A highly satisfying aspect of writing my blog has been getting to know the talented perfumers and creative directors who work behind the scenes to design original and unique perfumes. I love to listen to their life stories and to learn more about what drives them to launch their lines and create their pieces.
I am happy to have connected with Erica Vinskie of HENNY FAIRE Co., an artisanal and sustainable line in Berks County, Pennsylvania inspired by the herbalist Henrietta Fehr, known as “Henny”.
Henny was Erica’s neighbor and a grandmother figure to her. Resourceful and glamorous in equal parts, Henny learned about the medicinal use of Appalachian herbs from her father and developed a taste for all things beautiful and scented. Erica grew up being fascinated with the perfumes and toiletries on Henny’s vanity and drew inspiration from them to create fragrances that embody nature’s charm with high quality materials.
Erica is a painter with a passion for nature who greatly enjoys foraging plants in the wilderness and featuring them in photorealistic fragrances, using mixed media. She uses naturals, but also synthetic materials to achieve additional translucence in her formulations.
In addition to learning more about the process behind HENNY FAIRE Co’s fragrances, which are dedicated to the native plants of the Eastern U.S., I was also pleased to find out that Erica and I are both academics and writers and that we share a love for scented soaps, food, and violet in perfume.
I tried five creations from the Foraged FragrancesTM line and I share my impressions of each one below.
JUNIPERA
I was very fortunate to try both earlier and newer formulations of this fragrance, which nicely highlights Appalachian lavender along with spices (cardamom and saffron), juniper berries, tobacco, and cedar. Although both creations are beautiful, I find the new version to be cooler and more refreshing, but also wilder, bolder, and more long-lasting. In this latest release, Erica replaced the juniper essential oil with a juniper CO2 extract to enhance freshness and piquancy. She also used gin as a carrier. Do not be fooled by the initial crisp opening of this creation. As it evolves, the fragrance reveals a warmer heart of leather, spices, clary sage, and lavender, and further darkens with tobacco leaf and woods.
CRISPA
This is the fragrance that initially piqued my interest and led me to explore HENNY FAIR Co. Erica shared a beautiful drawing depicting a gooseberry on her Instagram page, and mentioned this was a fantasy note she created using black currant bud and red currant with a “golden” touch of davana, melon rind, and amber. She conferred an autumnal spice aura by adding cloves, carnation, and cardamom, and a comforting herbal character by adding black tea. The naturalistic woody base that so often characterizes her creations comes through as the scent develops on the skin.
VESCA
If you’re looking for the perfect wild strawberry fragrance, this might be the one for you. The strawberry note is brightened by green nuances of mint and galbanum, as well as juicy grapefruit, which together balance out the fruit’s natural sweetness. The fragrance’s berried quality persists and settles on a satisfyingly woody and piney base of vetiver, fir, ambergris, and musk. I love VESCA’s whimsical juxtaposition of sweet and tart, dewy and dry notes. I only sampled the newer version of VESCA.
MALA
This creation reminds me of biting into the small wild apples I used to pick up as a young girl during the years I lived in the U.K. An irresistible crisp tartness is nicely captured here and heightened by chamomile’s herbaceous and delicate floral character. The mossy dry down is airy and forest-like, calling to mind walks in the woods.
LUCIDA
This fragrance stars wild rose and tea notes along with bergamot, fruity notes, and tobacco. The initial sensation is deeply aromatic and slightly camphorated and reminds me of stepping into a tea store. I soon learned that its magic comes through several hours later with wafts of delicious rosebud hibiscus tea flavored with swirls of lemon and tart red berries. I also detect a creamy hint as the fragrance evolves.
The more I spritz and wear these original fragrances, the more I love them. I soon plan on getting my hands on the violet soliflore!
Erica makes her fragrances in micro-batches and is committed to highlighting beauty through sustainable ingredients and materials. Part of the company’s proceeds are donated to organizations that promote environmental and community renewal in Greater Appalachia.
Find out more about HENNY FAIRE Co.’s story, fragrances (foraged and soliflores), and other scented items (home fragrances and skincare) on the website.
I tested the Foraged FragrancesTM discovery set I purchased personally and from additional samples that were kindly sent to me by Erica Vinskie, including the newer formulations of JUNIPERA and VESCA.
Interview
It was a pleasure to learn about Erica’s path to perfumery, her memories about Henny, her other favorite things, and how she views the role of women in perfumery.
How did you develop a love for perfume and what led you to become a perfumer?
I grew up in the Anthracite Coal Region, an environmentally and economically ravaged area of Northeastern Pennsylvania. My family existed at what Senator Elizabeth Warren has called “the ragged edge” of the working class. We lived in a trailer, hoisted up on cinder blocks, at the edge of a wooded mountain hollow. When the coal stove we had for heat went out on winter nights, my siblings and I huddled for warmth under a black bear hide, while my dad worked all night stoking the fire.
I begin the story this way because this is the kind of story you rarely hear in perfumery (and, well, it’s true). Although my parents worked hard and managed to improve our lot—so that by the time I was in high school my dad had expanded our trailer into a ranch home and our new oil burner never left us to freeze—the world I come from is an unlikely one to birth a perfumer. But my pocket of Northern Appalachia is the only place that could have brought forth the kind of perfumer I’ve become.
