Making It Work: Talking scents about solid natural perfumes
Even as a child, Nora Irwin knew her fragrances. It’s hardly a surprise, given that she grew up around them.
“My mother’s first cousin had a relative who was a formulator for one of the very big fragrance houses in New York,” said Irwin, who founded Arona, a natural perfume company, in 2018.
“He used to send us a load of fragrances from New York in parcels, so we grew up surrounded by all these amazing scents. And the strange thing is, we thought everybody else grew up with the same thing. It took years before we realised our friends didn’t have these things. But it meant I grew up with a love of fragrances.”
It wasn’t just a passion for scents that Irwin picked up in those early days – she also cultivated a judicious nose for the subtleties of smell. “I could tell you any perfume anybody is wearing, just by instinct,” she said. “Men’s and women’s, I just have that muscle memory picked up.”
Irwin is still using the same skills today at Arona, which is headquartered in Cork and aiming for international expansion next year. It offers solid, waterless perfumes made using organic beeswax and natural essential oils, and places a heavy emphasis on sustainability.
The company currently offers solid perfumes in three scents: delicate rose, fresh citrus and calming lavender. It will add several more in the new year, all made with the same natural ingredients.
“People don’t really understand the significance of making waterless perfumes,” Irwin said. “But water shortages are a huge issue around the world, so it’s a huge issue for us. We’ve built our whole philosophy on the waterless concept.”
Going waterless doesn’t only help the environment – it also makes Arona’s perfumes cheaper and easier to transport and extends their use-by date. It’s part of a commercial strategy that will see Arona attempt to raise significant investment in 2022 to fund its growth into the US and the Middle East.
Before the pandemic struck, the Enterprise Ireland-backed firm was targeting airlines and airports, attracting interest from several companies because of how light and easy to transport its products were.
But during Covid-19, with its target market no longer operational, Arona was forced to pivot to an e-commerce model. It was a difficult moment, but the company used the pandemic to focus on product development.
“The pandemic was actually good for us in a sense, funny as it sounds,” Irwin said. “It gave us time to go back and look at our fragrances, and it meant we could roll out waterless products quicker. Without Covid-19, we wouldn’t have been able to switch to waterless for another 12 months.”
Arona is now looking forward to a “hugely exciting” 2022, Irwin said, and plans to launch its new line of products at Showcase, the creative expo that takes place next year. There it will unveil new fragrances for women, as well as aftershaves for men and a waterless skincare range
“We have a product that’s still not spoken about that much, but we think it’s the next big thing,” Irwin said. “My vision is to be a leading luxury brand, with products that are waterless and that are based in Ireland.”
Reporting: The Business Post