Abel’s Newest Scent Smells Like ‘Wellington On A Good Day’

Founder Frances Shoemack bottles the beauty of her favourite city in her new perfume.

Crafting a fragrance designed to capture the essence of a place is no small feat.

Especially when that place is as culturally vibrant and creatively charged as a city like Wellington.

But for Abel founder Frances Shoemack, that sentiment has formed the basis of her coterie of natural perfumes since the beginning — the scent stories that enamour people to her brand.

It’s a glimpse into the glamour and sass of Art Deco Paris for Cobalt Amber, or a whiff of the salty sea breeze on Wellington’s South Coast for Cyan Nori.

Each scent is a place, moment or memory, bottled, then shared with the world.

“When I’m talking to people all over the world, they’re like: ‘Wow, it really transports me to that place’. We have this beautiful, unique environment that resonates globally,” Frances says.

Now, after 18 months of development, Frances has revealed the latest scent to be added to Abel’s range of plant-based, petrochemical-free perfumes with Laundry Day, a sunny, uplifting scent that highlights verdant, sun-ripened citrus notes, and carries the scent of freshly mowed grass when the windows are flung wide open.

Surprising, then, that inspiration for a New Zealand-centric scent struck during a recent trip abroad with master perfumer Isaac Sinclair, someone who Frances credits as an ally in her quest to disrupt the fragrance market.

“I was up in Paris with Isaac and we were having a bit of a giggle about how to capture the scent of Wellington on a good day. It’s throwing open your windows, putting your laundry out on the line because you know it’s going to dry. It’s that air of anticipation and summer heat. That kind of beautiful energy of a fresh start that spring evokes. That’s what we wanted to create,” Frances says.

Launching a fragrance that evokes spring feels bold considering we’re braving winter temperatures, but for Frances, it’s more the feeling that fragrance provides.

“There’s something deeply uplifting about springtime and the reawakening it signifies. We wanted to capture that feeling in a bottle so the energy and freshness of spring can be evoked year round — no matter what season you’re in,” Frances says.

The fragrance notes, Frances tells me, are wholly reflective of that. To Frances, cut grass is a quintessentially “spring” moment, as is the crisp smell of fresh laundry swaying on the line.

Upcycled passionfruit skins add a ripe sweetness, further building on Laundry Day’s bright, effervescent character.

But there’s one ingredient Frances remains most proud of — one not readily available in the natural fragrance space when Isaac and Frances set out on their mission a decade ago: aldehyde.

“It’s so cool that every year there’s new ingredients available for a natural palette. I wouldn’t have dreamed that we could use aldehydes when I was first starting out,” she says.

This practice has been quickly adopted by a suite of locally made and manufactured brands, who wish to sidestep synthetics in the pursuit of products that don’t contain potentially harmful, endocrine-disrupting chemicals. In skin and body care, think Emma Lewisham or Tronque.

For Abel, this looks like using living organisms like plant sugars, bacteria, fungi and yeast in a laboratory setting to produce biodegradable and renewable ingredients to blend into its fragrances.

The result is single-molecule ingredients that enable Frances and her team to build ultra-precise, modern scent profiles, instead of being limited to the use of essential oils when previously formulating natural fragrance.

“Essential oil compounds are made up of 30, 40, or 50 molecules, which is beautiful and dynamic. But some of these molecules might be an antioxidant, some might be fragrance molecules, they have different purposes and uses,” Frances says. “Whereas working with individual scent molecules gives you a lot more precision.”

Developments in the space mean Abel remains at the forefront of fragrance innovation, with new biotech ingredients cropping up all the time.

“When we’re working on a fragrance we’re constantly looking at what’s new, what’s interesting, and what potentially wasn’t available last time we sat together,” she says.

But Abel isn’t the only brand exploring biotech ingredients in fragrance, and Frances says she’s excited that big fragrance houses are starting to look at them, too. It’s a positive move for the industry, she explains, adding that ultimately she’d love it if there were no petrochemicals in the fragrance supply chain the world over.

“I want to mobilise change in the industry,” she says. “We want to lead this movement, but ultimately, I want everyone to come on board as well.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Abel has a number of scents in its stable after being in operation for more than a decade. And while Frances and her team have developed many over that period, only seven are ever in rotation at any one time.

It’s part of Abel’s “one in, one out” policy, and the launch of Laundry Day replaces White Vetiver.

“A perfume shouldn’t overwhelm a room and a brand shouldn’t overwhelm the planet,” reads a statement on Abel’s website. It’s befitting of the brand Frances has spent the past 10 years building — with a vision of creating fragrance with intention, not excess.

But what about the customers who settle on a signature scent, only to have it discontinued? Customers do get upset, Frances says, especially those who are finishing their bottles after six or seven months only to return in-store to find the scent is no longer in circulation.

“I took over customer service over Christmas/New Year to give our customer service manager a break. And I was like: “Holy s***, the Grey Labdanum customers are still upset? I had no idea,” she says.

To satiate customers, Frances says each new scent is designed to be interchangeable with the one it’s replacing, and she says fans of White Vetiver will find Laundry Day to be a fresher, more elevated take on the original.

“We’re mindful that if we wanted to discontinue White Vetiver, the new fragrance had to satiate that thirst for existing customers. There’s a lot of synergy between the two,” Frances says.

“It does get harder every time. The collection becomes this kind of living organism that’s always improving. Every time we take a fragrance out and we add something, we only add it if we think it’s better.”

Available now, Laundry Day made its debut at Stéle, one of Abel’s New York-based retailers. Based in Brooklyn, Stéle sets itself apart with products that align with its “slow luxury” ethos — one which mirrors Abel’s perfectly.

The scent was well-received by Abel’s American loyalists, but Frances says she can’t wait for New Zealanders to experience the sunny scent, too.

Laundry Day is available in both 15ml and 50ml sizes, and is priced at $140 and $270 respectively, from the Abel Fabriek, 83 Aro St, Wellington, from selected day spas and independent retailers, or online at Nz.abelfragrance.com.

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