you must have felt at times, oh, well, if I would do it

this way, or perhaps I would do that. And obviously, you know, keeping this to

yourself. So I suppose all these ideas are just bubbling away. It was

absolutely, absolutely. And I think, yeah, there was a few projects I worked on for

other brands where I. Where I was, but I wish I wasn't giving this idea

away or I wish they were doing a smell was a bit more,

you know, not just a regurgitated smell of the same sort of thing. So

there's definitely been points over the years where I've thought, you know, I wish

I could do it. And so, yeah, it just, I gave it

a go. I felt like at that point, when you are

feeling like you're at rock bottom, I was just like, I've got nothing left to

lose, so I may as well just give it a shot. And here I

am. Whether it's success, whether

it's successful or not, whether it's a profitable business, I don't know, but I'm enjoying

it so. Well, do you know what? I think you define success for

yourself. So if. Yeah, I think that's

actually a very personal thing. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Because it totally depends on what you want from your business.

Exactly. And I think that's the, you know, that's definitely something that,

when, not that I'm asked for advice very often, and

I'm definitely not one to try and give it to people, but I

definitely felt like in the beginning, because everything is so

colorful, I did get the odd comment of, you're not going

to turn people off if they don't like pink or they don't like green.

And I could have very easily

changed it to try and suit a wider audience.

And what other people were telling me was the right thing to do. And

as you said, what defines a successful brand for

me, it needs to reflect how I

wouldn't ever want to put something out there that I personally didn't

like. So, yeah, I think it's

definitely been an interesting one to try and shut off other

people's opinion. You do, obviously, online, you get all these

messages all of the time about how to do things properly,

how to run a business, how to run your instagram, how to run your socials,

because I am still doing everything myself. And it's. It's hard to

navigate through

knowing when to listen to people and knowing when not to listen to people.

You're right, it's really hard, and especially when you're

doing everything yourself. And I think another part of that, it's also hard to

know what you have to do and what you don't. So, for example, I

don't post that much on Instagram. Anymore. I do post on Instagram,

and especially about the podcast. But to be honest, the podcast is the only thing

that I post about because I just don't have the

time or the energy to create content in the way that I

used to. And I'm sure that there are plenty of people who tell me that's

wrong, but it's not for me. It's not for me that works because I don't

have it in me to do more than what I do. And I think that's

fine. And I think that, like you say, it's really hard, because if we

listen to everyone, we'd be led to believe that we should be doing all of

the things all of the time and doing a really high standard, but

that's just not feasible, especially if it's just you. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's.

I actually find I find Instagram the easiest,

but purely because I find

that the Instagram I've put forward is more

me than the business page, if that makes sense.

I've done a few, like, mentorships programs recently, and they've been like, oh, you've

put. You put quite a lot of your personality into the page. And I'm

like, hmm. Yeah, sometimes I probably, you know, there's

times where I'm thinking, do I, am I adding too much of me into it?

But that's the only way I know how to create. Create content

is, is by it being me and

natural and otherwise, if it's. And also, I think people

are. Now that TikTok has become such a thing, and there's always other

platforms, I think people are looking for

entertainment and escapism on social media. They're not always looking just to

be sold to. And if you've got a product based business, I

can't just. I'm not just going to keep plugging, here's a product, here's product, here's

product. And then, and then not giving them any context of

how the product exists, why the product exists. Why is it

like that? How. How is the day gone? Making the

product and all that sort of stuff? And I know that as a user, I

find that a lot more engaging, a lot more interesting. Tik Tok's a whole other

story, because I just don't know if I'm. I'm not tech saggy,

savvy enough. I feel like I've maybe missed the boat.

