№15 – Creating Your Own Path in Perfumery with Fragrance Expert Karen Gilbert

When an expert and educator like Karen Gilbert shares her expertise in mentoring and business creation, you can expect one of the best fragrance-related conversations to unfold. This is a truly special episode, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we have.

Please make sure to check the links, including The Perfume Making Podcast which Karen hosts. She has inspired thousands of students to explore their olfactory sense and create their own personalised fragrances.

• Website: Karen Gilbert
• The Perfume Making Podcast: Listen here
• Karen's Books:
  • Perfume: The Art and Craft of Fragrance
  • NATURAL BEAUTY: Hardback Issue
• The Scent Shift: Discover more
• YouTube Channel: Watch here

Karen also mentions:

• Steven Pressfield's The War of Art
• Palette Naturals: Explore here
• Taro & Spirituality in Perfumes: Learn more

Ever dreamt about going to space? Connect with Tanya!

• https://www.instagram.com/neparfumer/
• https://www.coachmironova.com/

Transcript

0:00

I think the value of coaching is huge, especially as an entrepreneur. And especially if you are at the top of the pile, as it were, in your company where your staff come to you, but who do you go to? So I always have a coach. Hi and welcome to How I Became a Perfumer Podcast. In each episode we explore the different roles in the flavor and fragrance industry as well as talk to founders of independent projects. My name is Tanya Mironova. I am a career coach dedicated to helping you sniff out the best opportunities and inspiring you to create your own projects. If you are interested in a free coaching session, check the description box for contact details and let's get started. My guest for the today's episode is Karen Gilbert. fragrance expert, author and teacher. Karen runs engaging courses that demystify the art of perfumery. She helps people explore and create their own scents. Karen also brings her expertise in skincare product development into her teachings. Beyond fragrances, and this is something I really appreciate, Karen is a certified meditation teacher who blends scent with wellness practices to enhance daily life. Karen, welcome to the show! Thanks Tanya, so glad to be here and thank you for inviting me. I'm also so happy and you know just Talking to well, I'm sorry if it sounds bad, but talking to a living icon for me No, really, I don't know if somebody told you that but I just understood that I discovered your YouTube channel So many years ago and I was thinking how many exactly and the check today the first uploaded video was 12 years ago so it's so funny when I hear people say, oh, I discovered you on YouTube. When I first stepped back into the industry really and started teaching again, I thought, oh, I've got to get on YouTube, put some videos up. That was probably 2011, 2012, something like that. And I had a little spate of let's make some YouTube videos. And then I didn't touch it again for like a decade. So I, yeah. So it just is hilarious. I think I put three videos up in, I think it was like 2013. I had done a course on how to market your online program. And I think it was 2013, I created my first online perfume making course and thought, oh, I needed to do some videos to kind of promote that. And I put them up and then I realized quite soon after that I actually, really wasn't very comfortable doing video, didn't really enjoy it that much. and then I let it just languish for years and years and years. And then I did some interviews with some past students when I relaunched the program. I think it was like 2017, 2018, something like that, maybe 2019. And so I started to put up a few interviews with my students and honestly, like that was it. So anyone going to YouTube, my channel is a sorry state of affairs. And I am uh looking to remedy that at some point in the future. But for now, I've focused on the podcast because I love podcasts. It's audio only, you know, you can do it in your pajamas. I mean, I did, I didn't know whether we were doing video today, so I did put some makeup on just in case, but. Yeah, Karen is not in the pajama. but you know, think podcasting, I just love it as a medium because I think people can listen to it on the move and it's, I think it's just a lot easier for people. We're so overloaded visually nowadays with, you know, we're bombarded with all this stuff. So yeah, it always makes me laugh when people find me on YouTube, but yeah, long time ago. You said about being bombarded by the visuals. well, today I was listening to your podcast and of course we will leave all the links in the description box. And particularly about visuals for the perfume makers or skincare makers, for the makers, I would say in any regard. And I thought how cool that you approached creative process. from so many angles and showed it to your audience. To be able to do so, it's definitely not something people are born with, maybe someone is, but you've been building your skillset over the years. And what I wanted to ask first, and maybe it's gonna be funny for you to remember as well as about your YouTube experience, is where it all started. this is not something, I mean, I don't know that I've talked about this really on a perfume making thing or I mean, I may have talked about it way back or even to my students, but actually like the first memory that I really have from an entrepreneurial perspective and I actually, when I moved house, I moved out of London in 2016, I had like, you know, when you move house, you'd like find all of these boxes that have been in your attic and your old school books and. Et cetera, et cetera. And I found uh an essay, mean, if you could call it that, I must've been 13, 14 maybe. And it's like, what do you wanna do when you grow up kind of thing. And I actually, it triggered a memory from junior school even. I must've been about 11. So it was around that sort of age. And I read it and it was really funny. And I think I posted it on Facebook somewhere and I must dig it out again. But in this little kind of short, you know, 500 word story essay, whatever you want to call it, I said that I wanted to do something that I didn't want a boring office job because I thought I would be bored doing that. I wanted to do something where I could learn a lot, meet lots of different types of people. And I would prefer if I ran my own business. Also, I was like a business owner or a manager of some description, but whatever it was, I wanted it to be really diverse and interesting and something that I could learn every day. then my grandmother's voice comes into it as well because as the age that I was, this obviously, our little voices in our head, they come from our parents and it was like in the little paragraph that said, But obviously I need to get a good education and pass all my exams because I need to have something to fall back on. Because being an entrepreneur, being in business for yourself is very difficult and takes lots of money. And it was like all these little things that they're obviously not from a 12, 13 year old. They're from your grandmother or your parents. So yeah, I think it goes back to, you know, when I was very young and I always knew I wanted to do something different and not just go and work in an office. And then when I I didn't know I did my A levels. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, quite honestly. So I decided to just get a job and take a gap two years. And I ended up working in the sort of fragrance and beauty industry. And this was because I went to work for an ad agency in Covent Garden, only lasted three months, didn't really enjoy it. And there were two photographers that used to do shoots for the ad agency. And they said, we're looking for an assistant. Do you want to? and be a photographer's assistant and I'd done photography, I knew I wanted to do something creative. And so was like, oh yeah, okay. And they said, but you have to be self-employed. And so that was when I was 19. So I was first self-employed when I was 19. My first job, really proper full-time job, I lasted three months before becoming self-employed. And that didn't really last either because it was like, I don't really want to do that. And so then I got a temp job working in the the beauty and fragrance and cosmetic retail arena. So it was an agency job. So I worked for a company called Shiseido Skincare. I was on their promotion team. So we used to travel around the country, setting up the Shiseido new, cause it was very new at the time, the launches into Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Selfridges. But again, I was self-employed. I worked for a temp agency so I could really write my own schedule. So really it was then, that I kind of, had that taste of freedom, if you like, for being an entrepreneur. But I didn't really have like a solid skill set of, you know, of anything that I could do. So I decided, oh, maybe I'll be a makeup artist. So I decided to go to the London College of Fashion and do a two year diploma trained as a hair and makeup artist. And as part of that, we did a little module on cosmetic science. And I was like, my God, this is it. I can be in a lab. I don't need to talk to people. If I'm out there being a makeup artist, I'm quite a big introvert. Most people