On the scent

Quality trumps quantity for three South African perfumers who have turned their backs on large fragrance houses to create unpredictable, bespoke scents.

- Kholeka Kumalo

AGATA KAROLINA

HOUSE OF GOZDAWA

Established in 2015, House of Gozdawa is a small-batch perfumery of natural essential oils. Six unisex fragrances make up its Confessions collection. The seventh, launching next month, is founder Agata Karolina’s first collaboration. Each is based on a story, not simply the ingredients, which Agata describes as the vessels for expressing the protagonists. What does Gozdawa mean? Gozdawa is the name of my family’s crest; I gave it to my company because it was my grandparents and my mother who taught me to work with natural tinctures, oils and processes of distillation – part of my family owned pharmacies in Europe for generations.

How did you become a perfumer? Perfume was part of my life long before I knew it would be my job. After many years of playing with oils and creating basic scents, I moved back to South Africa from Europe to immerse myself in the oils and materials found here and to invest in making my greatest passion my life. My grandmother, who is also the protagonist to everything I do with scent, always told me to move back here. Where does your process of scent creation start? It starts with a story – recalling the tastes, sounds, colours and textures of a place, time or person – then I consider all these notations in scent. What makes your brand special? I am fascinated by how plants behave in nature and how they translate into oils. Sourcing the best oils that can give you the most true-to-life experience of the natural materials is what makes my brand different.