Scan Magazine | Special Theme | This is Finland: Finnish Design and Handicrafts
Eero Johannes Vänttinen.
Back to nature Osmia creates fragrances and design products that are so authentic to the odours in nature that they bring back memories and affections in mere seconds. By Nicolai Lisberg | Photos: Osmia
“For the love of nature!” For Eero Johannes Vänttinen, founder of Osmia, it is the exact same thing that gave him the idea to start the company many years ago that still drives and motivates him to this day. “I love flowers and their fragrances. In the beginning, it was my hobby reading analyses of flower and plant fragrances, but I saw an opportunity to develop my own man-made versions of them. I wanted to lead clients directly to positive associations and recollections of naturerelated experiences,” says Vänttinen. Over 90 per cent of Osmia products are directly named after plants and flowers, which makes it easy for customers to find and choose their favourite fragrances for 20 | Issue 118 | November 2018
soap, shampoo or candles. The main market for the company is Finland, but the interest for the products is increasing in central European countries and the UK as well as Japan and South Korea.
The quality is in the detail Designing a fragrance takes a mixture of craftsmanship and intuition, and what truly separates Osmia from other brands is the accuracy of the fragrances. This is mainly due to Vänttinen’s over 30 years of research and his constant search to optimise the products. “Creating the product itself might take only a week, but fine-tuning it can take months or even years. You have to understand the molecules and how they work in or-
der to come up with the right fragrance. There are so many small adjustments you need to make, because the quality is in the detail. Our customers often get astonished by how real and natural the products are, and this is the feeling we want to leave them with.” Everything at Osmia is made by hand. Through a glass wall at the small factory outlet in Helsinki, you can see how soap or candle wax is poured into moulds, and liquid products bottled and packed to be sold in Finland or shipped abroad. “We have a wide spectrum of products, but right now I’m actually working on a new fragrance – one of that scent that greets you when entering a flower shop. It has this very special fragrance that I would really like to capture,” says Vänttinen. Web: www.osmia.fi/en