Perfume as it should be.

Most perfumes hide their ingredients. Ours are on every label. 100% Plants. 0% Synthetics.

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Inspired by the Mediterranean, crafted from nature, handmade in London

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Collection 001: Barcelona Summers

Bottled memories of my summers living in Barcelona. A terrace in summer, a sun-soaked garden, and midnight jasmine...

Not sure where to start? Try all three scents for £18

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Mariesme

Barcelona Summers Experience Pack (Sample all 3 Scents)

£18.00 GBP
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The average perfume contains 29 ingredients. 14 are hidden. You'll never know what they are.

Because brands don't have to tell you. Fragrance is considered a trade secret and companies can choose from over 3,100 synthetic ingredients (95% of which are petrochemically-derived) and are allowed to use and list any mix of them under “parfum” on the ingredients list.

I don’t use any synthetics, ever. And I’ll always list every ingredient, in every perfume, in plain English.

Mariesme has zero hidden ingredients. Because you deserve to know what you’re putting on your skin (and washing into the ocean).

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Perfume as it should be

  • The money is in the perfume - not the packaging

    Traditional perfumery spends up to 10x more on the packaging than the product. I flipped the model on its head, and use the money to buy the best quality ingredients I can find (hexane-free, organically-extracted absolutes, rare essential oils and organic jojoba oil) - to make the best perfume.

  • No synthetics. No alcohol.

    Up to 95% of synthetic fragrance is petrochemically-derived and as damaging to coral reefs as sunscreen. I don't use any synthetic ingredients, ever.

  • Radically honest

    I list all ingredients in full and in plain English. While other brands may hide behind "parfum/fragrance" in the ingredients list to hide their petrochemical derivatives, I'll always list every ingredient (and I never use any petrochemically-derived ingredients).

  • Crafted with care

    Every perfume is handmade in small batches in London by me, and based on my memories of years living in the Mediterranean.

  • Vegan & cruelty-free

    Every single ingredient is fully biodegradable, and everything is vegan & cruelty-free. Down to using vegan adhesive for the labels.

  • Low waste by design

    I use glass bottles, biodegradable and ocean-safe ingredients, no unnecessary boxes, and have a bottle reuse scheme.

  • Ancient perfumery, modern techniques

    The first perfumes made in ancient Mesopotamia were oils infused with natural materials. I carry on a tradition thousands of years old using modern techniques.

  • Zero phthalates

    Studies have shown between 75% and 100% of conventional perfumes contain phthalates, which in numerous studies have been shown to be hormone disruptors. (And recent Netflix documentary The Plastic Detox explores whether there's a link between fertility issues and phthalates.) I use only plant materials and no phthalates, ever.
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The perfumer who's allergic to perfume

I'm Caitlin. I make all my perfumes by hand in my home in London, inspired by years I spent living in Barcelona.

I started making my own perfumes after years of living with allergies - both red, itchy skin caused by synthetic fragrances, and headaches from the alcohol in perfumes.

So I taught myself to make alcohol-free perfume oils - completely synthetic fragrance-free and out of only plant-based materials - and dozens of people got in touch after I wrote about it on my blog.

Mariesme was born from this (Mari for my name in Spanish; and Maresme being the coast where I spent many summer days in Spain) - to share my natural formulas and my memories of the Mediterranean.

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Why I make these perfumes

I wanted my brand to be truly transparent

Living with allergies, I struggled to find perfume I could wear. Especially since so many brands hide behind "parfum" or "fragrance" in their ingredients list (fragrance blends are considered a trade secret, and therefore they're not legally obligated to list what synthetic fragrance molecules they've used).

Even natural brands often use wording like "nature-identical molecules" without specifying which ones.

Worse still, I learned that many synthetic fragrances are petrochemically-derived, cannot be broken down by wastewater treatment, and are leaching into the waterways and damaging aquatic life.

That's why synthetic fragrance is often called "liquid plastic".

That's why I developed perfumes that I could safely use (alcohol-free and completely free of synthetic fragrance, using only plant materials), and which are safe for the oceans, too.

It's also why I decided to choose radical transparency about the ingredients I use - you can see the full list of ingredients, in plain English, next to every single perfume.

Every perfume in my range holds a CPSR, which is a UK/EU safety assessment for cosmetics. So for customers in the US, you can be assured - the UK and EU have some of the most stringent cosmetics regulations in the world (far stricter than the FDA).

No liquid plastics. No synthetics. No alcohol. That's my promise to you.

I wanted my scent to match my values - vegan, low waste & cruelty-free

As a vegan of more than 18 years, I know the struggle of finding vegan and cruelty-free cosmetics. Perfumes in particular sometimes contain non-vegan ingredients such as castoreum and musk.

As someone who's campaigned for sustainability since the age of 7, I decided to bake sustainability into my perfumes from the start.

As well as being 100% vegan and cruelty-free (and always will be), I've selected vegan adhesives for my labels, recyclable packaging, and am running a bottle reuse scheme in the UK.

And because every ingredient is plant-derived - organic jojoba oil, essential oils and hexane-free absolutes - every drop is fully biodegradable.

No synthetic residue. No petroleum derivatives. Nothing that shouldn't be there.

I wanted the best perfume, not to pay for a fancy box and bottle

Most of the price of designer perfumes (and mid-range fragrance too) is in the packaging and marketing. Expensive bottles, fancy boxes that get thrown out, even expensive packaging to ship it in.

So I flipped it on its head when I started making my own perfume. I spent the bulk of the product development on buying the highest-quality ingredients I could find, and then bought the best bottles I could find to protect the perfume inside (they're amber glass to protect the precious oils inside). And ditched the fancy boxes and shipping materials.

That means the best quality of hexane-free absolutes, precious essential oils and organic jojoba oil, and less time spent crushing shipping boxes and cramming them in the recycling.

Instead, I'm shipping all my perfumes in the minimum of packaging to protect what's inside - the precious perfume oil itself. Each bottle of Mitjanit, Horta-Guinardó, for example, contains around 6,000 jasmine blossoms.