I began working on the idea of a home fragrance line more than a decade ago while writing in my notebook one summer evening. A few days later, when reading my last entry, I noticed it was about moments and places that each held a meaning or cherished memory, and to each was tied a particular smell. I wanted to continue writing about these pleasurable reminiscences, but the inspiration was somehow out of reach. I was struck, however, with how these scent memories had elicited details and feelings I would have not thought I could remember.
Some time later–epiphany! I walked by a window in the West Village wreathed with blooming jasmine vine; in the diaphanous hours of twilight, in spite of not getting direct sun, the vine was covered in white stars diffusing their perfume through the street–a bit incongruent in the heart of New York City. I was immediately transported to the past, and marveled at how the scent took me on such a trip. This reverie of scent and its association with memory deep in my mind was profound.
As soon as I was home, I opened my notebook again to write, feeling there was something else underneath this process. I realized I wanted to be in my grandmother’s garden again–to hear the sounds and smell the scents–as if I could somehow be instantly transported seven thousand miles away and decades into my past to the moment I smelled jasmine for the very first time.
I realized that recreating the smells I associated with jasmine could be the catalyst to transport myself back in time and place to these formative memories. I consequently created a capsule of six scents, each with a scent pyramid, all inspired by what I now call a scent-moment: the particular moment in time and space when I smelled something for the first time, knowing I would remember it forever.
We all remember smells this way.
As my ideas evolved and as I continued buying candles, room sprays, and perfumes, I realized there was a common thread linking my memories and influencing the appeal certain scents hold for me. I wanted to explore this deeper and understand why certain smells were more attractive than others.
This mental library of odors, this archive that is able to tap into my memories and emotions, sifts through everything and seems to be always on, and it sparked the thought process that led me to look at where I came from, where my ancestors came from, who they really were, and the cultural traditions they brought when migrating to the Americas.
It was this blending of familial customs and origins that helped create a new identity. Exploring the materials and essences which my ancestors brought from the Old World and those they discovered in the New fascinated me and fueled the tastes in smell I realized I had begun to acquire from a very young age.
While studying high-perfumery methodology, chemistry, and botany, I researched migratory currents, trade winds, the history of trade sailing the Atlantic Ocean, and crucial perfumery materials in all continents, including those endemic to, and imported into, the Americas. And so, those original six scents became scent families that today account for many more formulas. This combination of research, countless hours mixing raw materials, and exploration of scent-memories has resulted in an expansive body of work I never imagined possible.
This body of work is the medium through which ЯHR attempts to explain with smells how we all come from somewhere, having more in common than what appears on the surface.