Not the right generation. I feel the same. I feel like I should be on

there, but I just don't know if I've got it in me. But I think

you're absolutely right there. And I think your personality and you and the

bits around the business and why you did things. And that's the thing. That's

what's interesting. With all respect, whatever someone's selling, they are

more interested in their product, I think, because even people buy

into people, don't they? That's why podcasts are so interesting, because we're

interested in hearing the stories behind people and

how they've got there, I think. And that's why they're so engaging, is you. People

like listening to people. That's just how it works, is how. We work as humans,

I think even if your product is really unique. So I've had some people on

this podcast selling, you know, really original inventions and that's.

They're interesting. But what I really want to know is why did you come up

with that and how did you, and how did you get that to work? That's

the interesting bit, isn't it? The product is a product. And so I

think, and actually, I had a guest on the episode, hasn't gone live yet. I

did speak to somebody about social media and her advice was exactly what you

were saying, which is we need to be showing our faces and our personalities,

because otherwise you're not another

sort of home fragrance brand. Because yours actually really does stand out. Because, as you

say, it's really bright and it does stand out. But

it's a big marketplace, isn't it? And I think it's very

saturated. Yeah. So it's brilliant that you

are deliberately standing out because I think a

lot of products in the space blend in.

Yeah, I think, yeah, I do. And I don't. I don't. I'm not

going to call out brands or anything, but I definitely think,

like, for us, how I try to differentiate the

brand through the sense is one thing,

because I do genuinely believe that the scents that we're offering are

special and unique, but obviously online people can't smell them.

So that's always been a struggle. It's a struggle for any scent brand. Is that

what you're selling? People can't sample and they can't smell it. So if

they're a first time buyer, you've just got the look of it.

So for us it was. If it was for me, when I was designing the

product, and my brother in law has very much been a part of the product

design, which I was, thank goodness that I knew someone that could do it,

that could. Just when I said, oh, I think I want it to be like

this. Just got it instantly. If I'd use someone else

also don't think I might, my ramblings would have made much sense. But it

was important that the sort of. Because the pink side of things

represents me. My favourite color has always been pink. The

green comes from my love of nature and the inspiration from nature.

And I think it was really important for the

differentiation of using the colour and being

really eye catching, but also being sustainable, because there's this

whole notion that if you're eco friendly, you

must have brown packaging. And it's just not

true. Glass is glass, paper is paper.

And, yeah, it was. It's a very.

It's a sea of beige at the moment. And I'm well aware that it's

an aesthetic trend and I'm. I'm definitely in for it. Sometimes

I just find that you've got the leaders

that started the classic looks of the black and white labels

and they already exist. They have a place. They

are the leaders in the marketplace. But I think what's happened

is that anyone new is just sort of trying to regurgitate what

they've achieved and what they've done and the designs that they've put together.

So for me, it was like, if I'm going to do this, it needs to

be a different way of doing it. So

hopefully, let's just make sure that I'm happy with it. And I think that's all

that matters, is that's what I've got to stick to, is that, like, if I'm

liking it and I think that I'm doing something that I'm proud of, then that's.

That's where I want to sit with the business

leading that way. I don't want to create something that's just me trying

to make a money making scheme of, oh, if I copy that brand

or if I'm influenced by that brand, then maybe it'll sell. Like that brand

selling well, I think. It'S really brave to do your own thing.

But also, yeah, I think it's a lot more authentic as well. I'm

not saying there's anything wrong with going for a different style, if that's your

style, but from what you're saying, this could. Beige and black and white isn't your

style. So I think it's. It would have.

I think what you're doing is more authentic and I think people can tell

that. I think that's something. Yeah, well, hopefully. I think so.

Hopefully. And let's talk a little bit about the other things you're doing to differentiate.

And actually, I should ask you, so are you stocked in any retail stores?

So at the moment I've got a lot of independent retailers, which is

amazing. So we've, I sort of focused mainly on stocking with independents.

