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Four years ago a man from a high-end interior design store laughed at Maryka Malano when she shared her dream of creating a unique Tasmanian perfume that showcased the island state. Now she and her partner, Masey, are crafting perfumes in their home in Honeywood, on Greater Hobart’s northern outskirts, using fragrance extraction methods developed by ancient Egyptian alchemists.

The Tasmanian couple have created an organic skincare and perfume range for their beauty brand, Malano, using traditional alchemy techniques of distillation and maceration (soaking aromatic ingredients in a base liquid such as alcohol or oil to extract its fragrance). And Maryka has her sights firmly set on creating a fragrance that captures the scent of Tasmania. 

She strolls around her property’s garden carrying a stainless-steel bowl, selecting native botanicals from various herbs, shrubs, and trees. “The only way I can imagine creating a Tasmanian native floral [scent] is by using what’s on our property and some Tasmanian essential oils,” Maryka says. “It would involve the three extraction processes: distillation, maceration and enfleurage [pressing botanicals into a layer of fat or oil so it can absorb its fragrance] without over-harvesting the plant material. It will be different to any other perfume made in modern times and it won’t be ready until 2028. It will likely only yield 50 to 100 bottles, so will be a limited-release special.” 

That man who laughed at her four years ago told her she’d never put Tasmania on the map for making perfume because the market would always be dominated by European fragrances, mostly from France or Spain, but definitely not Tasmania. Maryka remains undeterred and already knows what the fragrance will smell like. “Did you ever go into the middle of the bush somewhere in Tasmania and get all the heady smells of nature?” That’s the scent she’s going to bottle.


Nature’s ingredients

For thousands of years, nature’s aromatic substances have been carefully selected, extracted, distilled, refined, blended and then contained by perfumers. In the latter half of the 19th century, synthetic substances were introduced into fragrances as a cost-effective alternative to naturally derived ingredients. Today, a handful of perfumers, including Maryka and Masey, have stood firm resisting the allure of these human-made chemicals, choosing to only use ingredients nature has provided. These creatives are crafting stand-alone perfumes that the world’s discerning noses are noticing.

“We make our perfumes the old-fashioned way, based on ancient Egyptian and early French techniques,” Masey says, explaining that the couple make their products by hand, using only naturally derived, high quality, cruelty-free ingredients.

Smoke wafts from a bowl of burning broadleaf sage

Inside the lab, Maryka demonstrates the cold enfleurage ancient Egyptian technique to create scents. Cleopatra VII, the last active ruler of ancient Egypt before it was conquered by Rome, loved roses and geraniums. Her perfume merchant would have applied a technique similar to Maryka’s – extracting the flowers’ fragrances by placing them on a layer of animal fat, albeit in a much thicker and stickier form. 

As Maryka works, she explains that her mother taught her about alchemy – the ancient art of transforming matter, such as minerals or metals, into new forms or substances – when she was 11. She later received an associate degree in life sciences from the University of Tasmania and has since trained with the international fragrance company The Perfume Connection and support organisation PerfumersWorld. She is currently studying for an advanced diploma of naturopathy, with a focus on homeopathy and western herbal medicine.

Donning a pair of purple disposable gloves, Maryka reaches into a white container scooping out handfuls of (solidified) Babassu virgin oil, which is ethically sourced from the Amazon rainforest in eastern Peru. After working on the gooey paste and pressing it into the base of a deep rectangular glass dish, Maryka gently works in the botanicals, explaining she’s careful not to compress the scent molecules. She covers the dish before setting it aside for up to four days for the fat to absorb the various scents. Once the botanicals are depleted, she extracts the infused oil and bottles it. This is repeated another 20 times to provide enough oil to make the ‘Mother Scent’. This process began in November 2023, but the new floral scent won’t be ready until 2027 or 2028. “We cure over long periods, so the oils do their job by maturity, rather than using curing chemicals,” Maryka says. “It’s like ageing a fine whisky.”


A defining moment

Maryka and Masey began experimenting with fragrances in late 2015, when Maryka gifted Masey candle-making equipment for Christmas. “I love candles but was dissatisfied with what was available,” Masey says. “Many candle-makers use chemical stabilisers to give a longer burn time, but chemical stabilisers affect the hot scent throw.” 

While Masey experimented with perfecting the ‘right’ candle, Maryka worked on the scents until an accident in September 2016 altered things. At their home, Maryka fell three metres down a flight of stairs and damaged her spine, which required surgery and a month’s recovery in hospital. Rehabilitation took two years. With time to think during those rehab years, Maryka’s research into the harmful fillers and ingredients used in everyday commercial products such as candles, room sprays and perfumes, set off alarm bells. She was shocked to learn most consumers had no idea about the health impacts of certain chemicals, such as phthalates. After losing her sister to cancer a few years earlier, Masey had shifted towards a more holistic lifestyle. 

