To celebrate our abundance of wonderful Australian fragrance houses at Lore Perfumery, we started a QnA series to get to know all of the people behind the brands a bit more.
Map of the Heart has always been one of the most unique Australian perfume houses that we stock at Lore. We just love this fragrance house inspired by Sarah and Jeffery’s background in film production. Treating each fragrance like a film, this fragrance house creates films to accompany each scent. Each Map of the Heart fragrance comes straight from the heart, taking the wearer on a journey of emotion, memory, and sensation. From pure joy, to lightness, love or aching darkness and desire – our heart is our essence. By mapping it with scent and colour, we can explore what it is that makes our heart beat.
Get to know Sarah from Map of the Heart below.
What is your first or most powerful non-perfume scent memory?
Always the ocean. I was born in the Central Pacific so it is the scent that always fills my heart.
What inspired you to start Map of the Heart?
After co-founding the stationery brand: Corban and Blair, and then later being lured into the world of filmmaking by Jeff, the adventure of another creative frontier and a return to product design was irresistible.
What would you say are the core tenets of Map of the Heart, what defines it?
Connection, Emotion, Originality, Quality and the belief that everything comes from our heart. It is our essence: pure, good and evil. It aches, it desires. It is who we are.
How do you approach the creation of a fragrance? Do you start with a story/concept and then make a fragrance that embodies it, or do you start with the fragrance and write its story from there?
Each fragrance begins with a story—a visceral image, or an inspiration point from a feeling, literature or an ache/ yearning that won’t let go. I build the brief from Australia: words, visuals, atmosphere. Giovanna, Map of the Heart Partner and Perfume Developer, then works with the perfumers in Paris. Once they have the first iterations we work as a team to craft the fragrance until we are happy the translation from concept to scent is coherent and the fragrance can sing to us.
What’s something that people may not know about Map of the Heart?
That every detail—from bottle to story to scent—is created with an obsessive care. Nothing is accidental. Everything has a heartbeat. That maybe we are all, in our own ways, just a little bit crazy.
Are there any materials or ingredients you especially love to use in your fragrances?
All our fragrances have Australian Sandalwood, in various facets as the ‘fils rouge’ that weaves through our collection to underline our Australian heritage. Our perfumers have created a number of accords exclusively for our fragrances. Materials and ingredients are used to express storytelling. It is a joy to use the finest Opurs and Absolutes, up-cycled and more technical ingredients. Each ingredient has its own purpose in our magnificent cocktails of emotions.
Is there a fragrance from Map of the Heart that you feel particularly passionate about or connected to?
V.2 Darkness is my love. The first creation of V.2 was thrown out as it just didn’t cut it. When this was first presented to me, I said: I want to fall into it. It’s lures you into its abyss of smoky woods while tantalising you with shards of olfactory light: eucalyptus and citrus. Chiaroscuro. In darkness we dream.
Do you have any perfumery pet peeves?
Fragrances that smell like cupcakes. I want to stir souls, not cake mix…
What does it mean to you to be an Australian fragrance house?
That we have a new world sensibility and while we work with brilliant French perfumers we are able to mess with them just a little because we have a different take. As a team we are able to create something that none of us could do alone.
What fragrance are you wearing today and why?
V.9, Wonder, our next creation. I wear it to live inside it—to understand how it breathes in different moments, moods, and seasons. It’s how we get to know each other.
