A Feast of Scents: Royal Apothic Giveaway

The email arrived out of the blue in March of 2009.

Hi There,

I am getting ready to launch a new home fragrance company. Would you mind if I used one of your pics of the London garden in a post on my blog? One of my fragrances captures the scent and the image is exactly what inspired me.

Best,
Sean

("A Cutting Garden", Luminarie candle)

Of course I said yes. And thus the foundation was laid for the beginning of a delightful friendship between Sean O'Mara, perfumer and founder of Royal Apothic, and me. We traded emails, we met for lunch and I found myself drawn deeper and deeper into the tale of how his business was founded when the past reached out its dusty fingers to him...

"On a sabbatical in London, I came upon a book tucked high upon a shelf in a forgotten Notting Hill antique stall. This hidden treasure revealed itself to be an apothecary manual from the 18th century. Listed within its pages were the formulas of concoctions created for many of the great monarchies of Europe."

Is that like a plot point out of "Great Expectations" or what? As a former beauty industry veteran, Sean immediately grasped that his discovery was game-changing. Realizing he could tie his own expertise into the formulas, he returned to Los Angeles, began duplicating the fragrances listed in the manual and presto, Royal Apothic was born.

("Firewood" and "Black Walnut" extracts, The Extract Collection)

I knew the company was going to be a success as soon as I tested out the scents and candles that Sean gave me to try at lunch one day. (I wasn't alone. Just last month, Royal Apothic won Best of Show at the New York International Gift Fair.) From its launch last year, the line has now expanded to include interior scents, eau de parfum and single fragrance roll-on extracts (which you can mix and match to create your own bespoke scent).

Herewith, a few of my faves...

Distillation of: Edwardian Fireplace mingles white birch cinders, smoke plumes, clove and amber in a blend so redolent of a certain time and place that I swear I rushed to my bookcase in search of my battered copy of "Howard's End." According to Sean, this scent has become a cult fragrance and sells out immediately whenever it appears in stores.

("Edwardian Fireplace" Interior Perfume)

Although Sean's inspiration for the Violette Pastille single note extract comes from the candies his grandmother always used to carry in her purse, for me it brought a completely different Proustian flashback - that of a little troll doll with purple hair I had as a child in Sweden. The doll's hair was faintly scented with something that all these years I've never been able to pinpoint...until now. It was violet. Fresh, subtle and ever so slightly shy.

("Violette Pastille", "Green Tea" and "Hydrangea" extracts,

The Extracts Collection)

But it's Distillation of: Mulholland Drive that made a hero out of me. I placed it on the table in my foyer and when my husband came home from work, he said, "What is that? That's the best candle I've ever smelled."

When I told Sean that he managed to elicit a positive comment about a candle from a straight man (which must be some kind of record), he said it's because it exactly captures the scent of Los Angeles.

"I took a field trip to The Arboretum and asked the botanic experts which scents defined Los Angeles. They told me the Santa Ana winds come down from Santa Barbara carrying the scent of the ocean, pick up notes of eucalyptus as they wind their way through the forests, head downtown and then circle back to grab night-blooming jasmine from the hills. All these elements are in my candle."

The Royal Apothic Giveaway

Sean has offered one lucky reader of "A Bloomsbury Life" a set of four candles from his brand-new collection, available exclusively at Anthropologie.

The set includes one each of the following candles (pictured above; for more information, click on the links below):

Distillation of: Venetian Grove

- a fresh pick of orange tree blossoms, currants and rose leaves -

Compound of: Cutting Garden

- gardenias, jasmine, lily and tuberose with a light base of fern -

Attar of: Santorini Fig

- earthy, green, woodsy and fruity notes of fig -

Distillation of: Mulholland Drive

- a seaside breeze of eucalyptus and night-blooming jasmine -

The winner will be announced on Monday, October 25th. To enter, just leave me a comment on this post (only one entry per person, please) by midnight October 24th and I'll use a random number generator to determine whose lucky day it's going to be.

Editor's Update:

Sean just emailed me that he's also giving a 20% discount on Royal Apothic online to all readers of this blog. Just type in "bloomsburylife" at checkout, and you're good to go. (The giveaway candles are exclusive to Anthropologie, but there are lots of amazing things to buy online, as you'll soon discover.) Thank you, Sean!