Fragrance Profile - Mata Hari

For today’s fragrance profile I feel it is important to detail a bit about the history of the character who inspired the fragrance.

‘Mata Hari’ is Malay for ‘sun’ or literally “eye of the day”.

It was the stage name taken by Margreet Zelle Macleod, an exotic dancer and courtesan who was executed under charges of espionage for Germany during World War I.

Born in the Netherlands, she moved to Indonesia to start a family but with the dissolution of her marriage then moved to Paris and remained in Europe for the rest of her life.

She began to earn fame as an exotic dancer, posing as an Indonesian princess of priestly Hindu birth, professing a background in the art of sacred Indian dance since childhood. This story of cultural ambiguity fascinated me, and I was inspired to create an artwork based on an iconic image of her as part of ‘The Empress Collection’.

She was known for elaborately exotic, asian-inspired, heavily bejewelled costumes - all photos of which were in black and white. So, it was incredibly exciting for me to bring them to life through colour, pattern and embellishments.

Her career went into decline after 1912 and she subsequently became a successful courtesan. She had relationships with many high-ranking officials in influential positions, and it was the movements related to this part of her life that caused her to come under scrutiny as an alleged spy and double agent.

In 1917 she was convicted and executed, accused of spying for Germany and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. Supposedly secret ink (incriminating evidence at the time) was found in her room, which she contended was part of her make-up. 

To many, although by no means considered an ‘innocent’ woman, she remains an unfortunate scapegoat, sentenced as much for her curious profession as for her apparent crimes. 

If anyone is interested in learning more about her history, there is a detailed account here. Her extremely colourful life story is fascinating, brimming with intrigue and an almost incredulous account of a woman who is now synonymous with the idea of a femme fatale. 

“My dance is a sacred poem in which each movement is a word and whose every word is underlined by music”

In keeping with Mata Hari’s mysterious background, the corresponding scent in our candle collection is wonderfully complicated and almost impossible to decipher.

TOP NOTES: Crisp Green, Citrus, Fruity

MIDDLE NOTES: Fig, Aquatic, Caviar, Salty

BASE NOTES: Sandalwood, Cedarwood, Musk

A combination of surprising notes, the result is an unpredictable fragrance that seems to smell different each time you light it. Breezy aquatic notes balance a combination of fruity berries and musk with woody undertones. It smells freshly modern and stately timeless all at the same time, while maintaining an unmistakably alluring quality.

Congratulations to the winner of this fragrance who entered our giveaway via instagram - Rosie Whetstone!

Our fourth and final giveaway is taking place this week and Friday (18th July) is the deadline, so make sure you enter! Entries via twitter or instagram @tara_sofia - it's a great and exclusive chance to experience one of our signature luxury fragrances. 

'Sofia' - Fragrance Profile

Hello fellow fragrance-obsessed friends ☺

So much time has gone into developing my fragrances that I wanted to explain a bit about each one and what it means to me.

As I have mentioned before, my debut collection of scents are completely unique to the world of home fragrance - each being directly inspired by an original Tara Sofia artwork of the same name. 

Being named “ Tara” (meaning “star” in Hindu) serves as an homage to my Indian heritage, and perhaps an indicator of my love of all things resplendent. This coupled with a middle name taken after one of Italy’s most iconic superstars, was the inspiration for the first piece in the collection...

‘Sofia’ sees the epitome of Italian glitterati turned into an extravagantly-jewelled cultural hybrid. It is this wonderfully indulgent theme of opulence and exotic mixology that inspired me to create a home fragrance collection in the first place. Why should the artwork be confined to the canvas? With a fragranced candle the artwork can leap off the walls and be ‘alive’ within air around us. We can actually smell art!

The ‘Sofia’ scent is warm, spicy and intoxicating. The majestic aroma of wild fig is richly enhanced with seductive hints of luxurious amber and warm cinnamon. I love how unusual this fragrance is, and how all the notes mysteriously unfold as it burns. 

TOP NOTES: Green Leaf, Wild Fig, Raspberry

MIDDLE NOTES: Cinnamon, Aniseed, Clove, Ginger

BASE NOTES: Cedarwood, Amber, Vanilla, Caramel, Patchouli

As the scent saturates the air, feel yourself immediately transported to a sumptuous Indian palace; Vibrantly coloured fabrics bathed in gorgeously hazy sunshine, accented by wonderfully peppery aromas.

Experience it for yourself: The Empress Collection - 'Sofia'

Don't forget...

Next week is your last chance to enter our exclusive giveaway to celebrate the launch of the collection. Make sure you follow us on twitter (@tara_sofia) and instagram (@tara_sofia) to enter.

Tara Sofia Perfumed Candles – 'The Empress Collection' | Now Available!

After an arduous few months I am excited and incredibly proud to unveil my brand new debut candle collection in all of its glory...

