The women behind cult fragrance brand The Harmonist
Why The Harmonist is not just another perfume
Priya Sher is the ultimate lifestyle guru. With clients such as a Deepak Chopra, she gives us a lesson on the power of energy.
How do you think energy and the elements change how people feel? Each of the five
elements – fire, earth, metal, water and wood – has it’s own energy, attributes and personality.Eachelementevokesinusfeelings and emotions for example the element wood is associated with springtime which relates to vitality, endurance and growth.
However, on a more specific level each one of us has a personal element based on our date of birth and, dependent on what that, is, the other elements will interact with us in a unique way and enhance aspects such as: creativity, wisdom, socialising, seduction, status and prosperity. Each element will produce a different interaction. For example, if your personal element is yang fire and you wanted to enhance your creativity then the earth element would do that. If your personal element is yin water then the wood element will represent creativity for you. Since we all have our own elemental energy the elements react with us uniquely and change how we feel.
Do you think a smell can change your energy all together?
Smells / fragrances are very powerful as they have the energy within them that evokes emotions in us that can affect our mood, which in turn can affect our behaviour.
What do you think is the answer to balance in this modern day and age?
I think we need to understand that we are in control of technology and that it doesn’t control us. Before the age of smartphones most people left their work at work, but now work emails etc are accessible 24/7. We need to set ourselves boundaries.
What was your role in helping this perfume come to life? I take care of The Harmonist’s
ongoing feng shui needs online and in person. I’m regularly available at their events to provide clients with private consultations; taking them through their elemental makeup so that they can optimise different areas of their life by harnessing the power of the elements.
How can we all find more balance in our lives? Are there things we can change easily to help with this? Our homes should
be a sanctuary. Keep colours and decor calm and relaxing. If you work from home then you need to switch off your emails and work calls to allow enough time for relaxation.
Create a sacred space at home where there are no gadgets. Avoid taking any work into the bedroom and use this time for re-charging your mind and body. Some of us charge our phones more than we re-charge ourselves.
Make your dining area a gadget free zone so that you can concentrate mindfully on what you eat.
Spend more time outdoors in nature. Bring nature into our homes; plants and flowers uplift our energy and also remove toxins from our space.
Stress is a part of our lives now, as is being addicted to social media. Our brains are taking insomuch information, do you think this perfume signifies the need to slow down? Yes, The Harmonist’s perfumes make
us slow down and reflect about the different aspects of our life. Even the process of selecting the perfume is a calm and leisurely process, in which we need to pay attention to what area of our life we would like to enhance.
Additionally, with nature as its inspiration each fragrance has infused within it the essence of the elements. ‘Nature takes its time, yet everything is accomplished” - Lao Tzu. We need to learn from nature.
Lola Till ya eva, the founder of The H ar monist, discusses why the perfume helps us all to seek balance.
Where did you come up with the concept of creating a perfume that encourages people to find balance? Several years ago, I created a
perfume for myself as I wanted to find a scent I felt comfortable with. It was based on notes of white flowers and vanilla musk with ylang ylang at the heart and it was so popular with my friends that I decided to create my own perfume brand which reflects my philosophy of life. I wanted to create something new, something that the fragrance market had not seen before. My idea was to translate the five basic elements of nature and how they were connected to our sense of smell. Feng shui is an ancient Chinese philosophy of bringing your inner self into harmony with the world around you. The idea behind our brand is to breathe a new breath of energy into people looking for harmony, helping them achieve maximum results as they seek to create balance for themselves and others. Each of The Harmonist’s signature scents draws from one of the five feng shui elements regarded as building blocks of all natural phenomena - metal, fire, earth, water and wood. These five elements constitute part and parcel of our everyday life and are present in everything around us.
How are the perfumes unique to each customer? We often think long and hard
about what we wear on certain occasions - we want to look right, to fit in, but we want to feel comfortable, too, and send out the right message about who we are. Wearing a fragrance is no different: when we ‘put on’ a particular scent, we are in fact entering the realm of the element it represents. We can say it’s like adding the missing ingredient to your aura, the element you need for harmony.
A fragrance should trigger a sense of warmth, well-being and self-confidence. You mustn’t let yourself be swayed by the latest fashion or pick something just because your friend likes it. That’s very important because each person has their own unique odour, a so-called ‘smell fingerprint’, so the same perfume will release slightly different notes depending on each individual’s skin.
Our own psychological make-up, childhood memories and other impressions associated with smells also come into play when we are considering a perfume, so our own, individual inner wisdom prompts us to make the right choice.
Did you take any influence from the Middle East when you were creating the perfumes?
Due to the main source of inspiration for The Harmonist collection coming from the five feng shui elements, we needed to use the most beautiful ingredients from all over the world: iris roots from Tuscany for the earth element, mimosa flower from France to represent the yin wood element or saffron from India to celebrate the fire energy... Even though the perfumer, Guillaume Flavigny, selected a ‘touch’ of oud for a few of the elixirs, especially for the extract concentration, the olfactive signature remains definitely French.