Damn Rebel Bitches ... the new perfume for Scots women with attitude
FANCY a new perfume that’s distinctly Scottish? Well, then it’s time for a squirt of Damn Rebel Bitches. The new fragrance is part of an ambitious plan by author Sara Sheridan which aims to reclaim Scottish cultural identity. Sheridan, who writes the best-selling Mirabelle Bevan murder mystery series, has founded Urban Reivers which will launch in Edinburgh on Tuesday.
It was an idea sparked by the independence referendum when she began to ponder the wider picture of how Scots view and define ourselves.
While acknowledging that we have a “cracking brand as Scotland”, Sheridan said she wanted to look beyond simply “slapping a kilt on it”.
Her answer was to tap into a wealth of indigenous talent including bespoke distillers, artisan perfumers and envelope-pushing textile designers, bringing them together in one collaboration.
“When it comes to Scottish cultural identity people tend to do one of two things,” she said. “They either do what [author and academic] Alastair Moffat calls ‘slapping a kilt on it’ or they deny it altogether. I went into a gift shop recently to buy a present and it was full of Scottish cliches or things that weren’t real history.”
Urban Reivers comprises three ranges: Reek, Swally and Find Your Way Home. Reek – as the name suggests – is about smell and encapsulates a powerful message. “One of the things that drives me nuts is that we don’t memorialise women,” said Sheridan.
“In my hometown of Edinburgh, there are more than 200 statues to men. There are more statues to animals than there are to women. I decided to memorialise women through scent.”
Sheridan worked with bespoke perfumer Sarah McCartney to create a fragrance called Damn Rebel Bitches, based on lives of the Jacobite women.
“It is not what they smelled like, it is things that would have been around them,” she said. “It includes clary sage – a women’s herb used in childbirth – malt, blood oranges and hazelnut which was a big part of the Highland diet.”
Sheridan plans to expand the range to include scented candles. “There will be a crofter candle that smells of peat fires and a lowlander candle that will smell of hay and grass,” she added.
“Military history is a big part of Scottish history because we are great soldiers – whether that is in medieval times or during the Second World War.”
It also taps into another theme close to her heart. “My family were immigrants to Scotland at the turn of the 20th century – my mother’s side were Russian Jews and left to escape the pogroms,” she said. “We found our way home here. Many people share a similar history and background.”
The third element to Urban Reivers is dubbed Swally, celebrating Scottish distilling and our love of a good tipple.
“Not necessarily the big whisky brands, this is about small-batch craft distilling,” she said. “Drink has quite a bad press – we are all meant to be drunken Scots or whatever. I’m not having that. We have a really sophisticated brewing and distilling industry that it is a big part of our hospitality.”
Sheridan has devised a colourful cocktail range. “There is the Big Sook which is a Scottish potato vodka cocktail,” she says. “Another is called the Selkie, named after the mythical seal woman, made from a seaweed Shetland Reel Gin with foraged elderflower cordial and a bit of Hebridean sea salt.”
It is Sheridan’s hope that Urban Reivers will help bolster Scotland’s often beleaguered self-image. “There is a cultural cringe about being Scottish,” she said. “That mystifies me because I don’t feel that way.
DAMN REBEL BITCHES
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“It is an interesting thing to challenge. There is so much to be proud of in Scotland. I want to trumpet that and embrace our amazing creative culture.”
Sheridan joined Edinburgh Women for Independence in the build-up to the referendum after changing her mind from No to Yes. She was also a regular blogger for the National Collective and Bella Caledonia, putting her writing career on hold to concentrate on campaigning.
She will be watching events surrounding indyRef2 with interest. “I have discovered that in politics you don’t know what is going to happen,” she said.
“There is no campaign until there is a date. If there is a campaign I would want to be involved.”