In conversation with Aer Scents
Ted Young-Ing and Stefan Kehl are the creative minds behind the wonderful Berlin based natural perfume atelier Aer Scents. Our co-founder Nancy approached them, when her grandmother passed away to develop the sacred scent Lore. A heart project to commemorate her, and honour the way that tradition, wisdom and experience is passed down through the matriarchal line of her family. In this interview we enjoyed talking to Ted about why natural perfumes matter, the meaning of smell, practices to reconnect with your senses and the feeling, texture and therapeutic quality of the perfume Lore. Enjoy!
Ted, tell us about AER Scents and the vision/ethos behind it?
AER Scents is a modern natural perfume brand. We make 100% botanical perfumes that are bold, unique, contemporary and special. Our scents are proudly 100% natural, vegan and cruelty-free. All of our ingredients are directly extracted from plants; our perfumes don’t contain synthetics or chemicals or preservatives. We source from small producers who value traditional techniques, sustainable gathering, and fair trading practices.
What makes AER Scents different in its approach from other perfume houses?
We try to do things differently. We built our brand according to our own ethics and sense of responsibility, so sustainability, equitable representation, fairness - that’s all built into the brand and into the company. We do everything ourselves. We do our own formulations, we source ingredients ourselves and we do the blending by hand. That lets us have a total overview, and we try to be as transparent as possible about everything - our process, our supply chain, our ingredients. Of course there is always more to do, but I think we can say that I’am m proud of where we are as a company. It feels good to be able to be so open, there aren’t pockets of our business that we’re ashamed of.
Why do natural perfumes matter? And how are they made?
Pretty much all commercial perfumes are made using synthetic ingredients - scent molecules created in a lab, almost always using petroleum as a base. We try to not hate on synthetic commercial perfuming. There’s a place for all of us in the market. It’s up to consumers to decide which they prefer.
In our case, we only use raw ingredients that come directly from plants; usually steam-distilled extractions. You’ve probably used Lavender Oil in a diffuser. We use Lavender Oil, but ours is ‘perfume grade’ which means the oil has been extracted from the lavender flowers in a much more exact and careful and clean way, so that the integrity of the scent molecules stay intact.
“When you hold a bottle of natural perfume in your hand, you hold something that has been sourced from all over the world. Literally. The oils in that perfume were grown on small farms all over the world.”
Where are some of the more unusual places you source your ingredients from?
Our ingredients come from all over the place! For example, in Lore, there’s handpicked Ylang Ylang flowers from the Comoro Islands, wild-harvested Olibanum (you might know it as Frankincense) from Ethiopia, Guaiac Wood from a managed forest in Peru, Tobacco Leaf from plantations in Virginia in the USA, Bergamot Orange from the South of Italy… all sustainably sourced, all from natural harvesting.
What does smell mean for you?
Oh wow. Well smell is our amazing fifth sense. It used to be one of our most important, but we’ve more or less forgotten how to use it now. Which is a shame!
“Once you reconnect to your sense of smell though, it’s like experiencing this entire new layer of reality that you might not have been aware of before.”
Tell us about some of the scents you love?
Oh God. My favourite smell is the smell of the city after the rain. I recently was told that this smell has a name, it’s called ‘Petrichor’. I find that caramelly smell of toast very comforting. The prickly sweet smell of pine forests in the winter. Sage - which is an interesting scent, fresh sage and dried sage and sage used in cooking and burnt sage all smell completely different.
Smell is a weird sense that is tied to memories. When I was young, we lived in a newly-built suburb, and they were still pouring the tarmac on the road when we moved in, so the smell of freshly-poured tar is so nostalgic to me.
What's the feeling, texture and therapeutic quality of Lore Scent?
Lore is such an incredible multilayered perfume. We’re so proud of it. Nancy, you came to us with this beautiful story of honouring your grandmother Lore on a simple level, and of wanting to somehow represent the idea of a matriarchal line in a family, and the contribution of women in our culture. I love that this perfume actually incorporates this as a narrative: it opens with an elegant white flower story (these white flowers like Jasmin and Ylang Ylang are traditionally handpicked by women) that has a classic feel, and slowly moves into a very modern warm sweet wood scent based around Palo Santo that’s meant to bring to mind your life in Los Angeles and your spiritual journey. Actually, it was a good decision to release it as an Extrait de Parfum - as a highly concentrated perfume oil without alcohol. I think the scent concentration matches the energy concentration!
“Wearing Lore is like a big hug for me. We used ingredients that are traditionally used to centre or to focus the mind, like Vetiver, and sacred ingredients like Frankincense. And once the perfume was mixed, it was macerated with a huge rose quartz crystal in it to infuse it with that energy of inspiration, healing and focus. It’s a very powerful perfume.”
A practice to reconnect with your senses?
When I was trying to develop my nose, it was interesting now and then to sit somewhere with my eyes closed and try to identify all the different smells that I could find. Breathe normal (not big gulps of air!) and try to list what you can smell. Perfume is great for this.
Try to see if you can find certain ingredients or even families - can you smell the citrus? can you pick out individual flowers? How does the scent change over time? It’s a very zen, relaxing experience to analyse a perfume. But then don’t be too hard on yourself; my nose is pretty developed and I still can’t find the hay or cat pee or mushrooms in wine aromas…
