Cool Product Feature: My Daughter Fragrances

While on maternity leave with her new baby daughter, Anna Violet in 2010, Ganson figured it would be a great time to finally pursue the 10-year-old idea of creating a fragrance line.  As with other perfumers, she looked to  the acclaimed, esteemed, yet impermeable Grasse market for the ‘in’ she would need. Inspiring the interest of a fellow Canadian, Buchanan, living in France and producing in Grasse; Ganson received the email response she needed to her inquiry about a potential collaboration. “From there we went right into calls, Skype, and I basically contracted her immediately because I had smelled some of the stuff she’d done for her own line in France. We liked the same aesthetic and materials.” Clearly having connected with a trustworthy partner, Ganson was able to launch her line in 2013, with Joyful. “It’s very clean, fresh, crisp and easy to wear,” says Ganson, who strategically released a light, likeable fragrance to appeal to a wider audience. “I didn’t have a huge budget to crank out all my fragrances at the same time, so, I funded my budget through sales—I sold enough of the first one to make the second one Always Loved and then the third, Bloom 23.” With these three scents, Ganson achieved a citrus, a spicy and a floral fragrance to appeal to all senses and personalities. Although each of My Daughter Fragrances’ perfumes vary in distinctive aromas, Ganson discusses the importance of the rose, one of Grasse’s most distinctive flowers, as an underlying commonality in all three. “Rosa centifolia is the perfume rose. It’s not your grandma’s rose, it’s a beautiful, sexy rose,” explains Ganson. Along with rose, Grasse is also specifically known for its orange and jasmine flowers; found in My Daughter Fragrances’ Joyful and Bloom 23. Despite the cost of production, Ganson takes pride in using these materials—the highest quality on the market—to achieve her priority of the perfect scent. Ganson works directly with the producer and perfumer in France, who prepares the formula and ships it off to Ganson in Canada. The curing, blending, filtering, bottling and packaging is then completed in their Alberta barn by Ganson and her family. “It’s very personal,” says Ganson. “My other reason for starting this was for [my daughter] to grow up watching her mother work at something she loves.” My Daughter Fragrances is produced alongside iconic names such as Louis Vuitton, Hermès and Chanel—a scent she’s particularly familiar with, as her father bought her mother a bottle every year for Christmas—inspiring her to create a bottle that stood out, especially as a boutique fragrance in a mass market. For Ganson, this meant combining high-end ingredients with a green hand and a nurturing heart. “We have a black list of things we’ve consciously chosen not to use in our formulas,” says Ganson. “We’re leaving out phthalates, not using coloring, polymystic musk; so, they aren’t pink, purple, blue, they’re just the color of whatever the raw materials are when they are filtered. It has the feeling of a health food store [ingredient list] but it’s still a luxury, high end product.” “It was a personal choice that I was adamant about,” says Ganson. “In the fragrance industry, it’s rare. Not a lot of people want to [leave out phthalates] because it’s harder to formulate.” The focus on raw and natural materials allows the perfume to wear close to the skin, with Ganson priding the perfume on its “polite and intimate” appeal. “It doesn’t have that waft affect, people have to get quite close to you to smell it,” says Ganson, smiling as she describes where she likes to spritz the scent on, “The neck and chest, if wearing for someone else, and the wrist when wearing for yourself.” In tandem through these years, raising her daughter and nurturing a business based on their bond, she reminds Anna with each packaged bottle that’s signed, “I celebrate the day you were born. Love, Mom.”