Debut Eau de Parfum Collection

After two years of work, Audentia and Noctua Regina – my first eau de parfums – are finally ready.

I think my obsession with perfume may have begun back in 1970s secondary school, when chief mean girl Deirdre Flanagan told me I smelt like s***. Which was interesting, as she stank of Dettol – the gold standard in an Irish Catholic girls’ school back then.

Or it might have been in my first job, when beautiful Sloaney Camilla loftily insisted on spraying the office in her Chanel No. 5 at least three times a day to make it “liveable”. I thought it was a marvellous act.

For decades, I’ve amassed scents, lined them up lovingly in my bathroom cabinet and doused myself liberally in them. Many a London cabbie has commented on my pungency.

But two years ago, I decided to go the whole hog and step into the perfumery world – as a maker.

What I discovered quickly is that creating fragrance is as technical as it is creative. There is the language of raw materials, maceration periods, stability and compatibility testing – and the discipline of judging how a scent behaves and changes over time. (Be careful with eucalyptus – it can be a bully.) And then there are all the health and safety aspects and compliance rules, which must be fully understood.

I went on professional courses to learn the elementary steps, but perfume-making is an art‑science and you need experts around you. For Chouette Sauvageonne, I worked with a dedicated perfume house and a development chemist, setting out detailed creative briefs, examining ingredients and then refining the compositions through many rounds of evaluation together until they felt entirely right.

After many iterations, the debut collection is ready: the first two limited‑edition eaux de parfum, Audentia and Noctua Regina, composed and bottled in England.

Created for Chouette Sauvageonne, Audentia and Noctua Regina extend the brand beyond handbags and accessories, drawing on the same symbolism and preoccupations: history, the spirit of queens, owls, fine craftsmanship, and women of presence, power and poise.

It feels good to see a long‑held obsession distilled into two small bottles.

Mary x