The Hairdressing Chair & The Pursuit of Scent

People often ask which came first — the scissors or the scent. The honest answer is that they were never separate. They arrived together, two expressions of the same instinct: the desire to make someone feel more fully themselves.

I have been a hairdresser for most of my adult life. There is a particular kind of trust that exists in that relationship — someone sits down, faces the mirror, and hands you something quietly sacred. Their appearance, yes. But underneath that, something more: how they move through the world, how they feel when they walk into a room. You don't take that lightly. You learn to listen not just with your ears but with your hands, your eyes, the pause before someone says what they actually mean.

Perfumery taught me the same lesson in a different language.

A fragrance, like a haircut, is an act of editing. You are removing what doesn't belong, amplifying what does. You are working with what is already there — the person's skin, their warmth, the way they carry themselves — and you are simply helping it speak more clearly. A rose note on one person becomes something ethereal and powdered; on another, it turns green and sharp and alive. The formula is the same. The result is entirely theirs.

Both vocations live in the hands. Both require a kind of stillness — the ability to be completely present with another person, to set aside everything else and simply attend. I have stood behind the chair in moments of great joy and profound grief, in the small ceremonies of everyday life. The wedding morning. The big interview. The Tuesday when someone just needed to feel a little more like themselves again.

Fragrance does this too. It marks time. It holds memory in a way nothing else quite manages. The scent of a person you love. The perfume you wore the night everything changed. ROSE 1845 was built from exactly this understanding — that a fragrance is never just something you wear. It is something you become, briefly, beautifully, on any given day.

What the hairdressing chair gave me was an education in people. In the infinite variety of how we present ourselves, how we want to be seen, how we soften or sharpen ourselves depending on the day. That education lives in every decision I make as a perfumer — every note chosen, every balance struck, every bottle that leaves the atelier and finds its way into someone's morning ritual.

Two crafts. One calling.

The bench and the chair are closer than they look.