Get to Know Nancy Meiland – founder & perfumer of her personal (sensible!) British home

Nancy Meiland is sensible British perfumer, now together with her personal beautiful boutique in Brighton; however let’s get to know her (and her scents), beginning with the place all of it started…

Based mostly in East Sussex, Nancy divides her time between city and nation, explaining that ‘the inventive technique of gathering sensory impressions and honing them right into a method is an important one. As soon as a clean canvas, the method sheet acts as a metaphor – and step by step emerges primarily as a type of poem, with physique, mild and shade and a lifetime of its personal.’ (It amuses Nancy, wanting again, that she typically had essays returned to her emblazoned with ‘too flowery’ as a criticism. ‘It figures!,’ she says.)

Starting her profession as an apprentice to one of many UK’s specialists in customized perfumery, in London, creating signature scents for these coveting ‘one thing extremely particular person and particular…’ earlier than launching Nancy Meiland Parfums, her decade-long journey via perfume additionally noticed Nancy co-run the previous Faculty of Perfumery, act as a guide for unbiased fragrance homes, work on collaborations with Miller Harris, and communicate with reference to perfume at occasions nationwide.

Now together with her personal artisanal line, she has the knack of conjuring emotional responses with lyrical fragrances which are contemplative but so effortlessly refined, based mostly on scent reminiscences of her personal, however inviting the wearer to go on their very own aromatic journey with each spritz.

Writing about Nancy Meiland for The Fragrance Society, magnificence author (and proud Londoner) Viola Levy as soon as admitted that ‘…Nancy Meiland’s fragrances – an ode to the great thing about nature – would make even probably the most hard-nosed metropolis woman like yours actually need to kick off her Louboutins and go skipping and spinning via a meadow Julie Andrews-style. (I really feel equally in direction of different UK perfumers impressed by inexperienced areas, there’s simply one thing in regards to the earthy, rain-sodden British countryside that lends itself slightly nicely to fragrance…)

You at all times have a picture of somebody in your head earlier than you meet them. To be trustworthy, I used to be anticipating Nancy to be a softly-spoken, Brönte-reading nation woman (albeit a glamorous one, à la Savannah Miller), pausing our dialog to whimsically gaze into the gap each from time to time. A far cry from the chatty, effervescent blonde sat reverse me – and all the higher for it. I’m stunned to search out out that Nancy is a metropolis woman herself – a fellow North-Londoner no much less – whose fond reminiscences of visiting her grandparents as a baby impressed her olfactory journey.’

You may watch an enchanting in-depth Q + A with our co-founder Jo Fairley interviewing Nancy Meiland on the video under…

And naturally you’ll be able to examine every of the fragrances (and her inspirations for them) plus the total story of the how the home started, on our web page devoted to Nancy Meiland Parfums.

So-knowledgeable, at all times partaking, we’re thrilled Nancy now has the scented area to expertise the perfumes in individual – nicely price a go to to the seaside to go by yourself mini sniffari to hunt them out!

Nancy Meiland Parfums, 2 Nile Avenue, Brighton, BH1 1HW
Open Wednesday to Sunday, 11am – 4pm (Saturdays 11am – 5pm)

Written by Suzy Nightingale