First Breaths
Sarah McCartney
In First Breaths, perfumer and writer Sarah McCartney explores the idea that our first breaths imprint us with an atmosphere, that we’re drawn to the place of our childhood is because of the way it smells.
Her work is an aroma, Saltburn Driftwood, inspired by the small seaside town of her birth, on the north east coast, in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire. She now lives in London, and made this as a perfume to remind her of the scent of Saltburn’s long, sandy, windy beach, with clumps of washed-up seaweed. It has wafts of failed campfires which surfers have endeavoured to make from damp driftwood. They singe, crackle with sea salt and give up.