 

Each of the 4 scents are directly inspired by a particular artwork in my collection, which sees iconic women turned into extraordinarily jewelled, cultural hybrids.

A LOT of work went into these as I wanted them to be truly luxurious home accessories – conveying the idea that you can indulge in something as small as a scented candle but the impact it can have your living space is huge. I wanted to create a collection of candles that offered so much more than other brands, so here is how they do that:

♥ The dazzling, champagne-gold metallic finish on the glass is created using a unique process, meaning no two vessels are ever the same. So in essentially they are works of art in themselves, and look visually stunning when lit as the flame delicately flickers through the pattern in the glass.

♥ Each candle contains the maximum percentage of fragrance possible in order to ensure an optimum scent throw without compromising the burn quality. They contain double the average percentage of fragrance, placing them among the most perfumed candles in the world.

After seemingly endless fragrance options and blends, I deliberately picked fragrances that had naturally strong notes in them – to really convey an idea of opulence. This also means they are capable of scenting large rooms effortlessly, giving off a wonderfully intoxicating aroma. 

♥ A genuine ‘Tara Sofia’ candle is easily identified by its beautifully embossed nameplate.
Made from 100% copper, the nameplate is intricately embossed with the signature logo, and individually hand-applied.

The candles are now available to purchase at www.tarasofia.com. Let me know what you think!

Be sure to follow us on twitter and instagram (@tara_sofia), where we are having a giveaway each week for a month to celebrate the launch. It’s an opportunity to win one of each of the 4 amazing scents, so make sure you enter :-)

Please don't forget to subscribe - will be featuring fragrance profiles on each of the 4 amazing scents in the next few blogs.

Grasse - the perfume captial of the world

A few weeks ago I visited the town of Grasse in the South of France – a veritable mecca for a fragrance junkie like myself. It is considered to be the world capital of perfume and did not disappoint!

Historically Grasse was known for leather tanning during the middle ages, however the unpleasant smell of the leather was not exactly desirable amongst the glove-wearing gentry. Galimard, a tanner in Grasse came up with the ingenious idea of scented leather gloves, an idea which quickly spread amongst high society, thus giving Grasse its worldwide reputation.

Why is Grasse so special? Partly due to its geographical situation in the hills. It has a unique climate which is perfect for growing flowers such as lavender, myrtle, jasmine, rose, orange blossom and wild mimosa – amongst some of the most expensive essences.

There are 3 major perfume houses which have been in Grasse for hundreds of years – Galimard, Molinard and Fragonard. As we were limited on time, we only visited one of the smaller museums: the Fragonard Perfumery. It has 2 properties in Grasse and we visited the modern one just outside the town centre. 

 

We had a short tour which showed us various aspects of the perfume process –from extracting floral essences to highlighting how fragrance is a true art form. People qualified as “Noses” formulate fragrances, and there are only around 50 qualified Noses in the world. To qualify they must apply for a course (only eligible to those who show a natural aptitude) and then study for 10 years. Noses work for various fragrance houses to create and blend – leaving ‘recipes’ for the factories to follow in producing them.

 

 

For more information visit www.fragonard.com – there are some lovely sections detailing the history of perfume and also the various techniques.

Like any good tour, we ended in the gift shop!  However this wasn’t your usual gift-shop experience. Our tour guide took us to a counter full of perfumes (cue my heart racing) and we spent a good half an hour spraying and sniffing, whilst learning how different fragrances suit different people. “This fragrance is good for blondes” the guide asserted… how does that work??

The make-up of our skin is different according to our colouring and our skin reacts differently to the different families of scent. Meaning the same perfume can smell totally different from person to person.

The best part about visiting Fragonard (& Grasse in general) is that you are able to buy quality perfumes direct from the factory, at a fraction of the usual retail cost. They maintain the importance of the fragrance itself rather than the packaging. You really feel like you are getting down to the true nature of a perfume, completely unaffected by its branding or supposed fashion-status. If you have a good nose you might even be able to decipher familiar scents that usually appear under luxury brand names.

Their Parfum comes in simple gold bottles - specially designed to keep the scents ‘good’ for 7 years. I am the type of person who could literally stand in a perfume department for HOURS smelling everything so I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I was to be let loose in there! It goes without saying that I came away with quite a few to add to my collection and I pretty much had to be dragged out on my heels.

For anyone visiting the French Riviera I would definitely recommend you take a trip to Grasse and experience the true essence of fragrance. If you weren’t obsessed before, you will be after.

I Love Metallics

My name is Tara, and I am an addict.

Metallics. I can’t get enough of them. Whether its clothes, makeup, wallpaper, accessories… I have an immediate affinity with anything that shimmers. It is only recently that the true extent of my addiction has become apparent to me. Looking around my home and in my wardrobe, even my nail polish collection – I am truly a bona fide magpie.

