The Perfume Oil

I'm not sure how it all started (I do, but it is a long story).
Over a decade ago, I started finding solace by blending a few essential oils. 
I never thought of it as Perfume, but more as something I needed to wear before leaving my house like one puts on clothes.


It rapidly became an extension of who I was.
Clothes I changed regularly, daily.
But I never did that with the perfume oil anymore.
It became an extension of who I was, of who I am.

People remembered my smile but also my smell.
Neighbors would smell me coming down the street. I could never sneak into my children's room.
"Maman… I smelled you! I know you are here!"

It triggered countless encounters and conversations.

In the subway in NYC where I live, people would switch seats to get closer and discreetly (or not so discreetly), lean in and smell me.
I have a mosaic tattooed somewhere in my heart of the kind words that strangers of all walks of life, ages, and origins would offer me in a bathroom in Cancun airport, on the street in Paris, on the beach in Coney Island, at a gas station.

Endlessly, I was asked where to buy it.
Endlessly, I was surprised.
"Really? Do people want to smell like me? Something I make every morning in my bathroom?"

I always promised that one day, yes, I would bottle it, so I gathered emails, phone numbers, and Instagram handles.
It always seemed quite extravagant.
In any case, I never bottled it.

Life went on with its cycles, twists & turns.
And what seemed like an utterly weird idea became an obvious choice:
Last year, I woke up one day and thought, "Yeah, I am going to bottle it."

For a few months, everything changed.

Suddenly, it became a business, and I succumbed to the law of commerce that rules any creation in this capitalist world.
People were not commenting on my smell anymore.
Instead, I was assailed with marketing & business strategies, industry trajectories & long-term plans.

"Do this," "You should do that," "The industry is like these," "No, you don't know that," "Have you thought of this," and "Man, I can't believe you're not doing that."

From my skin to the bottle, nothing had changed except the representation of success/failure that everyone projected on it, sometimes with good intentions but not always.

Now, at the beginning of 2025, here is what I would say:
The Perfume Oil as I bottle it now is 100% what I have been wearing for the past decade and a half. My only purpose is to bottle the world so people can experience what I am, still am, countlessly experiencing: a powerful way to ground myself & connect.

There is no marketing strategy or grand plan to expand beyond one scent.
Other things may come. Or it might not.
It doesn't matter.
It already feels abundant.

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

We are only here to connect,

Catherine May.

HH – January 2025