Newsletter No. 2! October 2026

Moving (Ugh), Scents/Sense of Place, Ancestral Rabbit Holes, and Late 2026 Happenings & Events.

Disclaimer: lots of informative links to external pages in this newsletter, and a few images this time. (Whoops about the last newsletter not having any! I’m a newbie at these.)

I’ve been packing up the perfume space this month. Which reminds me: fulfillment of web sales will be paused next week and will resume in early November once I’m all settled in my new digs. Why am I moving, you may wonder? I got married over a year ago and I still don’t live with my partner! Haha. I’ve been really, really attached to this home I’ve lived in since early 2019. Now cohabitation is finally happening! I’m excited and happy, and I’m having big feelings about leaving this house.

The living room of the old house I’m leaving at the end of the month. I’ll be renting it out to a very nice couple and will have opportunities to visit it again in the future. The two housemates on the couch pay their rent in fur and silly antics.

If you’ve ever packed a home after living there for more than just a couple of years, then you know it’s a pain. Thankfully, not everything is getting packed. Some furnishings will stay. But dang, I had no idea I owned that many dish towels. They came in handy when it was time to bundle up my hoard of ceramic Thai soup spoons for all the homemade Tom Yum soup I never prepared.

Now imagine a 15’x15’ space packed with hundreds of tiny little vials of essential oils and tinctures, event supplies like banners, tablecloths, folding tables, and testers, plus labels, padded mailers, cardboard boxes, and other packaging supplies… But they’re all strewn around instead of in organized little stacks. Past Me didn’t think about Today Me. So yeah, packing for my relocation to Silverton has been an ordeal.

When I need a break from all this sorting, packing, and cleaning, I return to writing this newsletter or I go outside. Going outside is what I’ve always done when I want to feel productive without doing what I’m “supposed” to be doing. Sometimes I take a walk around the neighborhood with the dogs, and other times I drive to Alsea Falls for a solo hike. The following bit is about a recent fragrant morning walk through town rather than an afternoon hike alone with the waterfalls.

Pennyroyal in the wetland that inspired First Rain.

One morning last week, when the dogs and I were walking past the nearby wetland, and I accidentally stepped on a crunchy little plant. I instantly recognized the herbal-menthol note of pennyroyal wafting in the air. I looked down and saw its faded purple Dr. Seuss-y blossoms peeking up between the long wet blades of grass I’d just smooshed. That same second, I caught a whiff of a very similar scent on my arm and remembered it was on me, too: as I was packing up materials earlier that morning, I’d put a tiny dab of First Rain on the arm of my fleece. I inhaled deeply: first my sleeve, and then the air. Pennyroyal had deeply infiltrated my respiratory system from both sources! It was flushing the cavities of my sinus with screechy-sharp coolness before settling into a soft pulse of camphor. In that moment, I almost couldn’t tell where the ground ended and I began; I felt like I’d been wrapped in a small twirling wind of herbs and earth. I’d become grass and wet dirt, briefly merging with the land I was standing on, the outline of my body dissolving into the cool morning air. It was a refreshingly minty reminder that I was from nature, just like you are. And this is my goal: I want as much connection as I can get to my immediate (and typically natural) surroundings.

I love trying to create atmospheric perfumes that convey sense — and scents — of places. I also love that the sense/scents of a place are different for everyone depending on where they live. Here in Monroe, it depends on what time of year it is, but you can typically expect two or more notes of the following at any given time: oak, grass, evergreens, riparian things along the river, herbs, moss, and clay-rich soil. It smells like Home. My home of the last nearly eight years. Well, that is, for one more week.

I’m so glad to have had access to open spaces like this, and I’m extra grateful for this particular morning walk; it moved me to write this. Even after I’m all settled in Silverton, I’ll carry these “scents of place” with me so that I can transport myself back here to Monroe on a whim. Silverton‘s not far from Monroe, so its scent is similar given that it’s still technically in the Willamette Valley. But still, it’s not the same… Plus it has a much stronger concrete note. ;) It’s a bittersweet change, but circumstances have proven that it’s time for the next step in my relationship and life.

The Incense Route. Map courtesy of https://alchetron.com/Incense-Route.

Speaking of locations and sense/scents of places, I’ve been digging into my ancestry and family traditions quite a bit for the last couple of months. My dad’s side of the family is Ashkenazi and Sephardim with older roots tracing back to the Negev Desert, and my dad made sure I knew about our history when I was younger. (Since we’re on the subject, I’ll just share this now: we’re non-practicing Jews, though I did light a menorah once when I was a little girl and I later attended a few Shabbots as an adult. I’ll refrain from getting too political here except to say that this half of the family has always supported a two-state solution in the Middle East, and my heart is crushed by what’s happening to the people of Gaza. Net*nyahu is a monster, and I’m beyond revolted that our country is an accomplice to genocide.)

As I was saying.