And there's a, there's a fair few up and down the country now that

offer our products and we offer the refills in those sites as

well. The only sort of bigger reseller that I'm with is

Wolf and Badger. But I am hopeful

that 2024 and 2025 will bring me my first bigger

retailer. I've done a few pop ups in John Lewis stores which have gone really

well, but they don't, you know, permanently stock

me at the moment. The reason I asked that, because I did that was because

we were talking about differentiation. You're differentiating your products. I was going

to ask, you know, what feedback you have from retailers and

customers who can see your products on a shelf. Because, as you say with

fragrance, it is so, so hard, I think, to sell online. I think it's

got to be one of the hardest categories to sell online, actually. It's really tough.

I really struggle with it. And because you can, I

do my best to sort of offer video content that sort of

shows the ingredients, like, brought to life.

But especially because I've tried to create quite unique scents. A lot of the

ingredients I use people don't really recognize. So yes, I do have things like lavenders

and recognizable ingredients in them, but

the complete blend is a

really complex mix. So we'll sort of highlight the three key

smells that people might recognize. But in there, you've got

a minimum of at least 20 different oils. So trying to translate that

online, I find it really tough. That's

why I do try and get out as much as I can and do markets

and pop up events and things. And I, you know, only just this

weekend gone. It reminds me when

I'm really tired on a Friday night going, oh, God, I'm working all

weekend. It reminds me when I'm in front of people and they're like, oh, my

goodness, these are really different. Wow, this is really not. And you're like, okay, this

is why I'm here. It's not because you do. Once you've captured that person's

attention, buying online is easier because they smell them once, they need to smell them

once. And they know. I am quite lucky in that because

of the background with the aroma company, I

have a lot at my disposal for offering

marketing solutions that are quite helpful. So because of, for example, the scented

print thing that the aroma company produces

in online orders. Now, if someone buys one smell,

I always put in a little paper sample that's got what we call

encapsulated scent. So it's essentially like modern day scratch

and sniff, but they are a really great

way of sampling the other smells. So I always pop them into other

orders, which is very helpful for us. But, yeah, it's a

tough one, for sure. And are you finding that

when your products are in a physical location, are they really

standing out? Yeah, yeah. Oh, definitely. I think it's always,

oh, wow, look at these colors. Wow. You know, and the color definitely draws people

in. It's this initial, like, we're like, you know,

those sparkly, bright things that people get drawn towards.

And then when you pick up and smell them, it's. It's. I don't think I've

ever had anyone pick it up and then not buy it, if I'm totally honest.

Which is a great. It sounds big headed, but it's a nice.

It's a nice feeling that when people do have it in their hands, they fall

in love with one of. At least one of the smells. But, yeah, always,

always amazing compliments on the packaging. Well, that's amazing. And

I guess, as you say. So the challenge is just getting them in front of

people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think even with. Even with the

whole sort of neutral aesthetic that is currently

in place, if you have a neutral home, people still

want pops of colour. And so I'm managing to.

Whilst I was really worried at first that people that

weren't really colourful lovers wouldn't like it,

I don't seem to be losing them particularly either, as customers, because

you will find that person going, oh, that would look really nice as a

contrast in the room. So, yeah,

I think it's definitely. I'm pleased with the decision,

even though it was a very scary one at first. And I will say to

anyone in listening who hasn't actually looked at your products, go to your website, which

will be linked in the show notes, because while your products are bright, I also

would describe them as elegant. So they're not loud

and. I don't know, they're not loud and I don't know how

to. Words. They're not allowed in brash, and then they're

very. They are beautiful. Thank you. I was right.

Yeah, we were really. We wanted to keep the design still

classic and sleek, so in terms of the logo, and it's not

too, like, busy, I suppose. So it's still

really, like, I said it was hard word to

capture because it's still, even though it's using bright colors,

it's still quite simple in terms of the design.

So it's just really honing in on

the pink and the green and living that pink and green life is kind of

how I've ended up embracing it all. Now everything's pink and green. But yeah,

it definitely tried to sort of keep it still really classic and modern

and sleek, but with a colorful twist.

And everyone does need to go and have a look to see the exact pink

and green that you're using.