don't realize that, but I sort of prefer to work on my own. Maybe the fact that you're just right now in the middle of the fields? Yeah, I live in the middle of a field now, yeah. for itself, But these details, they don't lie. Exactly. she, know, my, my tutor on that course, you know, we had to do a work placement and she said, look, you know, there are a couple of different options. I can get you a work placement in, this kind of, um, develop it, you know, development capacity. And I really thought I was going to go into skincare development. Um, and, uh, yeah, there was two options. One was the body shop, which is the one that I really wanted. And one was for some random fragrance lab that I'd never heard of. Didn't really think it wasn't a thing. didn't. kind of think, my God, you I want to make perfume, that's my passion. It wasn't really a thing, but for whatever reason, the body shop one didn't work out and I ended up doing a two week work placement at IFF in their sales office in the applications lab. And I just landed into it completely by accident. And it just opened up this world to me that I didn't even know existed. And I think I suppose like going back to when I was about sort of 15, 16 years old, I dabbled in aromatherapy and essential oils because I had really bad skin. didn't, I wasn't really getting anywhere with the medical, like doctors, like helping my acne. It wasn't really the same as it is now where there's lots of different things available. And so nothing was working. And so I ended up finding some aromatherapy based skincare range that actually really helped me. And I got, I bought some books and You know, I was always encouraged to make and craft, you know, when I was growing up, we used to always make stuff. We used to bake, we used to make paper crafts, you know, make models, that kind of thing. So I was always used to doing stuff with my hands, mixing up things. And I, so I loved that kind of mixing up skin creams and essential oil blends. So I think I had that in me, but I didn't, I suppose I didn't associate it with perfume. And I think a lot of people don't. Because to me, as a teenager, perfume was like impulse body spray, or it was something that maybe you'd get as a Christmas gift. It wasn't something that I really consciously focused on, although I do remember the only perfume that I used to wear when I was sort of early teens was Chanel No. 5 Pure Perfume, because I thought that was the sophisticated. I thought that was what you were supposed to do. I wasn't really interested in the teenage stuff that my friends had. was like, I'll have some Chanel number five, please. So yeah, it must have always been there, but yeah, it was completely accidental. You know, I'm processing what you're saying because when I work with clients, I always feel like there are so many coincidences kind of thing, which are kind of not. And this is something which fascinates me, like believing in or not. And I'm happy that I talked to you, a person who feels that meditation does play a big role. and also the spiritual work and also having time with oneself is very important. So I do realize that you also process all these things and yeah, I couldn't just not to do that right now. well, somebody saying at the age of 12 or 13 that she wants to be independent, self-employed or a business person and it just does manifest itself. So... think it comes from upbringing as well. mean, just for context, know, when I was very young, my parents got divorced. When I was six years old, my sister was three. We were living in Berlin at the time. My dad was in the army, so we were army family. I was very young. So when my parents split up, we came back to England and we lived with my grandparents. So... And it was a very strange family situation because my grandparents had lived in a very extended family situation. My grandparents, they were in the Second World War. And my grandma's sister, so she had never been married and she was a teenager during the Second World War and she'd never left home really. So she'd stayed at home. And so the household as it stood when we were kids was, it was my nan. my granddad, my nan's sister, me, my sister and my mom. And so my mom was a single mom. She went out to work. My nan and her sister had worked in factories during the war. But it was very female household. It was very a kind of tough sort of, you've got to crack on and forge your own way in the world. It's that, you know, that war time, you know. I don't They had to kind of work in factories and during the war effort. So I think it comes from the upbringing from a single mum who went to have to go out to work, but also my great aunt and my nan who were very much, they sort of was a very matriarchal, I suppose, And then my mum had three brothers who were older than her and they obviously weren't around, you know, they left home and had their own families. actually, two of the, yeah, actually all of them, I think, they all had businesses. one was, you know, I think they, one was a plumber, one was a kitchen like fitter. So there was this sort of entrepreneurial thing going on in the periphery. So I kind of knew it was a possibility. So yeah, I think it is, it's something that is very much nurture as well as nature. It's very interesting to ask you um how do you choose people for your team right now based on this knowledge or based on this upbringing and nurture kind of thing. oh is such a uh timely and interesting question because I think sometimes as a business owner, we can really, and especially someone who's very independent, you know, I'm used to bootstrapping, you know, when I first started my business, it was like doing everything myself. And I think you can get stuck in that place of only I can do this and it's very hard as an entrepreneur to let go and actually delegate. And this business now, my Perfume teaching business, is not the first business that I had. if we go back to, so I worked, I ended up working for IFF as an evaluator for about five years, then I left and went to work for Neil's Yard, and I worked in product development for Neil's Yard, and that was for about five years as well. And I, I think I only probably worked for them full time for about two, three years and I kept leaving and then renegotiating my contract and going part time. I think that whole kind of thing of wanting to work for myself sort of crept in and I actually decided, so I left, I ended up leaving Neil's Yard in 2004, in 2003 I started my first business, my first proper business. which was a retail store. was a bricks and mortar clothing shop. Yeah, exactly. But with the partner that, the guy that I was with at the time who became sort of a long-term partner, it was more sort of, I realized later down now with sort of however many years behind me that it wasn't really my business. It wasn't for me. I actually started it because he wasn't working and... he sort of needed something to do. I was paying the mortgage and et cetera, et cetera. And so I thought, oh, what a great idea. The area that I was living in, it didn't have a sort of like an alternative clothing shop. And so I decided we had this idea. was, think it was in the July of 2003. Oh, maybe we should open a shop. And I remember saying to him, like, okay, so I can fund it, but you're gonna have to manage it. And that was that. And it was a tiny shop and it was literally just me and him. And then we had ended up with one member of staff who worked on a Monday for cover so that, you know, he could take a day off. And it started there. And that business grew and grew and grew. And it ended up being, we moved to another premises and then we moved to another premises and we ended up having a team of quite young staff. So in their sort of... early, you know, late teens, early twenties, and we branched out and we were selling clothing, we were doing custom t-shirt printing, and then we converted the basement into a tattoo and body piercing studio. so it ended up, the business ended up being, you know, we had a couple of guys who were doing custom t-shirt printing, we had shop floor staff, we had about two body piercers, three body piercers probably, and then the tattoos. a studio had a receptionist and then we had the tattoo artist who were freelance who just we did like a commission split with them so they weren't employed by us. But it got to the point where I was actually sole director of the business. My then partner was just an employee. He was the sort of shop manager but he wasn't really, he didn't sort of take any kind of executive role in the business. And so it was a lot. you know, he ended up managing the day to day of the staff, but actually that was my biggest learning platform, I suppose, in managing staff, hiring, taking on a team. And it was really hard. It's not my skill set. I found it really difficult to hire, found it even harder to fire people when I needed to. And we got through a lot of staff, you know, it's not easy to hire the right people. And one of the things, the biggest learnings for me that I discovered is that, and I don't know whether this is just because of my kind of personal development background, spiritual, whatever, it's a blessing and a curse in that I can always see potential in people that they don't necessarily see in themselves. And one