August 19, 2016
An Iranian-American woman is seeking to market a new type of perfume—one whose ingredients shoppers can choose themselves and have mixed to their specifications.
Shaghayegh Farsijani, founder of Desert35, is now trying to raise capital to put her vision on the market.
She calls it a “customizable line of fragrances.”
Farsijani is also marketing a perfume called Unrestricted, which she said bridges the gap between American and Iranian culture.
“This new project by Desert35 took a simple idea and ran with it, by allowing customers to design their very own fragrances which are then … sent directly to customers’ houses. The resulting service promises to revolutionize fragrance culture,” she said.
Farsijani argued that the idea is “virtually guaranteed” to be a success because “scent is one of the most personal and important aspects of how a person presents himself or herself to others.
“But even though our fragrances are such a significant part of our impressions, customers normally have to pick from pre-designed scents that may not suit their personality at all. Well, now customers can fully realize their unique and individual style with a customized fragrance that reflects their personality and energy.”
Farsijani said she got the idea in Iran where many women create their own perfumes as a way to express themselves.
To help pay for the production costs associated with creating the new perfumes, the founder of Desert35 recently launched a fundraiser on Indiegogo. She hopes to raise $45,000 through crowdfunding, which will help pay for marketing, oils and bottling costs.
Desert35 is based in New York City. Farsijani is American-born but worked in Iran for a while as a reporter and anchor for PressTV, state broadcasting’s English language outlet.
After returning to the United States, she decided to make her own perfume, Unrestricted, and then to allow customers to mix their own scents.
On the website, clients will choose their gender, the character and oils to capture their own feelings and moods or a particular scene that Desert35 will mix and mail.
Farsijani said,’“The sense of smell is the fastest working sense of all five senses and can change the way you feel in the blink of an eye.”