I would love to take a step back, if that's okay, because I really like

to talk a little bit about the process of developing fragrances. So

how does a fragrance come together? Because you mentioned Yellowstone. You mentioned

that you went to Yellowstone and that's one of the places you wanted to invoke

that scent memory. How do you go from that to having a finished product

in a bottle? Yeah, of course. So you always start

small. When it comes to fragrance development,

there's multiple ways of doing it. The way that I do it is

I will grab inspiration from photos and relive the

memory. So, for example, like Monteverde is another one that we have,

which is Costa Rican rainforest inspired. And I really wanted

to capture that smell of like rain hitting the forest

floor and it be a really overall green scent.

So anyone that sort of develops scents knows that you

have what was called the sort of perfumers organ. So you've got like

normally sort of between 51 hundred ingredients that you will sit

and play with and start really small at blending together.

So it's always a case of like one

teeny drop at a time, basically, because at the moment that you

put two drops in versus one drop, the whole, the

whole blend changes. So even if you're using

the same ingredients, so you might read on the front of it that is like

lavender and bergamot. And we think, oh, I know what that smells like. But actually,

if you, if one's got more lavender than bergamot, then they're completely different

blends. So it's finding the balance, I suppose, but also

because we were trying to create memories

and experiences as a whole, I suppose, rather than this

one smells like lavender and rosemary, it

was using more oil because the more complex the blend is,

the more you can't really pinpoint what you're smelling.

So it was more important for us when we were developing them

to evoke a feeling rather than focus

in on the single ingredients. But yeah, I think all

of them, it's just come from. So, for example, with Big

Sur, it's supposed to evoke happiness and a sense of

calm. That with Trabawa Strand, that one

less so focused on in people's minds that, oh, it's cornish based. It probably

is a sea salt fragrance, but it's not at all all. That one's more based

on my feeling of

relaxation in Cornwall. So that one is, you've had the best

day at the beach, you get back, you have a lovely bath, you're in

your PJ's more often than not with your family, and you've just

got this sense of relaxation and have. And you normally have a really good

night's sleep. So that one is what inspired that blend.

So, yeah, it is a.

Lots of people have different processes when it comes to blending

and coming up with ideas, but designing fragrances is

by far my favorite part of this job. And

I went through a period of time. I started off with five key scents,

so we did five to start with. And then in the

last two years, I've done, basically done another five.

Are you going to stop making new cents at some point? And I'm like, no,

because it's the best bit. It's the best bit of the job. I do like

making new products and it. We are sort of getting into a point now of

trying to expand the product ranges in the sense, rather than just keep bringing out

new smells. But it's a lot

of fun. It sounds fun. It sounds a lot like science, like

chemistry as well. It is, it is. And actual,

I don't claim to be a perfumer, because actual perfumers are.

They're chemists. They are. I don't. Do you know, all of our

scents and stuff there, the lab tested and all of the stuff that you

need to tick, all the safety boxes that you do when creating

and using chemicals, they go off to be chemist

tested. But I think the bit that I do is

more like art. So I always try and say to

anyone that's interested in this industry that it's a really

lovely blend between art and science, because there's not that many jobs

where they cross over. Yeah,

that's really nice. And out of interest as well. I have got so many.

Stop asking questions about smells in a minute. But

when you're sort of creating products, do you tend to, like,

get other people to smell them and see what it makes them think of? Because

smell is really personal, isn't it? And it's just occurred

to me that how what you like and what I like could be completely

different. What I smell. You know, for example, if you ever been to have a

massage and they give you a choice of oils and they smell them, and then

they, you choose one. And I remember my husband and I having this

massage, and he smelt this one, and he thought it was really uplifting, and I

thought it smelled like toilet cleaner. And

so, and it was the same thing. We both just had a completely different reaction.

He was like, oh. And I was like, oh, and same thing. So I

just wondered, how does that work? Yeah, absolutely. And do you know what? It's

so funny you say that, because it's smelly, so subjective.