Distilling plant clipping from Masey and Maryka's garden
Native mint bush (Prostanthera sp.), which smells like a cross between sage and regular garden mint, is distilled in the alchemical lab distiller.

Following a few deep conversations, the couple decided they’d create their own plant-based products for skin, hair, body and home using only the highest quality ingredients. They established a business plan, discussed product lines and branding and chose Malano as their brand name – a combination of both their maiden surnames, which they had legally changed to Malano in 2012. 

In mid-2018 they launched their first product, an organic hand sanitiser. The following year, they began selling at Hobart’s  Salamanca Markets, where their naturally derived hand sanitiser was a novelty. When COVID arrived in Tasmania in early 2020, the product went gangbusters among the locals. 

Masey is Malano’s creative designer, responsible for the look and feel of the brand. She’s also the chief gardener and has planted more than 400 trees, shrubs and herbs since the couple began candle-making. Even more plants have been added for perfume crafting. “Before creating a new perfume, Masey and I discuss a concept,” Maryka says. “I then develop stories, imagining how the individual oils will work together. Masey leaves the ingredients to me. I do meditation and walk on our land for inspiration. I draft a fragrance pyramid, visualising the aromas. After many months crafting a new scent story, I’ll blend absolutes, essential oils and isolates from botanical materials.”

Masey takes a silver wattle clipping as Maryka takes in the flowers scent at their property in Honeywood, Tasmania

To create a scent, perfumers use top, middle and bass notes. “The top note is a headliner [that] announces, ‘I’m here!’. Usually it’s a citrus or light herb, like a lemon, grapefruit, blood orange, bergamot, mint, sage or basil,” Maryka says. “Headliners are volatile oils – something that’s strong initially, but dies down [or] settles quickly, within five to 20 minutes. On some people it lasts longer, depending on their body’s chemistry. The middle note is the heart that gives soul and brings the bass and the headliner together. The bass is a foundational note.”

Maryka’s fragrance pyramid has four layers. “To add a layer of complexity I use additional notes, an evolving undertone in between the heart and the foundation,” she says. For example, the ‘headliners’ in Malano’s Cigar Vert fragrance are green mint, sage, basil, rosemary and lemon. The less volatile heart is a mix of angelica, coriander, wormwood, juniper, black pepper and lemon verbena. Foundation notes include oak moss, pine needle, balsam and cedarwood. 


Aromatic homage to the Island State

How is the scent of Tasmania likely to be received when Malano ultimately produces its aromatic homage to the island state? Horticulturist Angus Stewart thinks the use of Tasmanian botanicals is significant and is part of a wider movement tapping into the natural botanical bounty of Tasmania.

“People love Tasmania for its natural environment and the essential oil industry is a compatible part of it,” says Angus, who’s been studying Australia’s native botanicals for more than four decades. He’s written several books, taught on the subject, and presented on ABC’s Gardening Australia program for 13 years. He moved from the mainland to Tasmania eight years ago and has a farm on the Tasman Peninsula.

Angus helped a friend, Carey Badcoe, start a business called Pure Oils of Tasmania, which makes essential oils using native Tassie botanicals to create unique aromatic and therapeutic Tasmanian natural oils, free of harmful chemicals.

A bottle containing the beginings of Maryka’s new ‘Tasmanian Scent’ to be released in 2028.

Historically, Tassie’s Indigenous people, like all Australia’s First Nations people, have used a wide variety of native plants, certainly as medicines. “It’s prudent to acknowledge that traditional knowledge from First Nations people, which supplements modern scientific knowledge,” Angus says, revealing that, unfortunately, the mainstream pharmaceutical industry has manipulated that Indigenous holistic relationship with nature. “Pharmaceutical companies have stepped in, isolating active ingredients and distilling them into little pills, which provide a lot of medicines but removes the more holistic aspect of essential oils, using them instead to mix different compounds together.” 

Angus believes there’s untapped potential in native species, such as the Tasmanian blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) and white kunzea (Kunzea ambigua), within the traditional botanical essential oil market. White kunzea not only has potential medical applications but is also used in culinary pursuits, including gin flavouring. He is hopeful various other Tasmanian plant species will be embraced and produced in the state to create further local connections. Perhaps once the world gets to smell what Tasmania has to offer, other opportunities will follow.