About the House
Handcrafted fragrance. Small batch. Wild soul.
Redwood Alchemy isn’t a perfume house run by a team of perfumers in a million dollar lab. There’s no staff. No assembly line. No corporate strategy. No marketing department. No warehouse full of workers.
There’s just me.
Just one person - mixing, bottling, labeling, packing, and shipping every single fragrance by hand.
From the very first spark of inspiration to the final wax seal on your package, every part of this business is built by hand. I create every fragrance myself. I pour it. I pack it. I ship it. This is a labor of love and obsession.
And it's personal.
How It Started
I’ve always had a strong connection to scent. As a kid, I remembered places by how they smelled more than how they looked or otherwise felt. I learned about essential oils and herbal work early on, mentored by an herbalist in Michigan who taught me how plants could be transformed into experience. What began as aromatherapy slowly evolved into perfumery - a craft that blended my love of creativity with a fascination for memory, chemistry, biology, and emotion.
The name Redwood Alchemy came from the towering redwoods that surrounded me when I began this journey. There was something ancient and grounding about those forests - their quiet strength and resilience helped carry me through some of the hardest seasons of my life. I wanted to bring that spirit into my work.
When the pandemic hit and life changed practically overnight, I took a leap. I had just lost my publishing job when the printing house I worked with shut down indefinitely, and I knew that I needed to pivot. Redwood Alchemy began as both a necessity and a challenge: could I turn scent into story - and share it with others?
I launched the company in the Santa Cruz Mountains, surrounded by redwoods and fog. The forest shaped my earliest formulas, and even now, that sense of stillness and wildness remains at the heart of what I do.
I’m not here to make “safe” fragrances. I don’t follow trends. I don’t create with a marketing team in mind. I don’t create what some CEO tells me to. I create what I believe in.
Some of my scents are smooth and inviting; others are strange, feral, or even challenging. But all of them are made for those who want more from a fragrance than a compliment. They're made for people who want connection.
They're not meant to please everyone. They're meant for those who want to feel something.
How It’s Made
Redwood Alchemy fragrances are made in truly small batches using professional perfumery materials - aromachemicals, essential oils, absolutes, and resins. Each one sourced with care and chosen for its character.
Every formula starts with an idea, a feeling, or a scent memory I want to chase. I blend materials by weight using precision scales, refining through notebook after notebook of trial runs and revisions. Some perfumes come together in a few days. Others take months. A few have taken years to get right.
Once a formula is finalized, it’s mixed by hand, then aged to allow the materials to settle and merge - a process called maceration. Like wine or some teas, perfume needs time to unfold and reveal its true character. After maceration, each batch is triple-filtered, bottled, labeled, and packaged, individually.
From beginning to end, this process is intentional, and built entirely with care.
Mine aren’t copy-paste fragrances. Each one is built to evoke something real - something distinctive. Something that lingers, even after the scent is gone.
Where It’s Going
Over time, Redwood Alchemy has evolved. What began with subtle occult undertones grew darker, stranger, and more esoteric. But now, I find myself returning to what grounded me in the beginning: the forest, the craft, and the turning of the seasons.
This is perfume shaped by bark and resin, wind and stillness. It’s shaped by personal experience - by grief, by change, by joy - and by a quiet refusal to make anything I don’t believe in.
And if you’re here - thank you. Your support allows me to keep doing this work: blending scent, by hand, for wild souls like yours.
— Wren
Founder, Perfumer, Every Hat in Between