SIGNATURE scent By Andrea Rowe Photos Yanni
B
otanical perfumer Sondrine Kehoe is the working nose behind Cygnet Perfumery. Launched in Cape Schanck in 2020, just as the world was absorbing the pandemic, Sondrine’s vision for slow-made, luxury botanical fragrances and regenerative skincare couldn’t have come at a better, or more primal time. While equally immersed in early motherhood, Sondrine soon found herself with time to nurture her life-long love affair with botanical perfumes. She now produces up to 8 products, featuring small batches of 200 bottles a year of extrait de parfum, the purest and most potent form of perfume. It’s been a sensory lesson in traditional techniques, sourcing sustainable ingredients and creating limited release extrait de parfum, the purest form of perfume. Sondrine is on a mission to “bring awareness and curiosity back to our primal senses” and she clearly has a nose for it. Cygnet Perfumery’s elegantly sweet petit bottle presentation and exquisite scents, calling for ‘just one dab’, foster a mindful approach to beautify consumption. There’s something nostalgic and pure about Sondrine’s self-taught vision. It’s no surprise that as a child she spent hours in the family’s Camberwell garden creating her own botanical concoctions. “I was always fascinated with making potions and perfumes and saving my pocket money to buy ingredients. Family and friends often donated old bottles and books with recipes in them, and I experimented with flowers and the different senses in our garden. In high school I even wrote a book on working with perfumes and recreating classic scents.”
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E ssence
10 | PENINSULA
April 2022