So, instead of looking to rehab I have decided to embrace my obsession because, to be honest, where’s the fun in fighting it? In addition the more I think about it, the more it totally bewilders me that there aren’t more people suffering from this wonderful affliction. We all want to feel like kings in our castle, don’t we? So surely the simplest way to achieve that is to fill our castles to the brim with gorgeously lustrous golds, shimmering silvers and dazzling coppers.

Metallics are a great way of instantly injecting glamour and majesty into a home. They can be both super modern and also quite country and traditional depending on how you incorporate them, so there is room for metallic no matter what your preferred style. Another major plus point is that gold and silver literally go with ANY colour, so no excuses.

There are a huge number of metallic paints available thesedays. From walls to woods to masonry there is a metallic paint / spray out there for whatever your need. If you have caught the metallic bug, try out a few different brands and testers before you commit as there are various finishes available, depending on whether you want it mega mirrored and reflective or more of a muted matt-metallic look.

Look around the room – is there an old item of furniture that could use a bit of a makeover?  Or a blank wall that has been staring at you for ages, desperately in need of transformation? Get the paint out!

It is amazing how any old item can be completely transformed with a bit of metallic paint.

These tree stumps have been galvanised and look how amazing they are as coffee tables! I am seriously considering taking a chainsaw to the tree outside of my window.

A word of warning… metallic paints are not the easiest to work with and tend to need several coats. But hey, we suffer for fashion and beauty so makes sense that we should suffer for décor too, right?

Mirror frames, wooden furniture, table legs, dining chairs, storage chests, even door frames or window sills if you are feeling daring – the possibilities are endless. Just make sure if you are painting anything wooden that you use a layer of lacquer or varnish to protect the finish.

 

 You don’t even need to use paint - these ideas are created using types of metallic sticky-backed plastic. Totally mess-free, and you can peel them off when you fancy a change. A brilliant way to jazz up a hallway. Examples of brands to look for are Dura-Lar and d-c-fix®(search on amazon).

 

 

 

My biggest guilty pleasure is to mix metallics which I know is a supposed “no-no” but I wholly disagree.  Silver, gold & copper all sit beautifully alongside each other, and I think mixing them helps create more of a layered aesthetic. Don’t believe me? Try it out for yourself J

It's time for some DIY - Make Your Own Floor Lamp

I have become increasingly frustrated at the lack of interesting floor lamps on the market. They are always SO BORING! Why is this??

Since moving into our house almost 4 years ago I have been on the hunt. Floor lamps aren’t the cheapest things to buy so I want the spend to be worthwhile, rather than just filling a basic, practical (ugh I hate that word) need to overcome the problem of “it’s too dark in here”. I hate putting the ‘main’ lights of a room on in the evening, and floor/ table lamps are great for creating ambience – they make a room so much more inviting and luxurious.

After months of searching I came across this lamp which I love and is now perfectly at home in our living room. It was a bit on the pricey side but I thought it was worth it seeing as it was totally different to the usual lamp offering. Plus it gives of a lovely soft dappled lighting effect when it’s on, as well as looking fabulous in the daytime when it’s not.

                           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only problem? It doesn’t actually give off that much light! So my search for a second floor lamp began. Why didn’t I just get a second one of the same type I hear you ask? Don’t be silly.

During my endless internet searches I came across Needcraft (www.needcraft.co.uk) who supply ‘Make Your Own Lampshade’ kits, which got me very excited... I don't get out much.

I bought the jazziest looking base I could find (a struggle in itself) which ended up being from BHS surprisingly who have a great selection of home items if anyone is interested.

Next for the shade! There are a plethora of fabric suppliers online who sell all sorts of wonderful patterned fabrics and I spent a while searching through them all but couldn’t find anything quite right. Then I noticed that Needcraft have a ‘Digital Print for Lampshade’ option... which means you can basically get anything you want on it! You can design a pattern yourself or use a photo/image – the possibilities are endless, and it only costs £15 for the print.

I wanted something really quirky for the shade and started playing around with ideas. I am seriously loving Fornasetti at the moment, but can’t quite justify their price tag so I decided to create a Fornasetti inspired design that would match the colours of my living room. This is what I came up with…

N.B. Obviously this is only something I have done for personal use (not commercial), so I can get away with it. 

So I sent it off along with my order for the lamp-making kit (I ordered the 45cm drum with metallic gold inside at £19.81 total) and waited with eager anticipation by my front door. 6 days later, it arrived. It comes with very clear instructions and probably took me around 30mins to complete.   

 

I am pretty chuffed with how it has turned out. Now all I need is a lightbulb!!

Please do comment and let me know what you think. Are you tempted to have a go yourself?

As a final note, I am sorry but I just couldn't resist...
I love lamp.

Tara Sofia Scented Candles - progress update

Hello friends & readers!

