Shay + Blue
Founded By A Man Who Knew Exactly What Was Missing.
Dom De Vetta spent twenty years inside the grandest fragrance houses in the world, as Senior Vice President at Chanel and then running Jo Malone London globally, and came out the other side with a clear view of what the industry had lost. Most perfume is produced in enormous quantities in anonymous factories, and it smells like it. So in 2012 he started his own house, named after his grandmother Shay and the colour blue, on the straightforward premise that a beautiful fragrance should not require an intimidating boutique and a supercilious assistant to buy it.
The perfumer is Julie Massé, who trained under Christine Nagel and Pierre Bourdon and is referred to by the house simply as the nose. The oils are distilled in Grasse, the fragrances are blended and hand filled in Britain, and each batch is left to mature for several months before it goes anywhere near a bottle, which is the step almost everybody now skips. Everything is unisex by design, because the idea that a scent belongs to one sex or the other is a marketing invention rather than a fact about noses. Blood Oranges, Blacks Club Leather and Salt Caramel are where most people start.
For more for the dressing table, have a browse of our beauty and body care and bathroom collections, or carry on to gifts for her, gifts for him and gift sets and hampers. There are more businesses like this one in small batch artisans, and more close to home in British makers.