Early in my life, my imagination catapulted me beyond these bleak surroundings, and I would create alternate worlds of beauty and rustic refinement. Barely a teen, I decorated my bedroom in French Provincial style complete with toile de Jouy and Queen Anne furnishings found at flea markets. (My mom joked that the hospital nursery had switched her baby with one of the Vanderbilts. One summer, my friend and I converted an abandoned dynamite bunker we found in the woods into a Boho-Chic hideaway with dried wildflowers, scented votives, and a Kilim rug. (Anthropologie could have hired us on the spot!)
Fragrance was an essential component of these contrived worlds. I first came to experience fine fragrance in the bathrooms and bedrooms of the older women in our mining village. During evening visits, while my mom chatted with the mistress of the house in the parlor, I’d steal away to their mirrored vanities to sample their perfumes. Avon sat beside Chanel, Windsong beside Shalimar. Tea Rose was a staple, and my literal child’s interpretation of the name as ‘tea + rose’ is the inspiration behind my blend, LUCIDA {wild rose + oolong}. These perfumes transported me to places I could only dream then, but would eventually visit.
Fast-forward thirty years, and you would find me unfulfilled as an academic and frustrated and isolated as a studio painter. I wanted to pursue an art form that might connect me with a greater number and diversity of people. In 2016, I put down my paintbrush and picked up my pipettes. I would ‘paint in fragrance’ the beautiful worlds I visited and envisaged as a child roaming the hills and raiding the vanities of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Region. And through my brand, HENNY FAIRE Co., I would invite others into them.
What are your oldest and best scent memories?
“Old lady” bath soaps! I’m instantly comforted by the waxy, powdery, aldehydic floral soap scents of the last century, the kind that filled the bathroom with a fragrance that lingered even after the bar was gone.
How did you become inspired by the renowned herbalist “Henny”?
The real-life “Henny” was my neighbor growing up, and she was as much a grandmother-figure to me as my own grandmothers. Folks back home would recognize Henny as much for her cooking & baking prowess as for her foraging & compounding skills. In our region, many women and men of that generation used wild plants in practical, everyday ways. It was just a part of living with limited economic resources, while having access to an abundance of natural ones.
What set Henny apart, and what has made her my muse, is she combined the practicality and resourcefulness of her generation with a kind of glamour and unusually refined tastes for her means. Her great-niece, who is my best friend to this day, tells of Henny’s first Christmas with her husband Albert. Although their home had dirt floors, Henny asked Albert for silk slippers. And she got them! “I had champagne taste on nickel beer money,” she told us, adding, “girls, be sure to enjoy life’s finer things.”
Henny’s vanity was my favorite to explore. In spite of her modest means, by the late-1980s, she had amassed a collection of perfumes that included Guerlain, Dior, Caswell-Massey, Gucci (which she pronounced “Gussy”). On her vanity top, sleek perfume bottles sat alongside herbal tinctures and decoctions of blue vervain, watercress, chaga, St. John’s Wort… All seemed perfectly at home and put the lie to the duality of “natural” vs. “manmade” that is commonly touted today. Better than anything else, Henny’s vanity top distills the ethos and aesthetic of HENNY FAIRE Co.
Are you moved by any other forms of art or artisanship? Are there any perfumers you especially admire?
I’m moved by beauty and pathos wherever they are found, which is most often in the arts. But I’m especially drawn to art I can use in my everyday life, and so I love craft. To me, perfume straddles that line between fine art and craft.
As far as perfumers I admire, Jo Malone’s story is most inspiring to me as a fellow self-taught artisan perfumer from humble beginnings. From growing up in a council house, to compounding her nature-inspired blends in her kitchen, to founding her iconic brand…When a customer tells me (as has happened more than once), “these scents remind me of Jo Malone”, I gush.
Do you have any favorite notes and fragrances (including your own)?
My favorite notes change seasonally, but I always adore violets. Would it be hubris to say that my current favorite fragrance is my own Appalachian Violet soliflore? I took Cerebaud’s 1923 Parma fine Violet accord as my inspiration, giving it an updated, rain-washed quality using new materials.
While I only wear fragrance occasionally (mostly to bed!), I recently find myself reaching for something by Maria Candida Gentile or Diane St. Clair.
If you had to pick a favorite scented product other than fragrance what would it be and why?
I love floral-flavored foods—tea, coffee, chocolate, jams. I think the use of floral and botanical flavors in food is vastly underappreciated in the U.S. When I do perfumery events, I sometimes offer floral-themed refreshments, and guests go wild. When you train your olfactory sense, it enhances your sense of taste.
I understand you always looked up to women of the past. What do you think about the role of women in the perfume industry today and how do you see their future?
Having been a humanities lecturer who has taught women’s studies courses, you might think I would have given considerable thought to the role of gender in the fragrance industry. But I mostly keep my nose to my workbench (no pun intended)!
Despite the most-lauded perfumers of the 19th and 20th century being exclusively male, I see more gender parity in today’s fragrance industry than in other industries. Since I operate only in the artisan space, however, that might just be the view from here.
I can say that all my favorite perfumers today are women. And I have received the most support from other women perfumers and from women-owned perfumeries and boutiques.
Thank you for sharing so much with me, Erica!