of the biggest lessons for me is that I used to hire people on that kind of potential that I saw in them. which is a big mistake sometimes because just because you see the potential in someone, it doesn't mean that they want to fulfill that potential or even see it in themselves. And it comes through, you know, and as a career coach, you know, you must see that a lot. And that is one of my frustrations about coaching. I don't tend to do one-to-one coaching with my students because sometimes I see their potential and it's actually getting them over the hump. to actually help them realize that they can actually do and achieve something is one thing. But sometimes they just don't want to. Sometimes they just don't want to. And so that was my biggest challenge in hiring a team. in the business that I'm in now, I think that has meant that I've actually been a one-man band for a really long time. I mean, I do have a team, but they're all freelancers. I don't have any employees as such. So. I have someone who does help me with my social media. I obviously have the podcast. I work with an agency to edit and produce my podcasts. quality one, I will tell it again. Yeah, I definitely couldn't do that by myself. I have my VA, Ola, who looks after the bookings, my diary, emails, customer support, that kind of thing. And then I have my tech guru person who looks after all of my website, my uh membership site. Because obviously I teach online, a lot of what I do is teaching online programs. And there's a big lot of machinery that goes on in the back end of that that people don't even see that could break at any moment if I touch it. So that was a humbling thing. It's like as much as I want to do stuff myself, you know, I create all my own content. I write my own scripts. I do all my email marketing. I do my blog posts, my course content, film my videos, record all of that. and that's a lot. And I think the bigger you get, It's hard, you've got to have team, you've got to delegate. so yeah, as a business owner, I think you have to do it slowly as well, because it could end up costing you an absolute fortune. But yeah, I'm at the place now where I'm actually thinking, you know what, I probably do need to look at more people coming on board. And maybe it is someone as a guest, more guest tutors maybe, maybe it's someone who can... really help to nurture my students as a client success manager, whatever it is they call it. And I am looking at maybe taking on some more team. So if there's anyone out there who's interested, watch this space. But yeah, it's tough, it's hard. Like running a business is a big thing, like everyone understands it. That's why I wanted to just return to your business side and you mentioned that there are a lot of, a lot of actually products and activities you're into. And which one was probably the first fragrance related activity you've launched? Back in 2010, I was working in my business, in the retail business, and I was at a burnout point, I think, and I was really not loving it. was, and actually I learned a lot about myself in that business, the being an introvert and feeling that you have to be, like if you're an introvert, don't open a shop, like don't run a retail business. unless you have a team that runs it and you're just behind the scenes because actually being like that available and open 24 seven, it just like exhausted me and it burnt me out. And I actually, love, I've always got a coach of some kind myself. I think the value of coaching is huge, especially as an entrepreneur. And especially if you are at the top of the pile as it were in your company where your staff come to you. but who do you go to? So I always have a coach. And it was at the point where I was like wailing, probably crying to my coach how like, you know, I didn't really love my job or my business. And I've created this like beast of a thing that was like a ball and chain around my ankle. And it was a really interesting session. And she kind of took me back to, so what is it that you love? What is it that, you know, really lights you up? And I'd been in that business from sort of seven years, I think I'd been in that business and the fragrance industry was so almost so far behind me that I hadn't even considered that that was something that I could still do or be involved with because it was just so in my past. And I remembered a time when I was teaching, you know, I was teaching workshops when I was at Neil's yard with kids, like how to make product. And I just remembered that and thought, my God, you know, I love, I love that part of, of what I did in that job. And then when I thought back to when I was at IFF, I used to do buyer training days, like scent training days with, with buyers as part of my job. And I loved that. And I was like, oh, well, I really enjoyed teaching. And she said, well, maybe that's something that you could do to just, you know, just get yourself into, out of the funk that you're in and into back into your natural flow. And so I ended up. going on Twitter and finding there was an organization at the time called the Make Lounge and it was at the time that you know the crafting thing was really taking off and people were going to do like workshops making bath bombs and lampshades and sewing cushion covers and that kind of thing yeah and and so yeah that came up but I think I remember I'd gone away to you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself because actually the timeline was slightly different. After that coaching session, I decided that, okay, I'm going to teach some classes and I decided I was going to teach a perfume making class. And of course nobody knew who I was. So I put a blog together, started writing some articles and submitted some articles to some like crafting magazines and just started putting one foot in front of the other and said, I'm going to write a book. I had this like idea to write a book. And so I decided to put on a perfume class and of course nobody booked on it because like nobody knew who I was and what have you. So I kind of just like slunk away. And then I saw this advert for the make lounge and thought, do you know what? Let me just see if they are looking for someone to teach this like skincare product making class because that will get me out there and in the flow. And as it happened, they were, they were looking for someone. And so I just started to teach these little two hour classes. They paid me 60 quid for teaching a class. And by the time I'd got from South London all the way up to Islington, I literally didn't make any money out of it. But what it did do for me, and that it was a pivotal point in my journey, without doing that, my business would not be where it is. Because as part of that, I gradually started to build up my mailing list. So I wasn't teaching perfume making, but we obviously talked about essential oils and blends in the products. And so I said to everyone who came to the classes, look, you know, if you want to join my mailing list, I'm going to start teaching blending and perfume making if you're interested. And that's how I started to build the list. And then I got an email, started to work on a book, a perfume book in my spare time. And then I one day, I think it was in, it must've been sort of like November, 2010. It was pretty early on. I got an email from a publishing company. saying, look, we've seen your teaching at the Make Lounge and we've seen your blog and we've seen that you used to work for Neil's Yard and we really like your writing style and we've got this book called A Green Guide to Natural Beauty that we're looking for an author for. Would you like to write it for us? m Super cool. And I was like, okay, so I said I'm writing a book. I'm like floundering around on my own, no idea what I'm doing. I've just been offered a book deal, not the book that I wanted to write or I was intending to write, but this is a sign, this is serendipity. And I was also, at that point, I was meditating a lot. I'd gone to a book writing workshop and the guy who was running this workshop, I didn't know at the time. he was very, very spiritual and he taught us how to channel write. So getting into that meditative state and write from that place. And so that's how I'd started to write. And I kind of downloaded all of this like info that I was going to put into this perfume book. And it was going to be a scent and spirituality book. And I still haven't written that. That's still on the back burner. That's another one that's, yeah, I know, right? And so anyway, all of this stuff lined up. And so I emailed the guy and I was like, Tom, you know, I said, I was writing this book. I've just like somehow manifested this book deal from nowhere. And he was like, well, you've got to do it obviously, because that's going to get your foot in the door with a traditional publishing house. and yeah, so, so that was that. And that was November. I think I signed the book deal on Christmas Eve of 2010. And they said, the only catch is that we need it to be finished by March. So I had three months to write the book. And that meant that I had to make a decision in my business. And it sort of all ties in together because it was Christmas, it was retail. And I, at that point, was like so entrenched in the retail business that I could not bear to take a step back because I thought the whole thing would collapse without me. You know, and I think we, you know, we get so tied up with that ego in that I'm the only one who can do this. And I think that's really important for any business owner to be humbled from that, you know, in that way. But I had to make a decision. Either I turn the book deal down and carry on in the business, or I say to my team and my then partner, like, this is it, you're on your own. I'm out for three months. I have to be out for three months because I cannot write a book. in three months and still run this business and be in the day-to-day weeds of it. And at the time, my partner, you know, he completely freaked out, but we had a team. wasn't like I wasn't actually needed, but I was really just hanging on because I thought that they couldn't do it without me. And of course there was some teething troubles, but I decided on the book deal because it was too good an opportunity to pass up. And yeah, the rest is history really. And That's how it really started. then obviously the book came out and then I had another little issue in that I'd been positioned as this green beauty guru, which wasn't really what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach perfume making. