Nocturna. This enchanting, Brisbane-based lifestyle brand is a lesson in how to take an artistic flair, a love of nature, and an appreciation of cruelty free ingredients, and turn them into a tangible product good enough to sell in Parisienne boutiques.
BEAUTYDIRECTORY sat down with founder Sam Penberthy to find out how she channeled her passions and creative skills (photography and film making to name but a few) into producing her luxury range of candles.
Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to start Nocturna?
I’ve always been creatively inspired by the notion of darkness; on a sensory level within nature and in an emotional sense within the human psyche. Since I was young I’ve used photography and film making as my creative outlets and I wanted to reinterpret those visions into a tangible product, one that reflected my passion for night and nature. I wanted to create a dark luxury lifestyle brand that celebrates night in all its beauty and mystery. The next best thing to moonlight is candlelight! I love dark décor and struggled to find luxury candles that embraced this aesthetic whilst being ecofriendly and vegan (no beeswax). So I created some!
Where are your products created?
Our candles are hand poured using age-old, traditional candle making techniques in our Brisbane based studio.
What inspired the look and feel of Nocturna?
A lot of time went into creating the look of the brand and ensuring we convey the mystery & allure of night through our product design. I wanted to keep the design quite minimalist & brutalist (I’m obsessed with brutalist architecture). Subtle yet bold with a sexy edge. Less is more. Our use of silver foiling on matte black embodies the silver of the stars against the night sky.
What is your process for coming up with the scents?
I always say fragrance is like film. Pre production, production and post production. The pre production phase involves me determining the concept for the candle theme and imagining what sort of scent would best embody that theme, and help evoke it on a sensory level whilst burning. Production phase involves me sourcing the highest quality, cruelty free perfume oils. It takes months to finalise the scents. I personally don’t like very heavy, strongly scented candles, ones that fill your whole house and give you a headache. I also didn’t want to use paraffin wax or additives to create a very strong scented candle. I wanted to create subtle, delicate scents using eco-friendly, renewable and sustainable wax free of additives and finding that balance was important to me.
From blogs, books and magazines, to the great outdoors, where do you get most of your creative inspiration from?
I get the most inspiration from nature; from waterfalls and mountains, particularly in winter, and the ocean at night. Also from particular times of the day; dusk, blue hour and night time of course! From the moon and its cycles. From dreams and the subconscious mind. I also draw a lot of inspiration from brutalist architecture, film and music.
Which other lifestyle and/or beauty brands do you admire?
Aesop. What a brand! I also love Hourglass and Ellis Faas.
Your mantra / philosophy is?
Illuminate your subconscious.
What do you hope to achieve with your brand?
To be in bricks and mortar stores worldwide, bringing some nocturnal light to all corners of the world! We have just arrived on the shelves of the incredible Springsioux concept store in Paris, France and looking forward to finding more amazing spaces throughout Europe in 2018. We will be looking to expand our home fragrance line with some unique offerings and we are also currently in production of a refined range of organic skincare products.
For more information about Nocturna, contact Penberthy at hello@nocturna.com.au.