My dad raised me on Middle Eastern cuisine and took me to this region when I was a teenager to learn more about our family’s origin. Perhaps these are the reasons I have hamsas in nearly every room of the house; why I chose to study Arabic in college and studied abroad in Tunisia 20 years ago; why the Middle Eastern souks and North African medinas felt both “exotic” and familiar when I visited them; why saffron, rose, and cardamom are my all-time favorite seasonings to use (I keep a pepper grinder full of cardamom seeds next to the espresso machine for a sort of on-demand kahvesi); why shakshuka and leblebi will ALWAYS BE THE BEST STEWS, ESPECIALLY IN FALL AND WINTER, AND YOU CAN’T CHANGE MY MIND, and why Yotam Ottolenghi is one of the greatest chefs to walk the planet. (…Other than my dad, of course, who published a collection of his own global-inspired recipes). I think it also explains why I was compelled to make frankincense and myrrh the backbone of my Winter Amber perfume. This one was inspired by my childhood memories of Dad simmering these resins along with fir needles on the woodstove in wintertime. Today, I know the long-gone members of my bloodline earned their livelihoods through the exchange of these sacred materials, and that appreciation still runs through our veins today.

My appreciation for resins and spices has always been there, humming along as the bassline to my subconscous. It was waiting to be rediscovered this last summer, when I did a lot of soul-searching and purpose-finding after a panic attack/crashout/meltdown at the doctor clinic related to my 13-year career in human resources. (2/5 stars, it took me well over a decade to realize I do not recommend doing HR for a living.)

My resonance with resins (get it?) was fiiiinally given the time and permission to reach outwards like tendriling incense smoke, unwinding and uncurling from my heart and blood, and into my headspace, then slowly, eventually, into the physical world. Waiting to be realized into a fungible substance that could transport me, or maybe — and hopefully — another person, to another time and place. When I smell frank and myrrh together, I think about the winter holidays in the house where I grew up. I also think about brass-colored trinket dishes holding cones of freshly ground spices, woven textiles with Qur’anic prayers scrawled across them in gold thread, brightly colored flags hanging from ancient stone archways, antique jewelry getting polished by a salesperson in a corner stall, lanterns scattering perforations of light across flagstone alleys. I think about Cairo, Tunis, Jerusalem, and the Kapalıçarşı Market. I think about something that feels deeply familiar but very far away, both in geography and in time.

A shop in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. I studied in Tunis for three months during my final year of college.

I think this is also why I love Serge Lutens so, so much. Many of his perfumes — which are actually formulated by Christopher Sheldrake — are inspired by North Africa, and Morocco in particular. Someone could argue that Lutens has a questionable tendency to exoticize and “Orientalize” (a very controversial habit) Arab culture. But gosh, his line will forever be my favorite because I really am transported to that part of the world when I smell certain perfumes of his in particular: Arabie, Fumerie Turque, and Rahat Loukoum. Plus, he actually lives in Morocco so knows firsthand what it really smells like.

So. Coming back to the point. This deep-dive into my genetic roots has been providing a lot of inspiration to the first perfume I’m creating for Crocus, my second line. It will be an homage to the early tradespeople of the Incense Route and my own lineage. As such, it will have more of a Middle Eastern profile. It’ll represent my family’s most antiquated Scents/Sense of Place, and it’ll be a big contrast with Firn, which represents my “modern” and current Scents/Sense of Place (Oregon’s Willamette Valley).

I’ve really been enjoying “connecting” with my family from many generations ago through reading up on the Incense Route. I wish I could ask them what their lives were like. Probably, they were keeping busy with avoiding fever and parasitic infections, or trying to live past their average age of 40. They weren’t concerned with trying to optimize SEO, come up with Instagram content, or navigate some other Poor Modern-Day First-World Person Problem. Wild.

Fresh spices in a souk (Middle Eastern market/bazaar).

And now for a slightly forced segue into my final topic. Related to connecting with people, Firn has been BUSY (!!!) with all kinds of events. So far in just the second half of 2026, we’ve participated in six events/markets, with three more lined up before the end of the year. Here’s a link to what’s coming up next!

Doing events is one of my favorite parts of my work. Talking with people about what notes they like, what memories are triggered by the fragrances their parents and grandparents wore, how I decide what goes into a given Firn blend, trying to guess what perfumes they’re wearing, etc. It’s just so fun and it never feels like work. It feels like meaningful connection through the shared interest of scent.

Additionally, the energy at holiday events in particular sparkles with wintertime excitement and cheer, and I always love an opportunity to see other makers’ unique artwork. This event is one I’m especially excited about participating in for the first time. If you’re in Portland on November 20th, please come by!

I’ve begun researching markets and events for next year and hope to do an average of one per month. If you know of any in or near Oregon that you think Firn might be a good fit for, pretty please do let me know!

And now I have a thought: should I set up future event displays to look like a souk stall in a bazaar with a bunch of deep-wilderness and ancient-resin materials? Would that be nuts to fuse the two concepts into a “wilderness souk” or “medina in the forest” type of look? (…I think yes it would be a little nuts, but I also kind of like it…?!)

Well, anyway, that’s the fall 2026 update. Thank you for being interested. I hope you’re enjoying the season’s gifts, wherever you are!

P.S. — I’m still working on the labels for the new 10ml bottles! I just need to get through the move first.

I’m always grateful of you, your time, and your support!

~ Lisa, Owner & Formulator