And, and I, because these are all the blends are also

personal to me. I do. I do have to sometimes have my hat on, especially

if my, you know, it's that time of the month or I'm feeling extra

sensitive to sort of, if people don't like them,

just let it wash over you. Because we do all like

different things and actually, it keeps it

interesting. If we all liked the same smells, life would be really boring because

we. That's just the same as liking different colors, different textures, different

clothes, different whatever it might be, different tastes of music. It's, the smell is

the same. Aren't all, like, the same thing? Yes, there are ones that are

more popular, but also because the way that the,

the limbic system works in our, the way that our

smell receptors work when we smell things and the way that works in our brains,

you connect memories to smells.

So one person's sorry about this.

One person's memory with a smell is different to another person's. We all have different,

different memories. So, for example, I often have the same thing with

lavender, whereas some people absolutely adore lavender, and

some people think it reminds them of bad childhood

memories with their, like, mean old grandpa or something, because

they walk, they used to walk past the lavender bush in their, in their garden.

Everyone's got such personal connections to it. And,

you know, for example, with you, in your, your scenario, you might have had

more experience with a particular product that has

a particular oil in it that you could pick

up when you smelt that smell. So I find it really interesting,

and I find it, that's why I always, I love my weekends

where you get to sit and watch couples pick. The smell

that's going to be in their home is always quite an interesting

one. Yeah. I can imagine trying

to get both of them to decide on what one they like

is. It's fun to watch. But

also, I just, I love it. I find it really, I find it really

interesting and it gives me scope to consistently be

creating new sense because everybody likes different things.

Yeah. And that's great. And that's why, you know, you say that you've got, you

know, you stop creating sense. But actually, I think it's good you to have a

range because there will be something for everybody. Yeah. Oh,

absolutely. Absolutely. And, and, and also, I

think I love trying to understand what

someone. So I'll always start the conversation with, what

do you normally lean to? Do you like normally floral

ones, citrusy ones, woody ones? And some people know and some people

don't. And I think

it's lovely to either

understand someone's experience with smell or

introduce themselves to a whole world of. Oh, yeah, you

probably do like florals, if you like that sort of stuff. And they didn't really

know that they liked that before, so. Because educating people

on it is also some part of this. I love, I love running scent

workshops and talking people through all of the individual notes, because

so often we don't smell the ingredients. We

smell like the final finished blend.

So, for example, like, galbanum is something that I love working

with. It's in at least four by blends, but

it's like the ingredient itself is almost. It's like a resin. It's

not even. I think we all think they've got this idea that we just

sit and squeeze, like, lavender petals and oil comes out, but that's not really how

it works. But certain ingredients are

really interesting to work with. And that's one that always, to me, whenever I smell

it, it just reminds me of, like, soil and sort

of that earthy, that earthy smell that you get when you're in the

woods. But that, paired with different things, can

create such a different blend. And it's,

it's not something that anyone would ever go, like,

for example, like, with pine oil, because we've got such an association with it

with, with, like, cleaning products. But actually, pine oil is so

beautiful. So it's such a shame that we have this association with it. So I'm

hoping that certain ingredients that people, you know, like the galbanum thing,

it might be a new ingredient that people open their eyes to and

that they can pick it up in other products, even if it's not ours, you

know, think, oh, I wrote this. Reminds me of that. So it's nice.

Yeah. And, yeah, and it's all just like you say, it's all just so fascinating

how, how it all works. And final question on

your products. This is something I'm also really interested in, is that you mentioned that

as well as expanding your scent range, you're also trying to expand to different

products with your scents. How easy is it to replicate a

scent across different products? So say you've got a perfume in a. I

don't know, a body wash, for example, just picking two random products,

how easy is it to have them both smelling the same? Do you know

what? That's actually the easiest part. I think it's

something that people don't realize, because I know that, for example,

going back to the aroma company, we use

what's known in the industry as the juice. It's the pure oil.

