After more than ten fulfilling, magical years beginning in the good old days of 2012, Hello Pretty is retiring and heading off to the beach with a drink with a tiny umbrella.
Read our goodbye letter
As the weather cools down, we're clinging to the warmth in beautiful wooden products in this week's newsletter!
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Watch this space - it's going to be HUGE.
*Squeaks with excitement*
Last week I was lucky enough to be Frazer Parfum's guest instagrammer, which meant I got to spend a whole morning in their store and factory, smelling beautiful things and lathering it all over me.
This super gorgeous and luxe brand is run by Tam and Jenny Frazer - sisters every bit as lovely as their products.
Founded in 2008, Frazer Parfum creates organic and natural perfume products, handcrafted while collaborating with local artists - the end result is to die for.
Tam spent some time explaining to me how she makes each scent, in all their various forms - a LOT of love and attention to detail goes into every tiny thing.
She also explained their Chapters Collection, which includes nine scents inspired by places that she's travelled to, including Corsica, Madagascar and India. They also have the African Collection - six scents inspired by raw materials on the continent.
My very favorite scent is African orange blossom - perfect for winter.
It uses a resin from Ethiopia called opoponax, which has a treacle note - it's used in many creative perfumes and gives a sweetness even though it's a resin. Resins are one of the rare ingredients that are both fresh and long lasting.
Even better news is Frazer Parfum does not use any synthetic molecules or chemicals and in no way are any of the raw materials tested on animals. The palette consists of rare absolutes, concretes and resins coupled with chemotyped essential oils, petals, woods, roots, grass and zest.
I love how you can get your favourite sent in so many forms - there's really no excuse not to smell delicious! I love to layer my coffee & orange blossom shea butter and solid perfume to get a truly luxe feel and scent. If you spot me on the streets of Cape Town sniffing at myself, you'll know why!
My favourite "vessel" is the parfum solide. The scent is captured in beeswax, and you can choose between an equally beautiful Protea porcelain egg and an African Blackwood compact. Because I'm the most clumsy human, I opted for an African Blackwood Compact. Perfect for keeping in your purse!
This Shea butter is the most luxurious feeling moisturizer I have ever put on my skin. It's an intense natural salve, that comes in a handmade porcelain or Tamboti wood container. I'm completely smitten with the beautiful fine porcelain.
Tammy is the granddaughter of Graham Wulff, inventor of Oil of Olay. Following in his footsteps single-handedly launched her personally handmade perfumes in eclectic retail environments in Europe, North America, UK, Ukraine, Oceania, Nigeria and South Africa.
She inherited her grandfather's beautiful albums of ladies in the factories in their pink lab coats - I immediately felt that my life would be incomplete without one just like it!
Read more about Tammy’s journeys in her column “Making Scents”, published every Friday in the Mail & Guardian newspaper, and online HERE.
To check out what I got up to last week, follow them on Instagram at http://instagram.com/frazer_parfum/ - it's a feast for your eyeballs in there!
Thanks ladies! I left an even bigger fan than when I walked in. *sniffs self*
It's always a good time to go to Paris!
Oui oui mon amour!
Every home needs a couple of pretty bowls around the place!
Happy shopping!
We're eyeballing pretty things on the site this week!
I spy some pretty things!
We're inspired by nature today!
Clickety click!
Things are getting wild over here today!
And then this guy, just because:
Bet you have that stuck in your head now!
Any interior designer will tell you that lighting can make all the difference in a space - so we're helping you find some great options from the site!
Don't stay in the dark! (Awww I know, I'm so lame.)
Team HP loves Design Indaba weekend - it gives us a serious boost of inspiration to kick off the year, allows us to touch base and support our sellers, and maybe meet a couple of new ones. And there are always, always cocktails!
This year was much the same, with some truly beautiful products:
As always, we almost lost Sam to the ceramics aisle (the little bowls guys. The woman can't resist), while I was suffering from a severe bout of fomo from Durban. But all in all, a super fun time. And because a small part of us will never truly grown up, the whole team feels super fancy donning "Buyers" badges.
