Justine Crane Perfume and  Founder ot The Scented Djinn

Profile: I was born in Fowler, California; a small rural town south of Fresno. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, from Fresno to Sonora to Merced back to Fresno and then to Texas. When I was 13 we made our way back to California and smack in the middle of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at a logging camp. It was there, in those mountains, that my love of scent was awakened. The mountains have always smelled like home to me with their scents of warm pine bark, pine resin, beds of crackly dry pine needles, and mountain misery. I made my first ‘perfume’ while living up there, a combination of tree saps and resins, fresh pine needles, red Manzanita blossoms, dried elderberries, and fragrant bushy thyme that grew over the fence near our cabin.

Justine at age 4

I’d make sappy spheres of this wild incense and throw them on the flat iron of the hot pot belly stove in the kitchen and watch the spheres sizzle and pop and release a concentrated version of ‘my mountains’ into the air. I learned a lot about hard work and nature living in those mountains – picking and preserving wild blackberries, elderberries and gooseberries, learning to make wine, growing a vegetable and herb garden while fighting off hungry deer, learning the difference between bear and mountain lion tracks, and splitting wood. It was rough, but it was one of the best times of my life. 

I married young and began to raise a family in a more urban setting than my wild upbringing, and things fell into routine with little time left to do anything other than to care for them. Then in the 90’s, within a year of my last child’s birth, I began to get the creative itch again. I’ve always been a self-starter. I taught myself to sew, cook, and knit while still very young. I taught myself how to quilt in my 20’s, and even built my own quilting frame based on one I’d seen at my grandmother’s house years before, so it goes without saying that I taught myself about natural perfumery as well. By the time natural perfumery found me, I was already knee deep into the creating of hedonistic body care – natural handmade soap and body oils, bath fizzies, and massage oils – all naturally scented. With the help of a business partner, I opened a brick and mortar shop and we began selling these wares. Around that time, a few friends and I decided to form a study group online to learn more about traditional perfumery using Jean Carles’ techniques found in a huge coffee table book called Perfume written by William I. Kaufman. It took a year of daily training and encouragement between us before we felt we were ready to start making and selling natural perfumes.

Perfume by William  I Kaufman

People often ask what my favorite raw material is to work with, and the longer I create perfume, the harder this question is to answer. I’ve come to adore scents that in the beginning of my perfume journey seemed nauseating. Valerian concrete, for example, is absolutely stunning. Jasmines were never a favorite, but I’ve become almost obsessively enamored with jasmine sambac concrete. And I didn’t understand tuberose at all until I received an exceptional example of the extract, and now I’m completely in love with the stuff. In the 90’s, my answer to this question would have been a nice aged dark patchouli, hands down. Today that question gets answered with a tangent.

There was a period of time from about 2006 to 2009 that I focused primarily on natural perfume and allowed the natural body care line to slip away. I created a lot perfume during those years, but I was also pretty miserable. It wasn’t until I started the body care line again using all the perfumery skills I’d learned over the years that things really started falling into place. I also learned about distillation, bought a copper still, and began creating some of the raw materials I use in my perfumes and other wares. Creating perfumer from the beginning, from the planting of the seed, to the tending of the plant, to the harvesting of the leaves, blossoms and berries has been some of the most creatively fulfilling work I’ve ever done.

The Scented Djinn Perfumes are made in small batches and hand crafted

My business model is very nontraditional, and I catch a lot of flak for that. Nearly everything I create is limited edition, so if a regular client loves what they got from the shop, most are wise enough now to know they had better get more before it is gone because there probably will not be an opportunity in the future to do so. Which is why the bulk of my work is in custom perfume composing. It’s challenging and really gives me an opportunity to flex my creative muscle.  I absolutely love creating perfumes that no one else but this specific person will ever use.

Justine Crane at Her Organ

On American Perfumery: Americans are mavericks when it comes to new ideas and new technologies, so it shouldn’t’ come as a surprise to anyone that Americans would take the horns of natural, niche, and indie perfumery and shake them for all their worth. Americans are courageous and audacious in our thinking toward the time honored tradition of perfumery, and we’ve managed to make something of our own from it. I’m willing to bet that fifteen years ago, no one in the American natural, niche, and indie perfumery scene would have predicted that so many American perfumers of every ilk would be treading American soil, or that a prestigious award group like the IAO (The Institute for Art and Olfaction) would be born here and offering opportunities for all types of perfumers to interact without restriction. These are exciting times for perfumers in America.

Loie Fuller & The Serpentine Dance Photo Julie Lemberger

Favorite American Artist: My favorite artist is dancer Loïe Fuller. She was a maverick in her day (1862-1928), pulled up by her bootstraps out of American burlesque and vaudeville onto the stages of Paris and into the parlors of royalty. She was considered the ‘embodiment of the art nouveau movement’ in France; setting her stages with costumes and lighting she invented herself (she held several patents for lighting techniques). Her dance style was free form and fluid and this holds a particular fascination for me since I consider my own work in perfumery to be the same – non-conformist, coloring outside of the lines, free form and fluid.

Justine Crane, Perfumer and Founder of The Scented Djinn

Thanks to Justine we have a draw for our US registered readers of their choice of  Serg Eau de Parfum, Oshiba Extrait, Khodum Eau de Parfum, WardiParfum Extrait, Parma Extrait  or Modhlim. If you would prefer a sampler that is available as well.  To be eligible please leave a comment with what you found fascinating about Justine’s path to perfumery, and what your choice of fragrance is. Draw ends 11/23/205.

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