I went to the Geelong Fragrance Fair excited to smell a lot of perfume, meet a heap of people that I hadn't met before and a bit nervous about being on the Saturday morning panel!

In the end, while the panel was fun and sniffing new things even more fun, the incredible people made the event.

The 2026 Geelong Fragrance Fair brought together 29 independent perfumers and artisan makers from Australia and New Zealand at Deakin University’s Waterfront Campus. The Saturday was incredibly busy. Sunday was quieter, and I actually loved that because it gave me more time to talk properly with people. Geelong Fragrance Fair

The atmosphere across the weekend was brilliant. Upbeat, welcoming and full of people who genuinely love fragrance.

For me, a lot of those people were familiar before we had ever actually met.

I’d followed their joureney on social media. Spoken to them on the phone. Interviewed them. Tried their fragrances. Shared their work. Chatted with them on Instagram. Heard the stories behind what they were making.

So there was something really special about finally being in the same room.

I got to meet Aysha in person after having spoken so much about her work. Katrina from Archer Farrar. Carly from Yalana. Con from Thematikos. Corey from Criminal Elements. Emily from Element Experimental Aroma Lab in New Zealand. Candace from Pearl Perfumery. Kristy from Hello Stranger. And many, many more.

Some were people I already knew well online.

Others were completely new discoveries.

And then there were fragrance lovers I’d never met before who had followed my content, commented on videos or shared things I’d made.

That was probably my favourite part of the whole weekend.

Fragrance is better with the story attached

One of the things the fair reinforced for me is how much the person, the place and the story matter.

I obviously love smelling fragrances.

But I’m just as interested in why someone created it.

What were they trying to capture?

Was it a place? A person? A memory? A mood? An occasion?

That context changes the experience for me.

It’s also why events like this are so different from simply walking into a store and smelling twenty bottles.

You’re often standing there with the person who made the fragrance.

You can ask them why they used something. Where an idea came from. What they wanted it to feel like.

That human part of fragrance is probably what I enjoy most.

It was particularly fun seeing people launch or preview new work.

Grimoire had new releases to explore. Hello Stranger was showing Mango Please, a bright tropical fragrance built around yuzu, mango, pineapple, osmanthus, coconut and soft musk. Hello Stranger Fragrances

And everywhere you looked, someone seemed to be handing you something new to smell.

Which, admittedly, becomes slightly dangerous after about fragrance number 47.

Being part of the panel

I was also lucky enough to be part of the A First Sniff: An Exploration with Experts panel on Saturday morning.

The idea was to help people navigate a fair with 29 makers and a lot of perfume.

I joined writer Miccaeli Champness and Dr Liam Sardea, with Cressida Wall from the Olfactive Society moderating.

I have to admit to feeling like an imposter..

Miccaeli and Liam have an extraordinary depth of knowledge. Liam brings an academic background to fragrance as well as experience working with brands, so I certainly wasn’t there pretending to be the technical expert in the room.

My contribution was much more straightforward.

Here are the things I’ve smelled.

Here are the things I enjoyed.

And if you like this sort of fragrance, maybe go and try this.

We talked through different starting points. Summer fragrances. Spring fragrances. Australian-inspired scents. Fragrances for going out. Different styles and moods.

It was great fun, and probably reflected the way I like talking about fragrance anyway.

You don’t necessarily need to know everything about perfumery to know when something makes you feel something.

Creativity matters more to me than wearability

The weekend also reinforced something about my own taste.

I really like creativity.

That doesn’t mean I personally need to wear every interesting perfume I smell.

Sometimes I just appreciate that somebody made something different.

Something with a point of view.

Something where you can tell the creator was trying to say something.

That’s a big part of what I want Scent Assembly to celebrate.

Australian and New Zealand independent fragrance is incredibly diverse, and the community around it is similarly inclusive.

What I particularly love is how supportive the creators are of one another.

There isn’t a sense that someone else doing well takes anything away from you.

People celebrate each other.

That matters to me.

And it’s very much the spirit I want Scent Assembly to have as well: helping more people discover these brands and hopefully lifting the whole scene rather than treating it like a competition.

Five fragrances I loved

I smelled far too many things across the weekend to cover them all here, but these were five that really stayed with me.

Poseidon — Thematikos

I ended up buying a bottle of this one.

Poseidon is exactly the sort of fresh fragrance I enjoy. It has that blue, citrusy, aromatic, seaside feel, but it’s much more interesting than a generic aquatic.

Sea salt, lime and mint give it that immediate freshness, while ginger, vetiver, sandalwood, cedarwood and marine musk give it more texture underneath. THEMATIKOS

What I liked most was the balance.

You get the saltiness. You get the citrus. You get the oceanic feel.

But nothing dominates.

It just feels really well put together.

Journal — Valence

Journal was one of the fragrances that made me stop.

Valence is a Brisbane fragrance house, and Journal sits within its four-fragrance collection alongside First Light, Fireside Reserve and Torchwood. Valence Lab

For me, Journal is this beautiful grown-up combination of tonka, vanilla and tobacco.

There’s sweetness there, but it doesn’t feel juvenile.

There’s earthiness and depth as well.

It’s rich, polished and beautifully constructed.

This was also one of those occasions where meeting Valentin and hearing more about the brand made the fragrance even more interesting.

1985 — Element Experimental Aroma Lab

Element was one of my great new discoveries of the fair.

The brand comes from Aotearoa New Zealand and is the work of perfumer and artist Emily van Oosterom, whose fragrances are built around memories, lived experience and olfactive storytelling. Element Experimental Aroma Lab

1985 was actually my wife’s favourite fragrance of the entire event.

Emily kindly gifted me a small bottle and it’s beautiful.

Fresh, bright, floral and just slightly sweet.

It has this joyful quality to it.

One of those fragrances that feels immediately easy to like without being boring.

Tiger Rouge — Byermia

This was probably one of the most distinctive fragrances I discovered.

Tiger Rouge is spicy, bold and very red in character.

Black pepper, paprika, pimento, blood orange and lemon myrtle lead into cinnamon, clove, frankincense, oud, vetiver and cypriol, before rose, cherry, pomegranate and mineral notes emerge later. Byermia Fragrance

And somehow that all makes sense when you smell it.

What impressed me most was that it held onto its character through the wear.

Some very spicy fragrances become increasingly dry and woody as they settle.

Tiger Rouge doesn’t really do that.

It maintains this robustness and colour all the way through.

I liked it enough that I bought a bottle after the fair.

Pardis — HART + HEDI

Pardis was another beautiful surprise.

It was created by HART + HEDI with The Social Outfit for its Garden Mosaic Spring Collection and was inspired by the feeling of being among the glasshouses of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden. HART + HEDI

There’s spring rain, lotus and fruit in the opening, followed by jasmine, rose moss and boronia, with mitti attar, ruh khus and sandalwood underneath. HART + HEDI

For me, though, it’s much simpler than that.

It feels bright.

Fresh.

Floral.

Happy.

There’s a lovely citrus-like lift in the opening and everything feels beautifully balanced.

It also wears as very unisex to me.

Just a really lovely fragrance.

People first, perfume second

If I took anything away from the Geelong Fragrance Fair, it was probably that.

I went because I love perfume.

I came away thinking mostly about the people.

The creators.

The other fragrance lovers.

The people I’d known online and finally got to meet properly.

And the new people I discovered because I happened to stop at their table and smell something interesting.

That, for me, is what makes this part of the fragrance world so much fun.

There are always more things to smell.

But the stories and the people behind them are what make you remember them.

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