Leanne Hirsh of PERFUMERA CURANDERA photo by Nina Choi

 Profile: My earliest scent memories are of low grey skies full of rain over the garden of my North London home in England. As kids visiting our Grandfather, we would try to lift the different size leather medicine balls –as we dropped them trying to avoid our toes, the odor of aged leather, dust, ancient cobwebs and plant fertilizer permeated the dusty shed. His adjoining garage/wood workshop was fresh with cedar shavings and sawdust.  My father is a jeweler and collector of Antiques. I loved accompanying him to his store in the East End of London, a place rich in culture and times gone by, the smell of the walnut wooden cabinets with lemon-scented polish mingled with the velvet and leather of old jewelry boxes, ivory and precious metals.

Leanne Hirsh of PERFUMERA CURANDERA and her mum

My mother’s deep love affair with the fashionable Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent became mine too. Its iconic black, blue, and silver atomizer. Growing up in London I gained a rich cultural backdrop that informed all aspects of my life. As a child my interest in health and wellness was encouraged by my mother. She was a dedicated yoga practitioner who took me to classes as a young teen. In my twenties, I began my career as a makeup artist and began traveling globally. Due to the physical demands of the business and lifestyle I began seeking alternative healing modalities such as Chinese Herbal Medicine, Acupuncture, and Shiatsu. In London, I worked with an aromatherapy practitioner who taught me Tai Chi (that I still practice to this day) and the importance of essential oils which helped to balance my chaotic lifestyle. This knowledge led to me to collecting my first essential oils, resins and absolutes as I continued travelling for my work as a makeup artist, now with a new purpose. From there on I found myself seeking rich, raw aromatics such as when I encountered my first Egyptian perfumery in the center of Cairo where I bought my first pure rose oil. From there my lifelong passion for natural scent and botanical healing remedies took off and I haven’t looked back since.

Leanne Hirsh with Anne Bancroft and George Hurell Malibu  1990

Since moving to California in the early 90’s, America has been my home base for over 3 decades where I married, raised a family, and started two businesses. In 1991 I became certified to teach Ashtanga Yoga where I taught in a small studio in West Hollywood, whilst also juggling my make up career for many of the actors of the day from Anne Bancroft to Jack Nicholson, and having lots of fun along the way. We moved to NYC our new base for the next 15 years. I married my husband in 1995 in Anguilla – a small island in The British West Indies that I had been on location many times for jobs which inspired our celebration.

In 1998, right before my son Noah was born, I launched an all Natural Seaweed /Aromatherapy based Skincare line called ‘Hirsh Skincare’ that was featured in press all over the world and carried in 45 stores within the first 2 years.  I worked on the line with a natural formulator who specialized in Seaweed where I learned about efficacy of the natural elements on skin. From the experience, I did all the marketing myself, pre internet – taking samples to all the editors or stores whilst heavily pregnant, carting my rolling suitcase I gave away half my inventory to models, photographers, and editors – my line became a quick cult classic. Bergdorf Goodman in NYC was the first NY store to carry “Hirsh Skincare” which was considered very prestigious, from there things blossomed. As a new mother and busy Make Up Artist, I learned the very hard realities of running a small business from home in a 6th floor walk up in Tribeca without a team or infrastructure, and I realized it was too much me to handle solo. Then on 9.11.2001 tragedy occurred in my neighborhood, TriBeCa. We were instantly displaced for the next few months. I lost my drive which was later diagnosed as PTSD causing me to take a break from running my skincare business to focus more fully on healing, motherhood, and my makeup career.

PERFUMERA CURANDERA packaging and bottles

In 2005 after the birth of our daughter, we finally left the city to raise our family in the small Artists enclave of Woodstock, NY in the Catskill Mountains. Yearly we travelled to visit my husband’s family in Peru and began to study Shamanism with Amazonian and Andean traditional healers known as Curandero(a)s. The shaman we learned from would prescribe certain plants that we would diet with over several days consuming very little food while the plants worked their healing magic. This prepared us to partake in many transformative, healing ceremonies that we would experience during our travel there. In the early years, my husband started to bring groups from the US to the Amazon jungle to work with the shamans, which we continued to do for the next 20 years, teaching the next generation of the healing power of plants. Introduction to the scent of Piri Piri, a sacred root and traditional tribal medicine, became the inspiration for the entire line of my Healing Perfumes known as PERFUMERA CURANDERA.