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna have to just like go with this for a while, while the book's out and build the audience. And obviously I had a lot of... one of the caveats in the book that I wanted to put in the book, a natural perfume blend, because it had to be natural. So it was like a green guide to it, had to be naturals. And so I wanted to really focus also on the blending of the scent bit in it as well. And so they let me do that. And then a year later, I pitched them a second book, a perfume book, and they said, They said, it's too soon. We still wanna carry on with this one. And so I got another coach at the time and I just said, and he was more of a branding coach. And I said like, okay, this is what I've got. This is what I want to do. What do you suggest? And he said, you need to start transitioning your branding over to more perfume content. uh And then just gradually, gradually, gradually sort of almost extricate yourself from the natural, the beauty product formulation side of things. and start talking more about perfume and then just really make that your focus. And that's what I did really. I started blogging a little bit more about scent. And so then I think it was, what was it, 2012. It was a couple of years later. I repitched the book again and they said, yeah, okay, we can do it. We can bring it out in 2013. And again, they told me right at the last minute and said, oh yeah, so, but you need to do it in three months. I know it's a three month deadline. Because I already had the book mapped out and I knew what it was going to be, it was actually really easy because I'd already started to teach these perfume making classes and these workshops and I'd already started to build myself a profile. I used to go to all of the fragrance events in London, made connections. So people started to kind of know who I was. I also sort of stepped back into reconnected with Neil's Yard. and they asked me to do some perfume classes for them. I also joined the British Society of Perfumers because I had connections still with IFF, like Catherine Mitchell I used to work with and she was, and people that knew me from back in the day, I basically just started to rebuild my connections in the fragrance industry and sort of nurture them a bit and tell people what I was doing. yeah, was a slow process and then yeah, that was it. And I think the reason that I wanted to really wanted to do the perfume book then and the reason that the publisher said yes was because I'd started to build an audience and a mailing list of people. think I probably only had like a thousand people. had about 500 to a thousand people at that point on my mailing list and they were, a lot of them were finding me on Amazon from my book, my other book. And I was only teaching perfume making classes in London. So I used to hire the space at Les Santers when they were in Seymour Place. em And there were lots of people who were overseas who started to find me and say, but we can't come to the UK. Have you got anything online? And I just suddenly thought, do you know what? Hmm. Online course. And that was 2013. And you to it in three months, right? No, no, I will actually, do you know what? I launched it. I did it via Zoom webinars. Actually, it wouldn't have been Zoom. What would it have been back in the day? It was whatever came before Zoom. GoToWebinar. think that was it. It was GoToWebinar. And I think I sold eight places on it, which was amazing. I was absolutely shocked at the time. And yeah, I put it together and I thought, how can I do this in the quickest way? And so I thought, you know what? I'm gonna do it over four. three hour like webinar sessions. And so it was literally like three hour blocks and I had flu. I had a cold when, cause it was timed. was like, okay, join at this. So my first iteration of this program that I actually, and this is just something again, that is such a getting over myself, getting out of my own way. And I had a coach at the time that I'm such a perfectionist. And I just thought, you know, I have to cancel it because I've got a cold. And he was just like, you are not canceling this, you're doing it. you will, you're gonna do it and just do it, share your knowledge. People will love it and sell the recording afterwards. And, that's that. And I was just like, I did it. So I did it and everybody loved it. And then from 2013 until 2017, that was the program. And so there were points in it. Obviously I edited it. but my voice was croaky, the audio wasn't great, but people were still buying it and I didn't promote it that much for many, many years because I was embarrassed by the quality of it. And people bought it, but I didn't really promote it. And then that was it in 2017, I'm like, right, I need to rerecord this. I need to get the audio quality up. I sound like I'm dying on some of these videos. But yeah, I think perfectionism is something that I see in a lot of my students as well. and it really, really holds you back. And if I can get out of my own way and drop that, then anyone can, honestly. I, like, you know, for the first time in uh four years of podcasting, because before the English podcast I had it in Russian, I am so happy that I'm editing the episodes myself because I will be able to hear to this perfect mentoring session at least for three times, which I usually do. Yeah, totally. I mean, I'm happy I don't have to right now make my notes. uh that was a big rabbit hole digression. should have warned you. I tend to go off on tangent. It's about me feeling like, wow. mean, yes. Like if the next project you want to approach going to be in inspirational speaking or I don't know. um I believe you already do it with your students and we will return to them later. But well, yeah, I totally feel like I'm learning just a tone right now. yeah. thank you. I mean, I love that's one of my reasons for doing the podcast, honestly. And actually, just as like an FYI for my podcast, I usually write as I usually script myself. If I'm doing an interview, I don't I have bullet points and we have a conversation. But if I'm doing a solo show, which a lot of my podcast episodes are, and if I'm teaching a course, I tend to at least for the really important key points. I tend to script myself because I know myself well enough that if I get distracted by a question or if I don't have that in front of me, I can go off at tangents, down rabbit holes, and my podcast episodes would probably be like two hours long rather than, you know, I have to keep myself like contained. And also, you know, maybe it would be like one whole podcast episode of like 25 hours. I don't know. So I have to be really like I have to manage myself when I'm speaking because I do go off on tangents and stories and yeah. It might be a very strong side of you. mean, if it's going to be a 25 hours episode for the purchase, you know, I wouldn't mind buying it and listening to you again and again, because yeah, like listen. Well, we do, like in my mastermind, so the Artisan Perfume Mastermind, which is my online program, we do monthly Zoom, like, Q &A calls. And so I give them the recording. I have like a private podcast platform. So I give them the recording, obviously in the Facebook group. So if they can't attend live, I give them an audio as well that they can listen to, because sometimes... oh in asking questions or even listening to other people's questions, it just sparks something. Sometimes I teach content, sometimes, but I love to respond. So I don't know if you've ever learned anything about human design. Yeah, so in human design, that's whole other tangent, but in human design, and I don't know a lot about it, I've got a friend who runs programs on it and... She did my, I've got my chart and it's very convoluted and I don't really fully understand it. But I know that I'm a manifesting generator in human design. So it's a hybrid of two different profiles and I don't know which one it is, but one of them is the actual way of being most effective in the world is to respond. So rather than initiating