For her company’s first foray into home fragrance, Abel founder Frances Shoemack wanted to hit the right balance of “elegance, wellness and modern luxury”. The perfume brand offers deeply considered fragrances made with plant-derived oils and extracts – and Abel’s new room sprays abide by the same principles.

Shoemack considers scenting your home to be a ritual that plays into the decor and overall feel of a space. “The idea was that you can use scent as the final styling act in your home,” she tells Broadsheet. “Scent adds personality or solidifies a vibe in a similar way to music. It can also be used to evoke a certain feeling or atmosphere.”

Working with her regular collaborator, French perfumer Fanny Grau, Shoemack has launched the line with three scents. They set out to capture three distinct “scenes”, making it easy to decide what might suit a particular room in your house – or someone else’s, if you’re buying as a gift.

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Scene 01 is “light, spacious and vibrant”, says Shoemack, “evocative of minimalist Japanese interiors”. The spray comprises notes of green tea, yuzu and verbena, as well as grapefruit, violet leaf and vetiver.

For something softly floral, the Scene 02 spray is a blossoming combination of fig, marigold, cedarwood, mandarin and basil. It’s “joyous and soft; think golden hour sunlight and fresh wildflowers indoors”, says Shoemack.

With notes of leather, tonka, vanilla, patchouli and sandalwood, you can picture Scene 03 in an elegant library or study somewhere – although there are no rules for what scent goes where. “Scene 03 will bring pure luxury to any environment. Not the overt kind, but a quiet, refined quality.”

The team has been working on home fragrance as a category for six or seven years, but specifically on this collection for nearly two. The process was quite different to creating perfumes for people to wear on their bodies, says Shoemack.

“When you create perfume, you are constantly evaluating how the fragrance will wear on skin and develop throughout the day – the top, heart and base notes specifically.”

Devising a home fragrance is a much more “linear” process, with a focus on creating a constant scent that’s not reliant on how it interacts with the skin. “Perfume is a lot more nuanced. In a way, creating the room sprays was more playful.”

Over the last few years, Abel has been releasing what it refers to as “functional fragrances” – scents that are formulated to have therapeutic properties. These currently include the pre- and post-partum-safe Nurture for parents, and Pause for those going through menopause.

With the launch of these home fragrances, the brand is ensuring your rooms can smell as good as they look – using ingredients chosen with care for people and planet.

nz.abelfragrance.com