So how the industry works is you have this

oil that's made by fragrance houses. That is your

base oil. It's the concentrated version of the

blend that that is what goes into all the

products. And that's what we would work with at the aroma company, whether

we're doing diffusion work, whether we're doing the print work, whatever it might

be. And so once you've got that base oil, you can create

any product, I think it's. And then you basically

go by paperwork and guidelines of the sort

of industry standards of safety, I

suppose, of how, what the levels are, you should use of that pure oil in

different products. So most candle brands, for

example, which is why you'll have it, that, you know, sometimes you

are really excited about a candle that you've bought and you really quite like the

smell of it, but when you've burnt it, it's not giving you a whole lot.

It's not. The scent throw is not very much. You can't really smell it

a whole lot. And that's nine times out of ten, it's because

the percentage of oil in there is very low.

You play around with most of the time between

one and about 12%. When it comes to sort of

fragrance oil in something like a candle, ours are always at ten.

You have to always play around with.

I mean, every candle, every product we make, we normally make

about 20. Just so you make sure you get the balance

right of like, the wick, the

wax ratio to the oil. But, yeah,

in terms of making new products, where we've just launched sort of the hand and

body range, so we've just launched washes and creams and

things. Once you've got that base oil, it's actually

fairly simple a process to convert it into lots of other

products. It's more the packaging than anything else. That's tough, because for us, it

was so important to be sustainable and offering

refills and, you know, whilst

it looking pretty, it also being really kind to the planet.

So for us, packaging is more of a bane than the fragrance side of things.

But, yeah, in short, it's fairly. It's actually a fairly simple process. Once you've got

that base oil to convert it into other products. I think it's just important

to play around with the percentages that you use so that, for example, a body

cream smells but it's not too strong and

that the components of it are right. That the balance of. Of

the scent that you're trying to create, once it's mixed with

your own ph and your smell, that the smell is

still there, if that makes sense. Yeah, you

just play around. Interesting. Thank you. And let's.

Before we finish off, let's just talk a little bit about refills because you have

mentioned them and I think your refill service is quite unique.

Thank you. Yeah, I think it was just important. It's a super tough one

because in an ideal world, we'd have this big setup that everyone could just bring

their bottle to and you'd fill it up and you'd have stations up and down

the country, but, you know, that's not possible. And

retail space isn't something that we have a lot of. So we've tried our best

to. Yes, we offer our local. Our local people to where

we make everything. They can all come and they do. We have a great

relationship with our local people that buy

that buy from us. And they, and they do come into our production facility and

they come refill their bottles online. It's a tougher one in the.

That it was really important to me to. If you're going to offer a refill,

don't offer just another piece of plastic

to replace. So if you, for example, you've got, like, we. I see

big brands doing it all the time. It doesn't. You've got like the original soap

bottle that you've. That's plastic, and then the refill, that's

just to refill. One bottle is also plastic. I'm like, you're not saving

anything. Just. It's kind of greenwashing. So for me, we

have, everything is glass, and then the

refill canisters that you get are always at least two

times the size. So you can refill it twice, but you can

also send vessels back to us for a code so that

you can save on your next purchase. And then we repurpose and

clean up the vessels again. So, yeah, I think the

next step is candle refills, because at the moment

we do all liquid. So the hand wash, like re diffusers,

the room sprays, all that sort of thing. Anything liquid is very easy to offer

as a refill. And it was important to me not

to focus too much on the packaging of the refill. A lot of companies

I see, have quite clearly spent a fortune

and there's a lot of plastic investment in

the refill, I suppose. Whereas for me it was a lot of

research into actually the most widely recycled material is aluminium.

So our refills are offered in aluminium at the moment, which might not look that

pretty, but you've already bought the pretty initial thing. You don't need the pretty

refill. But candle refills are something I'm working on.