something, responding works better. So I love to have something to respond to. And this is why, and this probably is completely off topic, but if I'm launching anything new, like a new course or anything like that, I would never just come up with it and make it and launch it. And I don't think that anyone should do that, by the way, as a business thing. But what I would do is I would do an email, I would send it out to my mailing list and I would say, look, I'm thinking about doing this, are you interested? click this link, sign up to the wait list or whatever. And I would just see like how many people respond to that. And even if I don't get a huge number of responses, if it's something that I feel that people would get value from, I would do it anyway. But it's just that action of responding to something. And it's like being interviewed. For me, I find it much easier to be interviewed by someone else than to interview. other people. And I think being an interviewer is such a skill that I haven't quite mastered yet. That's something that, I mean, I think, yeah, exactly. I haven't quite got over it then. Um, but yeah, it's, think it's just that, that response. And when I do, any like webinars or if I do any live zoom classes, I love to have people in the comments, like the chat, because sometimes if you are, You know, if you're presenting, it feels like you're just on your own talking to the wall or talking to the screen. Whereas even if I've got some people on Facebook Live or I've got them in the Zoom chat just typing, I can respond, you know? And so that is my natural way of being. It's like, yeah, it's a back and forth. And that's why I really like teaching workshops rather than lecturing. And I did do a stint as a guest lecturer at Nottingham Trent Uni way back when. And it was two things they asked me to do a lecture to an audience and then do group workshops. And I absolutely hated the lecture because I was talking to this like nothingness of all of these students just like sitting there staring at me. And it was like, they weren't like there was nothing to respond to. And I think that's such a, such a learning about myself. And I think that's something that I would recommend everyone to do. It's like really think about how you like to be and how you like to work in the world because some people just like to work on their own and some people like that back and forth and I think I'm a bit of both really. I think you actually are, like I feel like you actually are. What I wanted to ask you next, because you mentioned lectures and workshops and well, of course I've been visiting your website and the information and everything. I so much love your studio. I mean, design, of course, the way everything is presented, well, the listeners could listen to in the episodes from your podcast, from the one which we already mentioned, also about the visual side of things. ah Well, there is nothing to tell about it except for that it's perfect. But how did the design ideas come to your mind and how did you find the place to just build a studio? Because it's also a very big thing and... Yeah. There are lot of co-working spaces, all that kind of stuff, which don't have your energy, of course. um So yeah, I think it was also a big decision and big move. Tell us about it, Yeah, it was an interesting one. So I moved out of London in 2016 and I split up with my long-term partner and I got to apply because I had the business. I still had the business at that time in South London with my now ex and then I got together with someone new and You know, we'd got to a point where sometimes you just like need a bit of a fresh start. I'd wanted to move out of London for a while. My partner wanted to move out of London. And so we decided to move to the New Forest and we kind of didn't know why or where we wanted to be, but we both had friends here. So I had my friend and perfumer Liz Moors of Papillon Perfumery. So she, I'd been to see her quite a lot here and he had a friend down on the coast. And so we'd been back and forth and thought, know what, it's such a beautiful part of the world. Why don't we just like try it and see? And so we moved, yeah, in 2016. then for reasons I won't go into, it's just another long tangent, but we decided the house that we were in wasn't right. And so we found this particular place. So we ended up living where we live now. And we've been here since December, 2016 on a private estate, on a farm, working farm. like in the middle of nowhere and it's really, really beautiful. so there's no, so we're closest to Salisbury. So I was trying to teach perfume making workshops at hotel. So I was like rent a room at a hotel in Salisbury or somewhere in the forest. And it was just really difficult lugging gear around. I didn't want to go back to teaching in London because it was a long journey and also, you know, hotels, transport, you know, it was just all too expensive. And so For a bunch of years, I think it was between, I think 2017 and then 2019, I decided that I was just gonna really focus on my online courses and I didn't do any in-person classes, it was literally just online. And then I was doing a collaboration with some friends of mine who run a perfume school in Thailand and they ran a, I would sort of host one of their courses in the UK and do the marketing for them. And it was so big, had 30 people for three weeks and had to hire a space at Winchester University campus just so that we could get everybody in. And I was driving backwards and forwards every single day for three weeks to Winchester, which was like 30 miles, know, it was like 30, 40 miles. And I thought, you know what, if I'm gonna do this, even if we do it once a year, maybe I need a space. And so where I live, we've got... uh We've got a stately home that's on the other side of the main road that is a big landowner. They own a lot of the land on that side of the road. Big stately home. They've got a couple of farms. They've got fields. They've got loads and loads of cottages. And I started looking around and I found somewhere in town in Salisbury, but it wasn't quite right. And then we found this barn, this old barn space that had been converted into an open plan office. And I'm like, oh my God, it's like a five minutes drive from me. It's just literally across the road, just five minutes away and went to have a look at it. And I was like, oh my God, this is perfect. And it was like pretty much it had the beams inside. If anyone's seen pictures of it, it's got the old beams. That was literally already there. The walls were just needed. The walls needed painting. It needed a new flooring, which the landlord, know, because I rent the space. I don't own it. I didn't build the property. I rent it. And that was that. And this was 2019. My partner is quite handy with things like that. And so he did the decoration. So he decorated it. He did all of the interior. And he had a friend who does he used to do bespoke kitchen, restaurant kitchen. stainless steel, that kind of thing. so I just said, yeah, so I just said, look, I want some desks, but I want them stand sit desks. And so he made them, we had them made bespoke. And I said, you know, I want it minimalist, it's got to be really like it was on a budget as well. I didn't have huge amount of money to spend on kitting it all out. So we had the tables made, you know, shelving from Ikea, Calax, yay. Everybody loves a Calax unit, white Calax unit, easy to wipe down. And that was it. the thing that I wanted to make sure that it was all on wheels and it was all modular so I could shift everything around in different configurations. And so he made the wooden shelving that my bottles sit on. He made me like wooden coffee table. And so he did all of that. And his friend, the company that he was working for made the tables bespoke. And other than that, it was IKEA. And so that was that. And then, because I thought, know, right, 20, I've spent the last few years really just focusing on the online side of things. And so 2020, this is gonna be the year that I go back to in-person classes. Right, so I got the keys. I got the keys in September, 2019. We had it finished by Christmas and I ran my first in-person classes in January, 2020. Had three day class, big group, one day class, big group. Then I had everything scheduled out, a class for March, class for June. And it was tumbleweeds. And I was like, what's going on? Like, why are people not booking? I've had all these people wanting to come to the studio, but nobody's booking. Like, what is going on? And then of course, it started to creep through and then we went into lockdown and that was that for 2020. Yeah, and it's just like the studio, in fact, yeah, didn't work. became this empty space and I'm just like, okay, right. What do I do? Do I give up on this? Do I let it go? Or what do I do? so, because everybody was in lockdown, obviously, we couldn't do anything in person. But we knew, I was like, this is not gonna be forever. What do I do? Okay, I've already got my online programs, so let's just switch the focus back to that. And that was fine. And then I was in this business mastermind. that was all online and it was full of like people, online entrepreneurs if you like, with different skill sets, different industries. And there was a guy in the group