Growing up, my mother used a body splash called Jean Naté. It smelled of pure alcohol and lemongrass, lol.
You can still find it tucked away on the bottom shelf of drugstores, covered in dust, but this splash had a hold on the women in my family. That scent trailed after her every evening after she returned from work- a way to wash the day off and start anew.
In Guyana, my uncles wore Bay Rum, another cologne etched into my memory. Water, alcohol, citrus and herbaceous fragrance oils — nothing fancy. But these scents lingered with me.
They were the fragrance of home. In my family, fragrance wasn’t about vanity. It was ritual. They’d wake up, shower, and splash it on. That simple act was a big part of their sense of self.
I’ll be honest, I hesitated to make a body mist. I don’t like doing what everyone else is doing– not unless I can do it differently. So when I decided to create
BODY WATER, I knew I had to come correct (yes, I said that with a Brooklyn Caribbean accent and my full chest).
BODY WATER is rooted in my upbringing and the colognes of my culture...but modernized. It’s elevated with French thermal water (sourced from a volcanic spring in the South of France) and infused with fine fragrance.
Orange Blossom is our take on a fougere (made famous in the 1800's when citrus, woodsy and green notes revolutionized perfumery) with a composition of orange blossom, neroli, and lush palm leaves. Souk Honey is an elevated hazy gourmand that begins with a citrus flush, warms with cardamom and date syrup and ends in manuka honey. Both unique and equally divine.
From my culture to yours, I hope it becomes part of your ritual too.
With love,
Karen