We look at three homegrown brands specialising in products with discreet details known only to the wearer or owner, but with the power to lift spirits and keep heritage alive. In the first of a three-part series, Jason Lee discusses his fragrance brand Scent by Six’s purpose “to soothe, to heal and to delight mental wellness”
The power of smell is often overlooked, when in fact scents can trigger memories and emotions. Jason Lee, the founder of fragrance brand Scent by Six, has seen this first-hand at one of the community scent workshops he conducted during the brand’s early days.
“We wanted to create a unique scent for this elderly lady with severe dementia, based on her life experiences. Her family said she used to go to the temple with her late husband to offer incense. She also loved making pandan cakes, and her favourite drink was kopi o kosong (black coffee without sugar). I put all those smells together very carefully, and let her take a whiff,” he shares.
“What happened next was priceless: her eyes widened, and she blurted out her deceased husband’s name, and started crying. So did her family as after such a long time, the memories came flooding back. It was then that I found my purpose: to heal emotions, to preserve memories, to bring people together.”
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Lee, who developed a nose for fragrances while working at Swiss perfume house Givaudan, considers this connection between scent and emotional memory “our sixth sense” which inspired the brand name. More than just being in the business of scents—with fine fragrances, DIY scent kits, and a home scenting range—Scent by Six has “a clear purpose: to soothe, to heal and to delight mental wellness”. It is one of the new batch of local brands to join the Made With Passion initiative led by the Singapore Brand Office and the Singapore Tourism Board, with the support of Enterprise Singapore.
Serving the community has been at the heart of the business since its start in 2016, even more so with the current pandemic. “Covid-19 has discouraged us from touching others physically, but we still want to impact others by touching them emotionally,” Lee explains. In November last year, Scent by Six launched a yuzu-themed scent collection, Hikaru, in collaboration with the Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH) to raise awareness of mental health issues.
Tapping on the expertise of Japanese fragrance house Takasago, the Hikaru scent is infused with “fragrance intelligence”—a palette of ingredients scientifically tested and proven to influence certain moods and feelings—to trigger feelings of joy and happiness in the wearer. The collection of perfume, pillow mist and pure essential oil was created together with youths suffering from severe depression.
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