and he was teaching people how to, and he pivoted in lockdown. So he was teaching people how to fill events. So he had a big events company that was really teaching business owners how to do speaking from the stage and running big in-person events. And of course his business just like died overnight. So he pivoted into online events, how to create online events. And we were chatting and he said, well, why don't you use your studio to do online classes? he said, you do, obviously you've got your online course, but why don't you do live zoom sessions? Because everybody's like jumping onto zoom. Nobody really knew what it was before. And he said, you know, really like, why don't you, you've got the studio, no one's coming into it. Why don't you get some, you know, I had some lights already. And it took a while to figure out the camera setup because it was quite tricky. It was so not my skill set. But yeah, what I did then was I just set the whole studio up as like the filming studio really and did loads of zoom classes. So that was through 2020 and 2021. I did a bunch of zoom classes and I had the cameras and the lights set up permanently with an overhead camera so I could do demos. Yeah, so that's really what I ended up doing with the studio. And then, you know, it started to open up again and people started to venture out and, and yeah, that was that really. So it's a double, it serves two purposes, that studio. And also, of course, for me, it's having the luxury of a space that I can have all my perfume stuff, I can, I don't have to pack anything away. I can go in and, you know, do formulations. I can have all my books there and Yeah, I don't have to have it in my house. So yeah, was a great opportunity really. And I made it turn around so that I didn't, you know, it made it pay its rent over lockdown basically. Well, I couldn't not to ask though the question might sounds or like the answer might sounds obvious but What feeling did you have in your body when you were like looking at your studio? Okay, like lockdown just changed plans for everyone, but you were actually looking at something Physical, of course, it's not your first physical product. But anyways And also your retail shop experience and all that stuff. But anyways, you're looking at something maybe perfect or close to perfect because for perfection is saying that something was perfect is kinda like don't do that but anyways you are looking at something beautiful created by you your team people who loved what they do and everything fits together very well how did you feel my God, I cannot tell you how amazing it feels to be in that studio. Every single person that comes to the studio is like, my God, this has got such a good energy. It's just really interesting. was, as soon as I stepped into the space, even though it had a bit of a manky carpet and it wasn't, you know, I walked into the space and I was like, okay, this is it, this is good. I cannot not have this, I need to have this space because... nothing like this is ever gonna come my way. This is a breadcrumb. I always talk about breadcrumbs that the universe leaves you. And it's like, this is one of those breadcrumbs that I can't pass it up. It was a bit like the book deal. It's like, if I say no to this, my life is not gonna be the same. It's gonna take a different path. And that might be a good thing or a bad thing, who knows? And so my, and you know, the... the rent price was right, was like everything was just a no-brainer really. And maybe I wouldn't, if it had been in lockdown, maybe I wouldn't have taken the chance on it. But I don't know, I think I probably would have done anyway. And so my vision for the studio was, okay, I don't know if people are gonna come to the New Forest from like all over, know, from wherever. It's gonna be harder than London, obviously. Definitely. But actually I have to say that the majority of the people that come to the studio are not necessarily from the UK. I did a class on Saturday and it was probably the first class I've ever had in the studio that everyone was from the UK. Other than that, it's been people from all over. But it was, yeah, it was just like, the philosophy with it was I need to do, even if I don't, I'm not the sort of person that wants to do classes every single week. I'm not that person. know other people love having that buzzy, maybe 30, 20 years ago, maybe not now. And so my philosophy was how many classes do I need to do in a year with how many people at what price to actually make it pay for itself just so that I can have this lovely space to enjoy? That was literally my philosophy. It's like, I make my, you know, my businesses, you know, I'm always going to do my online programs. I've got so many other things that I do that are income streams that that's one, but, and it is obviously, you know, profitable, but that was my kind of it. In my head, it was like, it's not, I'm doing this for the love of having this space. Not four. m the money that it might make me. Obviously it's got to pay for itself, but anything above that for me was a bonus and it means it justified a space, it justified having the studio really. And I don't think I could, I wouldn't never have done that in London actually. And I toyed with the idea of having a studio in London like many, many years. And it was always a business proposition. It was always a, the rent is so high. It's just, I've got to travel. It's not like, a beautiful space, it's like, it's a functional space. And it was just like, no, I'm not interested in that because it would be hard work. It would be like having a retail premises that has to make money. Whereas this space is like, this is my luxury. This is like my little space, you know? And that is, think, a part of why the energy is good there. The other part of why the energy is good there is that it's on a farm. It's like there are two houses. It's literally, you drive up a private lane. that says no entry. And you've got old, really old kind of like 17th, 18th century wooden barns that are kind of like falling apart that have got hay in them. It's like, you know, like that. And then two, two beautiful cottages and then my studio. And then there's another unit next to me that is a fitness, lady who does like yoga and running club and what have you. Yeah, yeah. So she does. So next door she does. exercise classes and all sorts in her unit next door but she's a sort of a new neighbor she's only been there a year and that's it and it's peaceful and you come to the studio you pull up outside and literally you can't hear anything apart from birdsong you're like you're in another world it's not near the road it's just idyllic it's beautiful Okay, I have been bought before the episode, but now I'm bought completely. believe our listeners. And so Kate, who helps me with my social media, she's always like telling me off and not taking as many, you know, like, why don't you take photos in your classes? And I'm so busy teaching. I just don't have the time. So one of these days I will get some, a photographer down to photograph a class and, you know, but I really, with the studio, it's like, I wanted it to be minimalist. I didn't want there to be any fussiness or distractions. I'm a minimalist at heart and I can't work in chaos. So I have to have everything. And I think it probably comes from, well there's two things actually. One, comes from my training was in a lab. So when I did my cosmetic science diploma at college, it was in a lab, in a college lab. And then when I was in IFF, we had the application, I was in a lab. And so I learned that kind of lab sort of protocol very, very early on and I need things to be organized and tidy. And also this came from having a conversation with a friend and sort of perfume colleague. who works in a very different way, who looks very chaotic on the outside. And actually, she said, know, I'm, and she's actually also a yoga teacher. And she said, you know, I might look chaotic on the outside, but inside I'm really Zen. And so it doesn't bother, you know, on the outside, it can be like, you know, messy. And I realized actually that was a penny drop moment for me is that I need my outer surroundings to be very Zen and calm. because my brain is always like whizzing round and I find it really difficult to kind of slow down and not think of 20 million things at once. And that's, think, why I ended up delving into personal development and training as a meditation teacher and doing the whole spiritual thing because, you know, naturally I'm an overthinker. I would like overthink everything and procrastinate and perfectionism and all of those things. Like that is who I was from a child, you know? And so I need to have my environment very, very clean, minimalist, know, clutter free, just so that I can focus. Otherwise I just get distracted with a million things. Have to have all alerts turned off, everything, and just focus. Otherwise I'm just, yeah. Well, I so much acknowledge you know in yourself, uh what about the current processes you are into ah when it comes to online teaching and what are the programs people could ah maybe right now already enroll into or enroll in the near future if there is something we don't know about yet. Yeah, so I, as I said before, you know, I did lots of these like little Zoom classes in