Tonya Kidd-Beggs, creator of STORIES Parfums

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name is Tonya and I'm the Founder and CEO of Stories Parfums. We are Northern Ireland's

00:07very first luxury niche fragrance brand and we are launching right here in the Guladn

00:14Hotel. So we are a luxury niche brand, we are gender inclusive, we have sustainability

00:21at the core of our brand. So we, at the moment, have Stories No. 1 and Stories No. 2. They

00:27come in three sizes, the 100ml, the 30ml and the 15ml and they are all refillable or

00:34you can send back to us to refill. We have also launched into a luxury body line with

00:41our hand and body wash and lotion, which is full of botanical ingredients. It's got cocoa

00:46butter, shea butter, marula seed oil, argan oil, all very good nutrient rich botanical

00:53ingredients. And then we are also the first in the industry to have created a refillable

00:59candle line, which comes from our top, heart and base notes of our signature scents. And

01:06these, as you can see, have been broken down into the top notes, heart notes and base notes.

01:13This can be burnt together or separately, which will actually give you that lovely scent

01:18layering effect from your body and from the luxury perfumes and the hand and body line.

01:24And then you can bring it into the home with your candles.

01:28Can you tell me a little bit about how your business began?

01:31Yes, it all began with my own story, actually. It was a hobby. I went to Grasse in the south

01:38of France and I decided I wanted to learn about the art of perfumery. It was during

01:42this time that I realized the power of fragrance to connect to our own stories. I had had trauma

01:48in my life when I was about 12. I sadly had no childhood memories prior to the trauma.

01:54And it was only after I started working just over six years ago in Grasse in France that

02:00I was able to connect to my good childhood memories and prior to the trauma. So when

02:06I learned this, the power of scent in our own lives, I decided I wanted to launch a

02:11brand to tell people about how to connect with their own story through the power of

02:15scent, but also teach them how to wear fragrance, the top notes, heart notes, base notes, and

02:24teach them a little bit more about the art of perfumery and their own story.

02:29And how do you expect customers in Northern Ireland to identify with the brand now? It's

02:35not something perhaps they have heard of before?

02:38Yeah. So basically we are a gender inclusive. We are a luxury niche brand. So all of our

02:45notes are sourced very high end ingredients from across the world. So packed in one fragrance

02:53is over 20 cents. It's all about identifying being gender inclusive. It's an inclusive

02:59brand. It's sustainable. We're the one of the first in the industry to have brought

03:03luxury and sustainability together. We're multi award winning. We've won the Marie

03:08Claire UK over the last four years for best sustainable fragrance brand. So the fact that

03:14we are competing with the top beauty and fragrance brands in the world, and we're based here

03:20right in Northern Ireland is incredible. So hopefully as we grow and expand and bring

03:24out new fragrances, we'll become more well known within Northern Ireland.