First of all – apologies for not posting for a few weeks. There has been a lot going on and unfortunately the blog has suffered temporarily. However I promise, we are now back on track!

Over the past few weeks I have taken a “break” from creating artwork as I wanted to concentrate on getting my candles into production. I was coming to the realisation that simultaneously working to establish myself as an artist, as well as manufacturing candles from scratch was spreading myself a little too thin so I needed to really concentrate on one thing at a time.

Regarding the candles, I am thrilled to say that I am getting there!!!  It has taken several months to research potential suppliers and weigh them up – making the final decisions of who to proceed with feels like a huge leap into the unknown but hopefully I have made good choices. I have been speaking to some really great suppliers who have been wonderful at offering advice and suggestions to a ‘newbie’ like myself, as well as suppliers who have shown a real willingness to deal with small, new businesses which is great. As this is my first production run I wanted to keep numbers as small as possible – both from logistical point of view and also so that I can really focus on optimum quality. This has meant I lack some of the 'clout' to really negotiate prices, but hopefully in time the candles will be amazingly successful and I will be able to improve my buying costs in the future. 

As a true designer at heart I am determined to avoid having to compromise any of the design elements as much as possible. I want my products to reflect the same passion that I put into my artwork - created with attention to every last little detail. So as a quick (or maybe not so quick) overview, here is where we are up to on the various components:

 

CANDLE GLASS

My glass vessels are now on order from the factory. I knew exactly the kind of glass finish I wanted, but really struggled to find a UK based manufacturer. Most scented candle brands use a very standard type of glass and I knew I needed something that would stand out from the crowd. After weeks and weeks of searching, I found a glass supplier who has offices and factories in both the UK and Far East, who have been brilliant at achieving exactly what I was after. If you follow me on instagram (@tara_sofia) there is a sneaky preview of what the candle glass looks like and I really am so happy with them. The pale gold metallic effect is perfect, and will look so elegant and beautiful when the candles are lit.

 

BRANDING

The branding of a product has huge importance, so again I knew I wanted something different. A lot of luxury scented candle brands just use a pretty standard paper sticker on their candles. What is exciting about a plain paper sticker? When you are paying £40+ for a scented candle, you aren’t just paying for a scent. You want the whole thing to be an ornament in itself, to accent your home. I wanted the branding to be part of the candle’s aesthetic, so again followed many weeks of searching and many weeks of getting absolutely nowhere! Eventually I came across a wonderful supplier who can produce amazingly intricate name plates made of embossed copper which look stunning against the gold metallic glass. They are pretty pricey but I think they are totally worth it, and add a real element of majesty to the candles.

I have designed 2 options for an updated logo, to really make the most of the name plate and these are currently being sampled. No advance pictures of this unfortunately – have to save something for the big reveal!

 
FRAGRANCES

The fragrances for this collection were massively important for me to get right. Many candle fillers had a selection of stock fragrances that they were offering. Typical ‘people pleasers’ of lavender, vanilla, gardenia, etc – all lovely scents and very popular but nothing really different about them.  What I am trying to create with this collection is something new and exciting – scents that you smell and love but not because you can immediately identify them. I wanted complicated scents that hypnotise and excite you into trying to solve the mystery of what notes they include. I wanted fragrances that would trigger memories and nostalgia, as well as a feeling of magical fantasy. So, not asking for much really J
My candle range is inspired by a limted edition collection of artworks I created, which were my own personal indulgence.  So, I liaised with one of the world’s leading fragrance houses to develop 4 wonderfully unique and indulgent scents, each one based on a different one of my artworks.

The scents are currently undergoing tests with the wax – an extremely crucial part of the process. I want to include the highest possible percentage of fragrance in each candle, to create a wonderfully intoxicating aroma as they burn. However, adding too much fragrance can cause candles to burn inefficiently so I am working hard to get this balance perfectly right.

 

PACKAGING

Ahhh the packaging!! The thorn in my side since this project began. Originally I assumed this would be the simplest component… how wrong I was! My biggest problem has been the quantities I was looking at. I wanted 4 different box designs (one for each fragrance), rather than a generic box for all as so many other candle brands do. I wanted the packaging to be an extension of the appeal of the product, rather than an afterthought. This of course caused the price of them to skyrocket, making them almost as expensive as the candle itself to produce. Not ideal!

After numerous tweaks and endless contacts, I have finally found a supplier in the UK who can produce the quantities I need at a competitive price – woohoo! I am going to use my exclusive embossed copper name plate on the box as well as the glass, which I think will make a great visual impact.

 

So that was my candle update! If you are interested in more information on any of the elements I have mentioned above, please feel free to comment, email (tara@tarasofia.com) or send me a tweet (@Tara_Sofia). Once the candles are ready I will be doing some serious giveaways so make sure you are signed up to receive information about them! 
Thanks for reading and please don't forget to share and subscribe :-)