ABOUT OUR PERFUMER SARAH MCCARTNEY

Born within the sound of the North Sea crashing on Saltburn beach. 75% Teesside, 25% Cockney. Boro supporter, yoga teacher, clarinettist, and writer of books. Guilty pleasures: playing on the swings at the park, red lipstick, cosy crime novels, craft beer, Eurostar. 

As a child, I did not make perfumes from rose petals. That was for softies. I made magic spells and wanted to be a witch when I grew up. When I was 16 I bought a bottle of Diorella and fell in love with perfumery's magic powers. Since I started to make my own scents, I've been attempting to create my own ideal citrus chypre. I studied maths and sciences, practised music and French and wrote books on brands and their evil twin (counterfeiting) and online marketing.

For 14 years I was the head writer for Lush while the company grew from four shops - one in Poole and three in London - to 700 worldwide. I was writing 50,000 words every three months for the Lush Times, aiming to encapsulate the products' scents in their descriptions. During that time, I bought and read 200 books on essential oils and herbalism.

In 2010 I took some time off to write a novel featuring a problem-solving perfumer. In it, I described the scents that she made and I wanted to have them available for people to smell. So I set off on a quest to see if I could buy them. This turned out to be impossible because no one was making exactly what I wanted, so I started another quest to see if I could make them instead. Of course that turned out to be even more difficult, but once I'd started, I just kept going. 4160Tuesdays perfumes are the result.

Ever since I made my very first scent, I’ve been on an adventure with no end in sight. A few hundred fragrances later, with some lovely awards and mentions picked up along the way, 4160Tuesdays perfumes have found their way into some of the world’s most original specialist scent shops, including Lucky Scent in Los Angeles and New York, and Perfumology in Philadelphia.

I’ve also created fragrances for all kinds of people, places and things, including Joanne Harris, the Elvis Evolution Immersive Experience, Sarah Baker, Black Cliff, Oxford Botanic Garden, the Courtauld Gallery, Google, Chivas, Samsung and Hyundai. 

In 2021, I teamed up with Perfume writer Samantha Scriven to write The Perfume Companion: The Definitive Guide to Choosing Your Next Scent. It’s a book to help readers pick out their next favourite fragrance. People seem to like it, it’s had some very kind reviews, been mentioned in places and by people I admire, and you can buy it pretty much wherever good books are sold.

After years of blending perfumes, I realised there were people who not only wanted to smell scents, but also to learn how to make them. And it turns out smelling isn’t just enjoyable, it’s excellent for our brains too. After enough requests, I started sharing what I knew, and it turned out there were plenty of curious noses out there. Now I run regular workshops, online courses, and have online communities full of people exploring scent together.

I’m thrilled to have helped thousands of people discover that perfume can be fun, intriguing and a lot less complicated than some would have you believe.

Collaborations & Projects

I’ve said yes to all sorts of scent adventures and have had a lot of fun in doing so. I made Vianne’s Confession with author Joanne Harris, the fragrance to accompany Vianne, her prequel to Chocolat. With Tempest Rose and House of Burlesque, we dreamed up a whole collection of empowering fragrances designed to be worn alone or layered. I made the scent of Elvis’ changing room for the Elvis Evolution Immersive Experience.

For the Oxford Botanic Gardens & Arboretum, I was asked to create a fragrance that takes us through all the seasons in the gardens. There was a pop-up with Timeless at Old Street tube station, where we created fragrances to evoke the stress of modern work-life-parenthood choices. With Acis & Galatea at St John’s Smith Square, we scented a Handel opera with three fragrances representing the main characters.

Working with Stephanie Singer on BitterSuite, we created aromas for multi-sensory performances of the Debussy String Quartet, and continued to collaborate on further projects, including a multisensory performance for the Southbank's Meltdown curated by Christine and the Queens.. With Josh Bitelli, we made the scent of an airport lounge above a flooded residential project. For poet Claire Trevien’s The Shipwrecked House, we captured both the comforting smell of a wooden seaside home and the unsettling scent of a shipwreck for her one-woman show. These are just a few, and there are some I’m not allowed to talk about, and there will almost certainly be another waiting around the corner.