The Story of Melis
Melis hand-crafted, natural perfume has been created to literally awaken your senses.
Inspired by Nature.
Natural fragrance has the ability to create complex scent profiles that change in depth and character when in contact with skin. Melis natural perfumes meld with your own natural aroma to create a completely bespoke personal fragrance.
Intricate blends of fine, pure botanical extracts, essential oils, resins and absolutes are carefully curated to not only delight the wearer, but also to soothe the soul and inspire greatness.
Melis has been crafted for those seeking simplicity, beauty and nature’s inherent truth. Our greatest intention is infused into every drop via meditation and crystals to further inspire connection.
The beautiful truth of natural perfume.
Many commercially available, big brand perfumes are made using synthetic fragrances because it allows manufacturers to create memorable, consistent and unusual scents.
But there’s a downside. Perfumes made with synthetic fragrance often contain phthalates, parabens and petrochemicals and given that half the chemical laden products we place on our skin are absorbed directly into our blood stream, those ingredients alone can have a serious impact on our health. Some research suggests that they play havoc with hormone function and can even affect fertility.
By comparison, natural fragrances, derived purely from plants are unlikely to cause problems for the wearer and in fact, can enhance their wellbeing.
Melis fragrances come from botanical species you would likely recognise, including rose geranium, jasmine and even the kaffir lime tree.
Like liquid nectar, they’re created from only pure essential oils and botanical ingredients. They’re a gift directly from Mother Nature.
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty
- that is all ye know on earth,
and all ye need to know.’John Keats
“I think our sense of smell is underutilised. It’s part of our story-telling and how we remember things and it makes sense to use it to provide grounding, focus and clarity.”
Kat Snowden
Meet the Perfumer ~
Kat Snowden
Perfumer, Aromatherapist and Cosmetic chemist Kat Snowden is the artisanal perfumer of Melis’ debut 'Olivia' collection. A self-confessed perfectionist with a generous spirit, Kat is a leading light in the field of natural skincare and perfumery. The exhilaration of experimenting with new combinations of scents and learning the intricate details about the way the individual components interact with each other was enough to lure Kat Snowden to embark on a career as a professional perfumer.
That pursuit has led her to undertake extensive study both locally and abroad, adding to her existing skills making wholesome, all-natural cruelty-free skin care. Her business, Clean Slate, revolves around creating natural scents and skin care products and teaching others about essential oils and perfumery blending techniques.
When Melissa attended one of Kat’s perfumery classes with the intention of developing her own range of scents, the two had an instant connection, so much so that Melissa realised a collaboration was the most obvious way forward.
Kat was impressed by Melissa's personal story and her appreciation of natural perfumery. Melissa's strong idea of the kinds of base notes she wanted incorporated into the collection provided Kat with the desired inspiration and excitement to collaborate.
It took several months to develop the collection with Kat working on the project while she was overseas furthering her studies, being exposed to new fragrances and that experience influenced the end result.
Kat agrees with Melissa’s philosophy that scent is a powerful tool for evoking memory and emotion and she hopes Melis will empower more people to use scent to make better connections with their own personal journey.
The ‘Melis’ Concept
It was never the intention of founder Melissa Italiano, to name her perfume brand after herself, but after many alternative options were considered, her brand designers proposed the name ‘Melis’ after both her name and its derivation from Greek and other languages for 'bee' and 'honey'. After initially declining the suggestion, she sat with it and realised how apt it was.
Melissa explains, “Part of my life’s challenge and journey has been to connect with and allow my feminine side to shine. I have conditioned and patterned myself to be a doer always striving and pushing through life. For a long-time my masculine side dominated my existence, largely because of my upbringing and inability to embrace vulnerability.
Melis is a much softer and more feminine sounding name than Melissa and so honours this journey. Natural perfume helps us nurture and connect with our femininity.”
“Melis is very much a celebration my discovery of different aspects of myself. Energetically, we all have a masculine and feminine side (yin and yang) and these energies need to be balanced and then fuelled in order for us to flow through life and thrive. When one is more dominant than the other it can be more difficult to achieve this flow.”
Journey with Intent
With Intent – Episode 2
Alys Pardoe
Alys Pardoe is a seeker, yogi, teacher, philosopher and so much more. I was intrigued to interview Alys after entering into a deep conversation about the human body, mind and...
With Intent – Episode 1
Amy Carter James
Amy Carter James is a global leader in sustainable tourism, having won every global award of note after founding, owning, and operating an eco boutique hotel in remote Mozambique, which...
Experiencing the Melis range of perfume for the first time was like stepping into heaven.