lockdown. So I do have those on my website as short master classes. So they're the recordings of the live Zoom session. So I have those on my website under short master classes. So if people want to just dip their toe in, they can do those. And what I have really, really focused on mostly over the last year, and this is really my focus going forward, is my Artisan Perfumery Mastermind Program. This is the current incarnation of the first one that I did way back in 2013. And it's, I've added so much to it over the years and the way that it works, it is open enrollment. So people can enroll at any time and it's self-study modules. So it gets drip fed. So automatically when people sign up, you get the first module, but I've also. I've worked with the students inside the program quite a lot in the, so what's missing? What do you need? What are your questions? Like what else do you need to help you take yourself from beginner to actually being in a place where you're confident enough to create something that you could actually sell to the public and launch a brand if you want to, because that is really, and it doesn't matter whether you want to launch a perfume line or not, you can still do the program. but those are the people that generally come into that program, because it's a high ticket and it's a longer term process. So the self-study modules over the years, I've added so much to them in the form of mini master classes and bonus classes. it's now become a bit of a beast, I have to say. There's a lot of content there. It's pretty much about 36 hours worth of pre-recorded. training modules. We have got CPD accreditation as well, so that was great. And as part of the whole package, I give people a year-long support package inside. We've got a private Facebook group where everybody can join in and then they can just tag me and ask me questions at any time. So it's really the only place where I do that sort of unlimited access to me for Q &A. And then every month we do a live zoom call where people can jump on the call and, you know, they ask me questions about anything if they're working on a project. And actually what I've really loved about it is that we got a lot of people. I actually had a lot of people join in lockdown and we sort of pivoted slightly in lockdown in that I did a lot more mindset trainings. I did a lot of, you know, pep talking and helping people kind of get through it. And I think a lot of people really value that side of it as well. So sometimes on the Q &A call we'll kind of brainstorm, you know, something to do with fragrance formulation. But sometimes it will just be, it will be some mindset coaching, you know, it will be helping people to move forward. And what I've realised actually as part of doing all of that is I've built a really beautiful community of students inside that Facebook group where it's not just about me. A lot of them have stayed in the group because they can renew after the years are up. A lot of them have stayed in the group. And so we have so many different levels of experience. People have been in there who've already launched brands who have, one, em you know, one of my students actually uh was a finalist in the Institute of Art and All-Faction Golden Pear Awards this year. I've interviewed quite a lot of, you know, a few of them on my podcast. So the ones who are not too shy have come on my podcast. I've also had actually one of my students in there. I didn't even realise, but I went to the Institute of Art and All-Faction Sense Summit this year in Lisbon and she was one of the speakers. So she was on stage speaking. So yeah, so it's a really lovely community as well. So I think that's one of the things that I love about it. So I would always recommend anyone, if you're serious about it, join the Mastermind. But then I also do in-person sessions as well at the studio. So people learn in different ways. And I have a lot of people who are in the Mastermind who will then come and do an in-person when they can and some people who do an in-person and then end up joining the mastermind for the more longer term. But yeah, all of that is on my website and then the only thing that I've got that is not on my website that is a bit of an oversight that I should put it on is my kind of little passion project actually and it's a program called The Scent Shift and it is a, it's not really for perfume makers, it's more... to do with scent and wellbeing. And it is a program that I ran actually in 2020 that I'd had this idea for way back since 2010. And I'd never really done anything with it. You know, the book that I was talking about, I ended up turning it into a four module course. And so we did it live over Zoom. And it was really talking about how scent affects the brain and... you know, all of the stuff that I would teach my perfume making students, but opening it out to a wider audience and also looking at how you can then utilize smell, your sense of smell and use scent as a tool for your own wellbeing. So regardless of whether you want to make a perfume or not, how can you use what's out there to really help you, I don't know, with confidence, anxiety, focus, all of that kind of thing. And I wove in some of my meditations as well. So. I took people through guided meditations. And that was a big thing for me because I studied, I trained and certified in 2018, but I never really did anything with it publicly because I was always a bit like, I'm not qualified. I don't really know enough. I'm not, you know, these little things that I'm not an expert and all of that. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to just do it with my safe space audience. So the people that know and love me already, I'm just like, look, I'm going to do this program. Do you want? do you want to join? And they were like, my God, yes. You know, not everybody obviously is into that, but I had a group of, I think it was about, I had about 50 people join it, which is amazing. And we went through it live and now, yeah, so now the recordings of that are in a little membership platform. And yeah, I should talk about that more, but yeah, that is sort of my little kind of sideline passion project that I want to do more work on. And I've got thoughts for. fragrances to go with it and I've also I'm working on some other guided meditations that are more in depth for each of the fragrances and I had a sound guy create me some frequencies, some sound binaural beat sound frequencies that go with these different scents and go with the program well another iteration of the program further down the line so yeah I'm working on that as well. Well, I'm looking forward to the perfumery retreats or the fragrance retreats, whatever you call them. Yeah, so maybe, yeah, so people have said, you should do retreats. And so what I think I'll probably do is maybe guest spot on someone else's retreat. I've got a few friends who, different friends who run retreats, wellbeing retreats. And so what I might do next year is do like a little scent shift guest spot on one of their sort of yoga and wellbeing retreats. you know, my toe in the water that way. Super. I would be very happy. But you remember you need only like three months to prepare. oh yeah. Magic time. What month are we in? We're not in September yet. So the other thing that I'm doing is updating the recordings and the content for the Mastermind as well. I've given myself a deadline to the end of this year. So that's my three month deadline. Alright, got you. And also Christmas thing, because I hear it here, like in some different aspects of your life that Christmas does play a role and I like it as well. Well, Karin, I'm super thankful and as I've said, I will be editing it with great pleasure, but I have a few blitz questions to you in the end. Yep, go for it. One ingredient you cannot work without. Book a movie that probably inspired a fragrance idea. goodness, book or movie? I'm not big on movies. I tell you what book, the book, and this might be slightly weird, but it's not so much that it inspired a fragrance idea, but it's something that I recommend uh to all of my students. And it is a book by a guy called Steven Pressfield, and it's called The War of Art, and it's actually for writers. And it's all about the artists, the tortured artists procrastinating and not doing the work and getting in their own way. And actually that has probably inspired me to create and get out of my own way. actually it probably, hopefully my students have read it and if they haven't, why not? Hopefully it's inspired them to create fragrances as well. Movie wise, I don't know. I love Breakfast at Tiffany's Audrey Hepburn. And I think that has a a real sparkle about it that I think could definitely and probably has inspired many fragrances over the years. So what's the last perfume you wore? So the last perfume I wore actually was, and this is a plug for my friend Miriam. So Miriam Varelsis, has a, she used to have a brand called 40 Notes actually. So she used to work at IFF and I interviewed her for my podcast and she has a brand called Palette Naturals, which is little accords, natural accords that are For people who want little shortcut, you know, want to blend their own fragrances, you can buy a kit or you can buy them separately. And when I interviewed her on my podcast, we discovered