Sana Jardin is the first socially conscious, luxury perfume house with a grand mission to be a vehicle for social change and economic empowerment of women. As its latest fragrance, Jaipur Chant, is released at Liberty London, we spoke to founder Amy Christiansen Si-Ahmed about the inspiration behind the business.
What inspired you to launch Sana Jardin?
I wanted to demonstrate an alternative business model that illustrates that we can use luxury business to create social change. We can do this by being creative with the use of waste and re-distributing it to the people at the base of the supply chain to economically empower them.
What are your sustainable priorities for the brand?
To deepen our social impact work in Morocco so that the women in the co-operative receive more financial benefits and to scale it. I also want to replicate our social impact model to other regions where we source our flowers for perfume like India and Indonesia.
How has your eco strategy developed as you have grown?
We have reduced our use of plastic, removed some animal products from our fragrances and are developing a new product that will further enhance the co-operative women’s economic benefit.
How challenging has it been to maintain your eco principles?
We are constantly looking to evolve and refine and improve our business practices – but I would not call that a challenge – it is a passion.
Do you feel pressure from your customers to be more eco?
In general, we have wonderful feedback from our customers that say they love our ethos and quality of perfumes. However, we do receive some feedback that we could work harder to minimise our packaging, which is something we are in the process of finding a solution for.
What advice would you give to anyone hoping to launch a sustainable business?
Look to the supply chain to find a way to help empower those workers, potentially with upcycled waste from the product development.
Which other sustainable businesses have inspired you?
Warby Parker, Tata Harper, LXMI
What have been the main prohibitors to your progress in building a sustainable business?As a former social worker who worked in the non-profit sector, learning a new skillset has been very challenging. Because we are based in London, managing the day to day overseas operations in Morocco has been challenging due to the distance but we are working hard to build more efficient practices.
What have been your biggest milestones and triumphs until now?
Launching on Net-A-Porter has been our biggest triumph and a dream come true!
To learn more visit sanajardin.com
Want to know more about the world of natural perfumes? Read our guide here.