Cause it's just getting

the production line. You have to have lots of molds to make candle

refills. And so, yeah, the investment to have a lot of

molds made so that you're not pouring liquid wax

into glass, you're pouring it into these molds. So it's

just the investment and we'll get there. It's just you need some cash flow to

do to keep investing in all these things. But it's definitely on the

agenda. Yeah, and that's exciting. And actually, I was having a very

similar conversation with a guest earlier today about the fact that you

also don't have to do everything at once. You know how there can be this

temptation to sort of be and do everything, and actually it's

fine to do what you can and know this is what you know,

like to be doing in a year, three years, five years, whatever. It's okay to

be working towards it, isn't it? Because I think if we all waited until we

were doing everything perfectly, we would never get anything done. Well,

no. And the thing is, yes, absolutely. In an ideal world,

I would have already had everything from the get go

because sustainability and looking after the planet has always been such at the

forefront because I have such a love of animals and

wildlife and the world that we live in. But you can't do everything at once.

And the candle molds, for example, are

such an investment that it will take us a couple of

years, probably, to get to the point that I want to be at with them.

But you do what you can. You do what you can and

do and do your best. And that's realistically all that any of us

can, can be doing is just try your best with to be as

sustainable and as eco friendly as you possibly can. Be

so. Yeah, definitely. But, yeah, like you said, it's hard, especially

the climate of where we are at with everything that

we see on social media. And your, what I

would, I'm comparing myself to and the brand to are brands that

have been going 30, 40, 50 years that have

got investors. So sometimes I'm

like, you just give yourself a break. Not just investors, but resources

as well. They have offices and teams and

just a lot more than what small businesses have. But I think it's interesting,

though, because I do think that we could look at some of the bigger, not

all, but some of the bigger brands are possibly,

probably not doing as much as some of the smaller brands, despite having all

of those resources. Yeah, I think I find it

perplexing sometimes when I see

it's more the supermarkets where you see that, I see the issues. I'm

like, you've got, I hate to call them out, but you've got unilevers and pngs

of the world that have got all the budgets there and

the investment that they're putting is not in those places. And

like you said, but you go to things like smaller

trade shows or you're even at markets and things

and you've got people holding small businesses really to

account of, like, what they're. So, for example, like,

there's on our soap, on our glass soap

bottles. I really struggled at

first how to ship them with the pump on because the pump that I

wanted was, is metal, not plastic. But you can't

ship it with that pump, with that pump on because it wasn't leak proof

when it was like in transit, playing around with how I

can ship them and the, the cap that you could

ship them in would need to be plastic.

And it. Don't be wrong, it wasn't like it was hundreds of thousands of

people. There was probably about four people. But I was just like,

hmm, have you seen the. What the majority of

brands are just the whole thing is plastic and, I don't know, it's an

interesting one, what we find acceptable when the

price is lower as well, I suppose. But, yeah, I

just think as long as there's an attempt to try to

be better, that's where my head's at with it all.

Absolutely. Because, you know, you said earlier, in a perfect world, you'd be doing all

of these things, but we don't live in a perfect world, unfortunately. So I think

we all just need to do our best and accept that everyone else is doing

their best. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. In all

manner of things. I think that's definitely something I've learned through all of the,

especially going back to the Instagram side of things, is you can really get a

skewed view of what things look like

through that. And I don't even necessarily think it's a bad thing because, of course,

we post the positive things a lot of the time. Of course people post

the highlights of their life because we're not going to

sit there and post daily about how miserable we

feel. I think it's good to add that in for balance.

But I found it interesting when I first started

going to events and pop ups and Christmas

markets and things like that, where you're meeting a lot of other small brands and

small businesses and hearing the same

feelings, the same story, because it can be really lonely. As

a small business, you are, more often than not, working on your own,

and you don't get to speak to other people about how it

is and how they're feeling a lot of the time. And so creating those

smaller communities has been invaluable to me

to be able to chuck ideas around of like,

oh, God, did that work for you, doing that sort of pop up? Or what

about that event? And God, that was really tough that week, wasn't it, with.

With, you know, the amount of people that were there? And I think it's. Yeah,

it's just a nice. A nicer exercise to be

able to share that sort of thing and not just focus on what we're

seeing on screen. Definitely. I think community

and actually just connecting with other people is so important. Yeah.

