One whiff of Miss Dior Chérie and it’s 2005. I’m a freshly pubescent teenager in a ra-ra skirt, living out my Marissa Cooper fantasies on Australia’s east coast. Le Labo Santal 33 — which clings to dust particles on every street corner from London to LA and was thus dismissed as basic by “exquisite taste“-maker and chef Laila Gohar — is a one-way ticket to my late twenties, where I’d douse myself in it with reckless glee. If I so much as think of cedarwood, one of the base notes in Santa Maria Novella’s Tuberosa, my nervous system and tear ducts are shot back to hell — aka the darkest days of my biggest breakup to date. (While I’ll forgive a lot of things in this life, ruining a floral-y scent created by a 600-year-old Florentine perfumery house isn’t one).
Nothing beats a nostalgic sniff. The aforementioned perfumes of yore, coconut-flavoured sunscreen, the holy union of garlic and onion sizzling on the stove, the oppressive yet curiously enjoyable smells of a muggy city heaving under the weight of mid-summer heat… For an otherwise sieve-like brain, certain scents step in to conjure my best (and, in some cases — remember Tuberosa? — worst) autobiographical memories. They are the real soundtrack to my life.
Marcel Proust was the first to theorise that aromas are the fastest portals to our past, using the perennially delicious example of freshly-baked madeleines, his aunt’s favourite dessert to bake, to make his point. Science agrees: smell is the only one of the five senses to sidestep our logical brains, instead interacting directly with our “reptilian” brain structures (the hippocampus and amygdala), associated with emotion and memory.
Driven by a desire to bottle nostalgia, siblings Owen Mears and Emily Cameron launched their small-batch, subscription-based fragrance label, Ffern, in 2018. “It all began with a herb farm at the end of the lane in Somerset where we grew up,” Emily explains. “There was (and still is!) this beautiful biodynamic herb farm, and the scent of it drifted through our childhood, giving us an amazing education in the scents of nature.”
A reverence for the natural world permeates the fragrance line. The duo create perfumes that resonate with the changing seasons, recreating the countryside of their childhood through all-natural organic ingredients. Under the guidance of perfume royalty Francois Robert and his protétegé Elodie Durande, Ffern releases four distinct fragrances annually, each aligned with the solstices and equinoxes.
“Our mission is to restore fragrance making to its artisan past,” Emily says. “We want to celebrate and respect the natural world, fostering a deeper connection between Ffern wearers and the seasons around them.”
The name Ffern pays homage to the Welsh language, reflecting the duo’s interest in Celtic herbology and the lush Welsh coastlines of their youth. It also nods to the 19th-century craze for ‘fougère fragrances’ — fern-inspired scents created during the Victorian obsession with the plant. Like these fougère fragrances, Ffern’s perfumes don’t actually contain ferns, which have little scent, yet capture their with woody, earthy, and fresh notes that “continue the tradition of fine fragrance making”.
Having used fragrances to signify each metaphorical season of my life, I was intrigued by the concept of a subscription-based perfume model that does this in a more literal way, eschewing signature scents in favour of a more seasonal approach.
“There’s a lot of noise about signature scents in the fragrance community, but we feel people are slowly moving away from that idea and more towards a scent portfolio, so they can choose a fragrance according to mood or occasion,” Emily explains. “The idea behind our seasonal fragrances is that you can choose not only a mood when wearing one, but tap into the memories and feelings associated with a whole season. So we hope that each iteration of our summer scents will always have those special associations with the summer season. We are always coming back to the complexity of scent, and how it makes perfumery such a delicate and emotionally stimulating art.”
Seasonality has been a hot-button topic in the food world for years now, so it makes sense that this philosophy is being adopted by the perfume world, too. “The plants change with the seasons; the landscape changes, light changes,” says Emily. “It only makes sense that fragrance should change, too. Scent is very closely aligned with memory, so if you wear a scent during a particular time of year, that scent will always be associated with that season — think how the smell of woodsmoke is associated with autumn, or how the scent of cherry blossom means spring.”
For the duo, scent is “incredibly powerful as a mood influencer”, particularly when formulated with essential oils. Their gender-neutral fragrances cater to people who are drawn toward this approach to perfumery, as opposed to brand names or what other people are wearing. They work with a ledger — a list of names they keep at the Ffern studio in Somerset — and each season, they blend, age and bottle a new perfume for each name on the list. Spaces are limited, ensuring commitment to ingredient and process quality, with a place on the ledger costing £89 per season, with no minimum commitment required. Those wanting to sign up are placed on a waitlist, which is “randomised and weighted in favour of those who have been on this list for longer”, which can take between a few weeks to a few months.
“Every detail matters to us and we might debate over it for months —from a particular ingredient to the positioning of a label on the box,” Emily says. “Having our ledger system gives us the flexibility to experiment while knowing we have this amazing base of loyal members, who are always willing to give feedback on each aspect of the experience, and we’re always keen to listen to their thoughts so we can improve as we go.”
True to their artisanal spirit, each dispatch includes personal touches such as artworks, letters, and a terracotta stone designed for spraying and displaying at home. For practicality, each bottle also comes with a separate sampling kit, allowing recipients to test the fragrance before fully committing. Each new fragrance builds on previous versions, developed in collaboration with creatives like Julius Roberts and Skye Gyngell, yet all maintain the brand’s signature style, which is crafted using favoured ingredients, from bergamot and vetiver to red cedar.
“We are often drawn towards these fresh, delicate scents; things that feel ‘natural’,” Emily explains. “That said, we’re always experimenting with new ingredients and combinations, seeking to explore the wonderful diversity that natural ingredients have to offer. So each season tends to develop around a particular ingredient or accord.”
Their recent Summer 2024 fragrance reflected their palette for the balmy months, with old favourites like spices, resins and citrus, and new ingredients like red champaca, fennel seed, and blood orange, mixed together to create an evolution from last year’s summer fragrance, which centred on osmanthus. For the Autumn 2024 fragrance, they’re capturing the fruit of the season—quince—complemented by floral tones of jasmine and davana, and a warm base of myrrh and caraway seed. Needless to say, one whiff and we’re mentally whisked to a cottage in the English countryside, nestled next to a crackling fireplace as burnt orange and yellow leaves begin to blanket the ground outside.
“We are often drawn towards fresh, delicate scents, things that feel ‘natural’,” Emily explains. “That said, we’re always experimenting with new ingredients and combinations, seeking to explore the wonderful diversity that natural ingredients have to offer. Each season tends to develop around a particular ingredient or accord.”
Ffern’s latest fragrance conjures a crisp autumn day spent inside baking quince pies, perfectly captured in their Dutch still life-inspired campaign video, shot by Sam Finney in a medieval cottage in the Cotswolds. Sign up to the ledger here to experience it firsthand.