CanvasRebel

Photo by Photography by BlueSky

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Whitney Swales, co-owner and perfumer for Wit & West Perfumes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Whitney below.

Whitney, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

Based in Colorado, Wit & West Perfumes is a small-batch artisanal perfumery that is solely owned and operated by myself and my husband. All of our fragrances are designed, formulated and bottled completely in-house in small batches using only the finest, high-quality 100% natural whole botanicals and naturally derived ingredients. From my perspective, the art of perfumery – just like any other artform – has different genres contained within the industry. Two of these primary genres are mainstream perfumery (e.g., large corporate-run perfume houses) and indie perfumery (small independent perfumers or small companies who hire an outside perfumer). The genre that Wit & West Perfumes falls into is indie natural perfumery, and my perfumer’s palette is based on natural ingredients simply because they speak to me personally as an olfactory artist. Just as in music or the visual arts, different tastes point people toward an affinity for different genres and the same is true in perfumery. For me, natural perfumery is an olfactory interpretation of an essence in its true form that elicits emotion, connects us to the natural world, and ties memories to the moments in our lives. So, while natural perfumery is not necessarily the standard in the industry, it is growing with consumer changes in preferences along with more small natural perfumers emerging each year. Natural perfumery may not ever be one of the larger segments of the market due to the high cost and limited supply of natural ingredients, but I am confident that it will continue to grow.

Read the full story and discussion between Wit and CanvasRebel: Whitney Swales, Owner & Perfumer, Wit & West Perfumes