Because we did lose that. I think an interesting one over Covid is that

we. I still. It sounds. I don't know if

everybody else is over it, but I don't feel like I'm over it. I don't

feel like I've come out of it. I've come out of the feeling. Yeah. Of

the. Of it, not. The uneasiness is still there. I still feel like people

don't really know, like, are we. Are we

in the office? Are we not in the office? Are we doing things on Zoom?

Are we meeting people in real life? And I think it's

an interesting one in the workplace, especially,

that people don't really know how to talk to each other anymore. I feel like

more and more people, even though we started doing, like, Zoom became so much more

of a thing, I think we all sort of resorted to going

to doing things on email when actually they probably could get done on a phone

call and you'd probably have more. You'd have a better

flow. And I would say in the last six months, the amount

of physical meetings, especially with The Aroma Company that I've had,

have increased. And boy, oh boy, do you get

more done, you get more out of it, and more creativity flows when you

actually get to properly speak to people,

rather than everything just being on screen and over

the and over more typing. I think talking like this is great. I'm

more talking about, like, you know, email and messaging and stuff. I think you just

lose. Also, things that can be in written

word can be taken in different ways. So you could actually mean something

and someone's read it a different way. Yeah, definitely. And

while I think things like this are great, the only thing that I do slightly

miss is there are certain things that went online four years ago that

have never come back in real life. And that I do think is a shame,

actually. It's a shame. It is a shame. But also, what I hate about this

is that that smell o vision, I don't think will ever be a thing. I

will be really. I would be really astounded if anyone

techie ever gets smell o vision to actually work.

And I just would love to be able to share with you and share with

people what things smell like on the

screen. The closest I've ever come is when people were

talking about people having a chip in your brain

that makes you think you're smelling something rather than you actually smelling it. But

even some of the tech that I've seen where you actually have, like, the molecules,

you have the fragrances, there are

thousands and thousands of ingredients that make

up different smells. And so even if you had this

headset that was like a VR headset that could make you smell things, you could

probably only smell like five different things. So, yeah, it's an

interesting one, but that's definitely something that in my industry, I struggle with,

because when we're doing installs with the other company and

you've got. I'm working with. Normally we work with the sound

people quite closely, and we work with the visuals, the lighting and

the screens and all that sort of thing. And all their jobs, they can just

upload it. Like that can change the content really quickly.

Whereas with smell, there has to be a physical element and it definitely has its

constraints at times. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. It's not like you can

just email someone a smell. No,

no, exactly. That would be good. Okay,

so thank you for all you've shared. Sasha, I know you said you don't like

giving advice, but my final question, and I ask everyone, this,

I'm not picking on you, is what would your number one piece of advice be

for other product creators?

I would probably say to

just listen to your gut. And I guess going back

to what I was saying earlier, that if someone tells you

that they don't think that your product's good or

that it won't sell in the way that you're doing it, despite the fact that

you really believe in it, if you really believe in it, listen to your gut,

listen to yourself, and don't and try. Yes, you can take advice off of

other people. And yes, I think if you've got like dragon's den people

in front of you, don't ignore everything they're saying, but, but still

stick to your guns. If you truly believe and are passionate about what you're

doing and it's going to make you happy, that's actually

what this is for. I think you can lose sight of

decision making when money gets involved and you start thinking, oh,

well, that's not going to make me any money. And I just think it's important

to stick to the reasons why you started it in the first place. What

were you trying to achieve? And stick to yourself gut

on whether you think it's a great, great thing to do.

That's really helpful. Thank you so much and thank you for

everything you've shared. Sasha. Oh, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to talk

to me and listen to me ramble on. Oh, I've loved it.

Thank you. Good. All good.

Thank you so much for listening. Right to the end of this episode, do remember

that you can get the full back half of blog and lots of free resources

on my website, vickywineberg.com. please do remember to rate

and review this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a

friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next

week.