Smell Is Memory: The Science & Soul Behind Our Natural Scents
- Sanjog Naik
- Jul 8
- 3 min read
We caught up with our scent alchemist (yes, that’s her real title) to talk about what really goes into Draw Me Drama™’s small-batch, essential-oil-based perfumes. Spoiler: it’s more memory than musk.
Meet Rhea, scent designer, bottler of moods, and emotion distiller.
Q: Your perfumes don’t smell like “perfume.” What’s going on here?
Rhea:
That’s kind of the point. I’m not trying to make you smell “nice.”
I’m trying to make you smell true.
Our scents are memory-based, not market-based. They’re layered like a good story. They’re not afraid to smell like soil or ink or heartbreak.
Perfume shouldn’t be a mask. It should be a mirror.
Q: Why essential oils instead of synthetic fragrance notes?
Rhea:
Because essential oils are alive. They’ve been steam-distilled from plants that have literally lived through seasons, droughts, sun, soil.
They have a vibration.
When you smell them, your body recognises something real.
That’s why people say, “This reminds me of my grandmother’s garden” or “This smells like the room I cried in after quitting my job.”
You don’t get that with a lab-born sugar vanilla bomb.
Q: Each scent from Draw Me Drama™ has a name like “Shadow Witch” or “Love Left Traces.” Why so dramatic?
Rhea:
Because we’re dramatic people!
But also—because our scents are characters.
“Shadow Witch” is for the woman who knows she’s a little too much, and doesn’t care.
“Love Left Traces” is for that post-romance phase where you feel half healed and half haunted.
The names are doorways. Once you spray it, the story begins.
Q: What inspires a new scent? A flower? A mood? A city?
Rhea:
All of the above.
Some days it’s a heartbreak.
Other days it’s the smell of wet earth in Nairobi after rain.
Sometimes someone sends us a DM like, “Can you make something that smells like growing out of a toxic friendship?”
And I’m like, yes, challenge accepted.
Q: Is there actual science behind smell and memory?
Rhea:
100%. Smell is the only sense that goes directly to the brain’s emotional center without being processed elsewhere first.
That’s why you smell cinnamon and suddenly remember your childhood kitchen—or lavender and get sleepy.
Scent is memory’s backdoor.
We’re just decorating the entrance.
Q: How do you decide when a scent is “done”?
Rhea:
When it makes me feel something.
Not just “oooh this smells good,” but like—
“Okay, this smells like a forest where I buried a secret.”
Or
“This smells like confidence wrapped in mystery and leather.”
When that happens, I stop tweaking. I bottle it. And we name it something that sounds like a poem or a dare.
Q: What do you say to people who only wear mainstream perfume?
Rhea:
Hey, no shame. But just know—you're missing out on the kind of scent that makes people lean in and say, “wait...what is that?”
Not because it’s strong. But because it’s strange in a familiar way.
Our scents don’t enter a room before you. They arrive with you.
Like a memory you haven’t remembered yet.
Q: What scent would you wear to break up with someone?
Rhea:
Oof. Either Rose With A Vendetta or Cedar + Cold Shoulder.
You want to smell like peace, power, and the slow, soft satisfaction of walking away with your dignity intact.
Q: Final words for someone thinking about switching to our kind of scent?
Rhea:
Perfume is personal. It should smell like a chapter of your life.
If mass-produced fragrance is fast food, we’re the handwritten recipe passed down through witches and grandmothers.
