It is a labor of love.
Enfleurage is a time-honored process of capturing fragrance compounds using odorless fats and then extracting that fragrance by washing the fat with alcohol to retain the fragrance. This technique became well-known in 16th century France and is effective in extracting delicate fragrance compounds and capturing the scent of a living flower. The enfleurage method allows Whitney Swales, owner and perfumer at Wit & West Perfumes, to utilize her own garden to harvest and harness the fresh scent of a season.
Olfactory Education
Swales grew up in Colorado Springs and has always been drawn to fragrance. Her dad owned a British import shop when she was young, and she especially loved the apothecary section. They stocked Floris London Perfume, and Swales fell in love with the intoxicating scents as well as the history of the company and of fragrance itself. She became a collector of fragrance and perfumes at a young age, and when it was time for her to expand her education, she pursued a chemistry degree–because after all, “how hard could it be?”
After obtaining a job in the food industry, Swales was looking for something different and began apprenticing with Mandy Aftel of Aftelier. Aftel specializes in natural perfumes, collecting and curating scents from around the world. She has been recognized by Vanity Fair and Vogue for her work and has since written nine books on fragrance. Swales was entranced with the nuance of natural ingredients and felt she had finally found her calling. She proceeded to further educate herself through additional apprenticeships as well as taking classes at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery.
Indie + Artisan Perfumes
She found that there is an entire community of people who not only love fragrance but also collect it, some to a fanatical degree. The olfactory system is linked to memory and recall, and Swales was drawn to the opportunity to lock a memory away in that system for later recall through something as seemingly simple as a scent. Although there are plenty of synthetic materials used to make perfumes, Swales was leaning toward indie and artisan perfumes as they are more niche. She embraced the challenge.
Today she can be found tending her own acre of garden space and using the blooms grown there as a base for her natural and botanically based perfumes. Her brand Wit & West is an amalgamation of her and her husband’s names and just like the name, she spends her days amalgamating small batches of scents in-house for her customers to enjoy.
Sample Sets + Personalized Scents
She launched in 2021 with 10 fragrances and has now grown to offer three separate lines for a total of 16 perfumes and colognes. She sells mostly online, offering fragrance sample sets for those wanting to try out her artisanal amalgamations. The scent quiz helps customers narrow down their options, or for those who want to dive right in, there is a signature set that allows the purchaser to sample all 10 perfumes, as well as three colognes. Each sample bottle contains about 15 sprays, allowing the customer to fully experience the scent before committing to a full bottle.
For a more bespoke experience, Swales also offers a more personalized option where she will work with the customer in three phases to create a stylistically unique fragrance to capture a memory in time or to make one uniquely memorable. That formula is then placed on file to allow for refills.
Fragrance has long been used to lift the mood or as an accessory toward self-expression. With so many options, why smell like someone else?
Website: https://witandwest.com/
Facebook + Instagram: @WitAndWest