Sasha Lord | LORDS Fragrance House

Women to Watch | Beauty Founders

Sasha Lord: Founder of LORDS Fragrance House, Sasha Lord explores how travel, memory and emotion have shaped her modern fragrance brand.

“Fragrance isn’t just a product. It’s an emotion, a memory and storytelling.” – Sasha Lord

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Some of our strongest memories aren’t captured in photographs. They’re carried in scent.

A walk through citrus groves on the Amalfi Coast. The earthy calm of a forest after rainfall. The unmistakable freshness of ocean air drifting through an open window. For Sasha Lord, founder of LORDS Fragrance House, these moments have become the foundation of a brand that invites us to experience the world through fragrance.

Inspired by her travels and a lifelong fascination with the emotional connection between scent and memory, Sasha launched LORDS to bring something refreshingly different to the home fragrance market. At a time when many interiors embraced muted tones and minimalism, she introduced vibrant colour, playful design and fragrances that celebrate adventure, personality and joy.

Every collection is handcrafted in Oxfordshire, translating destinations, memories and everyday rituals into scents that encourage people to create homes that feel as individual as they are. It’s an approach that proves fragrance isn’t simply something we wear or light at the end of the day. It has the power to transform how we feel, how we remember and how we experience the spaces around us.

As part of Darling Magazine’s Women to Watch | Beauty Founders series, we spoke to Sasha about building a fragrance house inspired by travel, embracing creativity and why scent has become one of the most personal forms of self-expression.

“The excitement became bigger than the fear, so I went for it.”

1. Tell us about yourself. Who are you outside of your business?

I’m Sasha, founder of LORDS Fragrance House, a self-confessed collector of beautiful things and a lover of good food, colourful interiors and passport stamps. As a travel obsessive with a love of nature, outside of work you’ll usually find me planning my next trip. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the most incredible places around the world, including Yellowstone National Park, the Amalfi coast, Monteverde cloud forest in Costa Rica and the San Ignacio Lagoon in Mexico. The aromas and the memories from there is what has inspired my brand today.  But you will also find me walking my dog in the Oxfordshire countryside, hosting friends, reading with a scented candle burning or hunting down the best local restaurant. I’m someone who finds a huge amount of joy in the little rituals that make everyday life feel special.

2. When did you first realise beauty was going to become part of your career?

I’ve always been fascinated by fragrance and the way aromas can instantly transport you somewhere else. When I started working in scent innovation, development and branding it showed me that fragrance isn’t just a product – it’s an emotion, a memory and storytelling. That was the moment I realised this wasn’t just a job, I was interested and curious and it was something I really wanted to build a career around.

3. What problem were you trying to solve when you launched your brand?

I felt the home fragrance industry had become quite beige, serious and often inaccessible. I wanted to create a brand that brought together beautiful fragrance with vibrant colour, personality and joy. LORDS was built on the idea that scent should feel fun, uplifting and deeply personal, and that your home should reflect your individuality and smell like the life you want to live. I’ve channelled my passionate creativity into crafting something I feel is different and unique.

4. Was there a defining moment where you thought:

“I’m actually going to do this.”

There wasn’t one dramatic moment, more a growing feeling that if I didn’t do it, I’d regret it. The pandemic gave many people the opportunity to rethink what they wanted from life and work, and for me that became LORDS. Eventually the excitement became bigger than the fear so I went for it!

5. What has been the biggest challenge you’ve overcome as a founder?

Learning to wear every hat imaginable. Founder, creator, marketeer, accountant, customer service team, photographer and packer all at once. Evolving from a kitchen table business into a growing retail and wholesale brand has required a huge amount of resilience and adaptability and I face new challenges every day! Also, I’ve realised through this process that you have to be authentic and stay true to what you personally feel and believe is right for your brand.

6. What’s one thing people assume about running a beauty brand that simply isn’t true?

That it’s all candles, photoshoots and pretty packaging. The reality is spreadsheets, cashflow forecasts, logistics issues, supplier delays and solving problems you never saw coming. People also massively underestimate just how much of your personal life you have to give up to build a business. You think being your own boss would mean you can choose your hours, but in reality you go from doing 8 hour days to working morning noon and night. Your weekends disappear and your brain never really switches off. You’re answering emails at 10pm, packing orders on Sundays and mentally writing tomorrow’s to-do list while trying to have dinner with friends. It’s incredibly rewarding, but it’s also all-consuming in a way people don’t always see from the outside.

“Your home should reflect your individuality and smell like the life you want to live.”

7. What does success mean to you today compared to when you first started?

At the beginning success was growth and stockists. Those things still matter hugely, but today success looks much more like building a business that reflects my values, creates jobs, supports independent retailers and gives customers moments of joy in their everyday lives.

