Meet the Irish Perfumers Capturing The Essence of the West

How do you capture a memory? How can the view of a breathtaking landscape, the warmth of a hand in yours or the spray of sea water on a wind-burnt face be distilled into a tangible thing? Ask enough people and a unanimous answer will appear: scent.

The olfactory bulb is one of the earliest sensory systems to form in the brain, so it’s no coincidence that most people find certain smells carry a powerful nostalgia; your mother’s powdery face cream as she lay you down to sleep; the metallic tang of chlorine in the local swimming pool; the heady body spray from your school locker room.

For many, scent is a transporter to a specific place, and some are more distinct than others. The West of Ireland is one location which has drawn three women in particular to the pursuit of capturing its essence.

“Living in the Burren has changed the way I smell,” says Sadie Chowen, owner of The Burren Perfumery in Co. Clare. “My calendar is punctuated by the landscape… new delights, greeting old friends. The perfumes we create aren’t a copy of the Burren smells, they’re more an expression of the feeling of living here.”

As for the connection between scent and memory, Sadie believes that perfume is a doorway. Her Summer Harvest scent was created after walking through the barn behind the perfumery and finding herself transported to her past. “I was raised in France, and on that day I was brought back so strongly to memories of lying in the fields there.”

“The perfumes we create aren’t a copy of the Burren smells, they’re more an expression of the feeling of living here.”

Also inspired by the smells of her youth is Kira Walton of Voya in Sligo. She finds herself drawing connections between her now home and the Caribbean, where she spent some years with her family. “That honeysuckle scent you find here on the west coast, it reminds me of the sweet coconut butter from my early childhood.”

For Kira, balance in all elements of their fragrances is key, from the depth and lightness of the scent layers, to the visual and hand-feel of their bottle. “It’s like a pebble you would find on the west coast. It fits right into the palm of your hand.”

Voya currently has two eaux de toilette for men and women, Tempest and Nerolia. Kira says that they’re not truly gendered, and that layering is popular among customers. “I often find myself spraying them together.”

When it comes to inspiration, the West is a fountain of creativity. “The mood of the Atlantic Ocean, the rocks coated in bright green lichen, the stone walls of Galway, the tempestuous storms… it’s all around us, it’s everything.”

Cloon Keen founder Margaret Mangan shares a similar sentiment about the magic of her surroundings. Born in Canada to Galwegian parents, she now lives in Salthill. “There’s so much here for a creative to be inspired by, it’s an area of incredible natural beauty. The West is so vast and so rich, historically and mythologically – it’s like the acropolis for the Greeks.”

Cloon Keen’s award-winning perfumes are often inspired by abstract concepts, the reification of which would mystify a non-perfumer. There’s Cloon Keen Énbarr eau de parfum, €170, “a dream of horses with hearth racing and wild manes flowing”; Báinín eau de parfum, €130, which captures “the softest strands of creamy white wool used in Aran sweaters,”; and Roisín Dubh eau de parfum, €130, represented in scent with rose, rum absolute, cedarwood and tobacco.

For Margaret, capturing these scents is “never literal, it’s all about the mood.” Their scents can take years to refine, and the original seed of an idea often blossoms into something totally unexpected. “You have to stay open-minded – that’s the creative process.”