that actually we were working at IFF at the same time, but she was in the New York office and I was in the London office. So we didn't ever meet or we didn't ever know each other, but we knew the same people. Anyway, she has just launched and you're going to like this as well. She has just launched and you should probably get her on your podcast. She's just launched a new venture. and I'm gonna just grab it here. It is called Creative Intuitive Perfumery, Sole Essence Sessions. And so she was developing this process. And she said to me, like, I would really like to do a session with you to do one of these sessions to see what your feedback is and also to sort of test it out. And what she does is she did it on Zoom and she uses her, like the naturals, the palette naturals kit. And she talks to you about, you know, what is it you're, you know, what are you looking to maybe an answer to a question or, you know, what you, what's going on in your life. And then she selects three tarot cards. So it's a tarot reading, but blended with fragrance. so she did that session with me and picked out these three cards and it ended up that she did two different blends for me. And they arrived yesterday. So I was trying those out this morning. And so it was one of the blends uh from that process. it was actually so, it was such a lovely process. It was so fun to do. It was, looked at, she, you know, got me to pick out, there was some like uh semi-precious stone. So like, you know, like crystal, like pebble. And so she got me to pick a few of those for the color. And then we did the tarot, so she pulled the tarot, she did the shuffles and pulled the tarot. And then she did the reading for the tarot and she has connected each of her accords with each of the cards. then that came out and she blended. It could have been one blend, actually, because I had the accords with me as well, I smelt through them and I was like, could we do... I couldn't, I was like could we do that in one and that in another one because I think that they would be both for different purposes. Yeah so that was the last thing I wore, it was one of the blends. Perfect, I so love the idea, you know. It's a great idea as well, cool. Well, my few last questions. What's your favorite non-perfume smell? The first thing, I'm gonna say the first thing that came into my head and that is the smell of, so I don't have any pets now, but I used to have cats. And I remember when my cats were kittens and it's always like that new kitten smell, like the back of their head, the fur, the fluffiness. And it's like when you're cuddling like a small, tiny little kitten and they're really new and. They haven't, they're not stinky yet, you know, like they're just like uh that soft, fluffy fur. Yeah, I think that's probably a really comforting, lovely scent memory. But yeah, I would say that is one of my favorite non-perfume. But having said that, I'm sure people have woven that into perfumes nowadays. know a few of That's true, also thinking, I'm reading this question thinking like, okay, m I expected something uncommon. And I think the other one that came into my head was more current in the, now I live on a farm. I just love that smell of, mean, God, you're asking the wrong person, what's your favorite non-perfume smell? I mean, like, it's like saying, who's your favorite child? I think there's this smell that you get in the countryside when it's sort of spring and you open the window. And I live on a farm, I live on a cow farm. So, you know, is probably, it's definitely not something that you'd want to incorporate in your perfume, but it's that smell of like countryside, the farm, that sort of cowy kind of smell. But, but there's also the green and the foliage and I've got this really beautiful, um, this choisea, it's a bush called a choisea or a mock orange outside my front door. And it's got this beautiful sort of like, it's almost like a honeyed orange blossom. not quite orange blossom, it's different. It's not like neroli or really orange blossom. It is sort of like that, but it's with like a more honey tinge. And there's that time of year where everything lines up, where it's it's spring or early summer, so it's warm in the air. That really is sort of blooming and that's popping out. But then in the background, you've got this smell of the farm and yeah, that as well. It sounds like a perfume composition just a few last ones. What's one skill you've currently trying you're currently trying to improve I'm always trying to improve my writing. I'm always going back to that. But I think it's probably my interview technique because from doing the podcast, I think I'm really comfortable speaking. I'm very comfortable speaking about my own topic and doing a solo show. And I love obviously having conversations with people and I've been interviewed a fair bit. but actually I think interviewing is a slightly different skill set in that I have to sort of almost hold myself back and not, you know, I've had to learn to like not interrupt the inter, you know, the guest speaking and sort of sitting back and letting the guest speak. And I do think it's a skill set. And I think I'm trying to get better at that. And also thinking about questions that you want to ask. your guests that are really going to be different from whatever else is out there. And often that comes from conversation. But I definitely think it's a skill that you can learn for sure. And I think that's probably the one thing at the moment that is the one thing that I'm really focusing on is getting better at interviewing people for sure. I totally feel everything you're saying. And the last one, best creative piece of advice you've ever received or maybe read in the book you've mentioned. This is something that I have been trying to do. mean, God, there are so many, like I could do probably a whole two hour talk on that. But the one that I'm really trying to embody myself right now, and I think this is different. This is a challenge for a lot of people and I think a lot of people will resonate with this, especially in today's climate of distraction. And this was a kind of current. a coach, business coach of mine, he said, you when people want to sit down and this applies whether you're trying to write a book, whether you are trying to write a piece of content, whether you are trying to create a perfume, like whatever business, whatever it is, we sometimes, if it's a difficult thing, if it feels hard, we sometimes go, okay, well, I'm just going to go and check my Facebook or I'm going to just check my phone. I'm just gonna get up and do the dishes. And what he said is like, no, you force you, you do a block of time. So say it's an hour and you literally force yourself to sit there in the discomfort. until that time block is up. And just do whatever it is, whether it's blending something, whether it's writing. We as human beings, the reason that we want to do these distractions is because we become uncomfortable. So we sit here and it's a difficult thing. And then we think, okay, well, we need a dopamine hit. And we're literally addicted to dopamine. And so we want to check our Facebook because that will make us feel better, because it will give us a little ping of pleasure. Whereas actually we're feeling really in an uncomfortable situation because we feel like we can't do it and it's too hard. And that I think honestly, I did that the other day. I was just like, okay, I'm gonna just do this now. And honestly, you break through. If you can just force yourself to sit in that discomfort of finding it hard, like amazing things come out the other end. I was trying to write a chat, a chapter for my book and I was just like, oh, this is really too, and I was just being a stroppy brat with myself and I was like, oh, this is too difficult. I can't do this. I'm just gonna go and check Facebook. I'm just gonna write an email. I'm just gonna like do this or do that. And I'm like, no, you're gonna sit here and you're just gonna write and you're just gonna do this. And if it's rubbish, it doesn't matter, but you're just gonna force yourself to not open any other tabs on your laptop. And it was horrible, it was so uncomfortable. But what I wrote, it actually, it just then, it was almost like something had unblocked. I had to just sit there long enough for something to like a gate, like a little door to open. And it was just like, yeah, okay, I know what I'm doing. Okay, right. then it just went and went and went. And I just ended up writing for hours. because it was almost like the floodgate opened. And I think so, yeah, if you are feeling like that, just try and force yourself, even if it's just for a 20 minute block or however long, but just long enough that you are feeling uncomfortable and see what comes out the other side. Perfect. mean, just keep somewhere the idea about the mentorship course just for inspiring people. I believe you're a great leader. Well, thank you, Karen. I enjoyed every second of this podcast. Thank you so much. It's been lovely, lovely to talk to you. And it's been so different. I don't know, it's been a very different podcast interview for me personally. And yeah, thank you for asking the questions that you did and allowing me to share all of those bits and pieces. Thank you so much. Well, likewise, thanks. you uh