* The fragrant roots of Piri Piri, an Amazonian Sedge Grass that grows in marshy areas near the water, is used in potions for bringing love and abundance as well as made into eyedrops put into the eyes of babies to give clearer vision and is healing and balancing for all cycles of womens lives.

Formulation started in 2008 but official launch of PERFUMERA CURANDERA wouldn’t happen for several years until 2015 when it all became real with the creation of my professional website.

PERFUMERA CURANDERA Luna 5ml pure perfume extrait with notes of pink lotus, jasmine, sandalwood, piri piri, vetiver, palo santo, grapefruit and anis.

Sacred aromatic ingredients, for example are at the very core of my perfumes. They have a vibrational quality that has captivated me since the first time I smelled their essence which I hope transports people when they wear my scents.

 

PERFUMERA CURANDERA on display at Assembly NY

Since 2018 I have focused more on building PERFUMERA CURANDERA I cut back on my make up work to a few celebrity clients, like Jada Pinkett Smith otherwise, my focus is entirely on the perfumes.  Coming from the narrowness of my British upbringing to the wide openness of California’s golden light, big skies, high deserts, mountains and canyons was a revelatory mind opening experience. For me California symbolizes the freedom of the West, New Frontiers, a place of expansiveness, and infinite possibilities. I love the LA juxtaposition urban life and nature, like my home in the canyon, with wild birds, exotic cats, creepy reptiles, and even wild ringtail lemurs in these mountains.

Leanne at Mercado Sagrado

My exhilaration the first time in the High Desert of Joshua Tree National Park and on subsequent road trips through the South West Four Corners opened up something deep inside: a wildness, true freedom I had longed for but never known. Daily hikes are how I ground, relax, and gather local plants for tinctures that go into my unique medicinal potions for perfumes.

 

Leanne at her Perfume Organ photo Nina Choi

On American Perfumery: I am thankful to be an Independent American perfumer, where I have personal and professional freedom. It would be more challenging to achieve success as a self-taught perfumer in Europe with their strict protocols and history of tradition. My choice to work solely with Natural Botanicals feels freeing, very American, dare I say brave. Many perfumers find a natural palette far too limiting – I though feel a deep relationship with the materials that evokes a sense of joy in me and the wearer. Perfuming is a unique journey, a deeply intuitive process through which I express, capture, and convey the magical essence of the natural world.

 Lemon Tree and Leanne Hirsh

Going forward in these challenging times of corporatization, my desire is to be hands on with my materials when possible, to hire and train my own apprentices, and to help keep making in small batches as I do now with a limited run of 100 bottles at a time. When time and space allow, my dream is to someday learn the art of distillation.

 

Tony Vaccaro’s photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe with “Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow” in 1960. (Courtesy Tony Vaccaro Studio)

Favorite American Artist: Georgia O Keefe.  Her strength, graphic modern use of form, colour palette, and her connection to the Natural World (Landscape, Light and Colour of the South West) has shaped my own artistry. She eventually settled out West where she embodied radical freedom, a Spirit so palpable in her work, which reminds me of my own journey.

Leanne Hirsh, Botanical perfumer for PERFUMERA CURANDERA

PERFUMERA CURANDERA photo Marc Royce

Thanks to PERFUMERA CURANDERA we have a draw of for a registered reader ANYWHERE IN THE WOLRD of a choice of three 2ml mini roll of perfumes OR one 5ml Bottle of perfume of choice (from available stock). To enter the draw, you must be a registered reader. Please leave a comment with what you found fascinating about Leanne Hirsh’s path to perfumery, which  EXACT perfume/s you would choose should you win and where you live. Draw closes  9/22/20

Leanne Hirsh of PERFUMERA CURANDERA is our 155th in our American perfumer series, which officially began in 2001 with Dawn Spencer Hurwitz of DSH Perfumes.

All photos belong to PERFUMERA CURANDERA unless otherwise noted

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Personal note: I first heard of PERFUMERA CURANDERA on @everdandysilverfox  Instagram feed. PERFUMERA CURANDERA Luna and Jungle Rose Mariiri are two he especially loves.-Michelyn

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