In this video Hannah Nepilova interviews the artisan perfumer Sarah McCartney, who, in her perfume making, takes inspiration from literature, music, people and places, providing scents for events ranging from performances of classical music to VR experiences and the launch of a new washing machine.
- Read: Perfumes inspired by music | five of the best
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Aș a child, growing up in Yorkshire and County Durham, Sarah McCartney believed that she actually was a witch. “It wasn’t an aspiration; it was just something I understood to be the case,” she says. “I would make potions and leave them out for fairies underneath the privet hedge.”
- Watch: Interview with violinist Petru Cotarcea, about setting up a music school on a London bus
- Watch: Interview with conductor Greg Batsleer, about mixing Handel with electronic music
When she was 16, Sarah McCartney bought a bottle of Diorella and fell in love with perfumery’s magic powers. After studying Maths at Durham University, switching to Anthropology and Psychology in her third year, she went on to work for many years in advertising and marketing. In 1996, she landed a job as head writer for Lush, the popular cosmetics company, where she stayed for 14 years. It was while working there that she taught herself the ropes of perfume making.
- Watch: Interview with director Tom Guthrie, about using puppets in Schubert’s song cycles
- Watch: Interview with choral director Suzi Digby, about putting on Tallis’s Spem in Alium in the Tate Modern
In 2010 years she took some time off to write a novel featuring a problem-solving perfumer. In it, she described the scents that she made and wanted to have them available for people to smell. So she set off on a quest to see if she could buy them. This turned out to be impossible because no one was making exactly what she wanted, so she started another quest to see if she could make them instead. And once she had started, she just kept going. 4160Tuesdays, her Artisan perfume company, was the result.
This is part of a series of videos in which we interview artists who are doing interesting things during lockdown.