I have never had the instinct of an interior designer.
I admire people who can walk into a room and immediately know what it needs. It took me almost three years to get my own living room right. I would move things, replace things, add things — and still have the feeling that something was missing.
Eventually, I realised that what changed the room most was not something I could see.
It was scent.
A fragrance could make the exact same room feel warmer, darker, fresher or more intimate. Nothing had moved, yet my experience of the space had changed completely.
The problem was that I rarely found home fragrances I truly wanted to live with. Some I loved in isolation, but not once they were in the room. Others simply lacked the depth and character I was looking for.
So I started making my own candles. Not with the intention of creating a brand, but because I wanted fragrances that felt right in my own home.
I came to understand scent as the element I had been unable to place. It did not change what the room looked like; it changed whether the room felt complete.
That idea eventually became HAUTEASE.
Today, I create fragrances in much the same way: by thinking about the space they will inhabit, the presence they will have within it, and the feeling they leave behind.
Because a room can contain everything it needs and still feel as though something is missing.
Sometimes, that something is scent.
Laura E.
Founder, HAUTEASE