8. How do you look after your own wellbeing while running a business?

I’m still learning. Running a business can consume every hour if you let it. Walking the dog, spending time with friends, travelling and protecting little moments of quiet have become really important to me. And that’s where scent plays a huge role. Lighting a candle at the end of the day is one of the simplest ways I signal to myself that work is finished. The scent that I choose can have a big effect on my mood. For example, Yellowstone instantly grounds me with its wild blend of eucalyptus, sagebrush, earthy orris and oakmoss, Positano is so uplifting with a bright citrus blend of bergamot, pomelo and mint leaves.  Or if I simply want to wind down my Travel to Dreamland collection is packed full of essential oils that aid relaxation

The Brand

9. Which product best represents your brand and why?

Without question, our bright pink, sparkling Disco Ball Diffuser! It perfectly captures everything LORDS stands for: beautiful fragrance that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The home fragrance world can often feel minimal and neutral, whereas we’ve always believed scent should spark joy and make you smile every time you walk into a room. This diffuser brings together playful design, incredible fragrance and a little bit of escapism, which is exactly what the brand is all about.

10. If somebody had never heard of your brand before, what would you want them to know?

LORDS is a British, female-founded fragrance house creating colourful, scented home and body products inspired by best loved places, happy memories and incredible moments around the world. Everything is locally made in Oxfordshire and designed to bring joy to interiors and everyday rituals that feel truly special. You can ‘travel through scent’ as you move through your home, building a fragrance story and that reflects or enhances your individual ‘room moods’ which is a deeply personal way to live with scent. 

11. What are you most proud of building?

An incredible community around the brand. Seeing customers come back year after year, gift our products to friends and family, and telling us that a fragrance reminds them of a holiday, a person, a memory or a particular chapter of their life, is truly special.

12. What’s next? Any launches, projects, collaborations or dreams?

We’re continuing to expand our home and body collections, growing our wholesale presence and investing in refillable products and more sustainable solutions. I’ll also continue to collaborate with other local female founders and I see that passionate and talented community growing. Longer term, I’d love to bring the same colourful, travel-inspired approach into fine fragrance and perfume. That’s always been the dream.

“Every purchase genuinely matters. You’re supporting real people, real stories and real communities.”

Darling

Complete this sentence…

“Beauty means…”

….creating scent moments of joy in the everyday.

Complete this sentence…

“The one thing I wish every woman knew is…”

That you don’t have to have everything figured out before you start. Confidence builds and often arrives after the leap. So be bold, take chances and go for it! 

Why do you think women should continue supporting independent beauty founders?

Because every purchase genuinely matters. Independent founders bring creativity, innovation and personality to the industry in a way large corporations often can’t. When you purchase from an independent brand, you’re supporting real people, real stories and real communities. They bring emotional connections in unexpected ways which ultimately mean so much more. 

• Travel has inspired many of your fragrances. Is there one destination that completely changed the way you think about scent?

My trip to Positano on the Amalfi coast in Italy completely changed the way I felt about fragrance. I remember walking through tiny streets where the aroma of citrus trees, herbs growing in window boxes and the sea air hit me all at once. It made me realise that the most memorable scents are often unexpectedly layered with a host of inspiring ingredients rather than singular notes.

• Home fragrance has become an important part of wellbeing. How can scent transform the way we feel in our homes?

The choice of scent can change the atmosphere of a space in an instant because it’s directly connected to memory and emotion. One fragrance can make a home feel calm, another will energise, or certain notes can make it feel cosy or uplifting within minutes. We decorate our homes visually, with colours and fabrics so why not ‘scent decorate’ it so it comes a place that is emotionally connected to you and your wellbeing.

• If you could bottle the essence of one place you’ve visited, where would it be and why?

It would definitely be Big Sur on the Californian Central Coast. Wanting to capture the essence of best loved destinations is exactly why I do blends based on the memories of my wonderful trips. The mix of eucalyptus, cedarwood, ocean air and sunshine felt almost unreal and it’s one of those places that stays with you long after you’ve left.

Quick Fire

Favourite book? Lonely planet guides.

Morning or night? Night.

Coffee or tea? Tea.

One beauty product you couldn’t live without?  Hair straighteners. My hair is mental.

Favourite place to travel?
Costa Rica has been my all-time favourite country to visit. Just incredible landscape, animals, food and kind people.

One piece of advice for aspiring founders?

Start before you feel ready. You’ll learn more in six months of doing than six years of planning.

Listening to Sasha, it’s impossible not to think differently about fragrance.

Rather than viewing scent as a finishing touch, she invites us to see it as part of the way we experience everyday life, shaping memories, influencing mood and transforming our homes into places that tell our own stories.

That philosophy runs through every aspect of LORDS Fragrance House. From travel-inspired collections to colourful designs that challenge convention, Sasha has created a brand that feels optimistic, expressive and deeply personal.

As she continues to expand into new collections, refillable products and, one day, fine fragrance, it’s clear that her greatest inspiration will always remain the same: creating moments of joy that linger long after the scent itself has faded.

Visit: LORDS Fragrance House