If you’re part of the natural fragrance world, you may already know Modern Peasant, the Oakland-based natural perfume brand that’s been quietly building a cult following. They just opened their first ever physical space, and it’s unlike anything else in indie perfumery right now. I’m thrilled to welcome you into the world of Modern Peasant, along with a special interview with founder Lakenda Wallace and a look at the perfumes I discovered along the way.

Modern Peasant’s Still Room is designed as a hybrid space — half working reference lab, half revival of something perfumery hasn’t really had in a long time: a “still room.” Historically, a still room was where tinctures and botanical extracts were hand-prepared, long before fragrance became an industrial process. Modern Peasant is bringing that tradition back into a modern, hands-on context. Inside, the space houses dozens of natural tinctures and oil infusions made from real plant material — actual woods, flowers, and herbs, not synthetic aroma-chemicals standing in for them. It doubles as a public reference room for other perfumers, working and aspiring alike. Natural perfumery has historically been a fairly exclusionary, gatekeeping world, where access to raw materials — and the knowledge of how to work with them — is hard to come by unless you already know someone in the industry. Modern Peasant’s Still Room is a space where anyone can walk in and smell real oud, real orris root, real tuberose absolute side by side, rather than just read about them.

Visitors can go as deep as they want. Curated Scent Flights offer themed tastings of 5 to 7 natural extracts grouped by material family — a “Woods” flight moving through Palo Santo and cedarwood, a “Flowers” flight pairing Oakland-grown roses with chamomile — borrowing a format from wine and coffee culture to build what perfumers call “material literacy,” the ability to recognize individual raw ingredients rather than just finished blends. For anyone who wants to go further, Make Your Own Perfume classes walk through ingredients, fragrance structure, and the folklore and aromatherapeutic properties behind different materials, with every participant leaving with their own custom perfume.

Interview with Modern Peasant Founder Lakenda Wallace

I have always loved scent! My foray into making my own began with a migraine. I began getting these 1-2 day long migraines that got progressively worse. After many tests and a few ER visits, my doctors wanted to put me on medication. I did not like the idea of taking drugs daily, so I started to pay better attention to my triggers. At some point, I linked it to my perfume.

Having always loved fragrance. I began wearing perfume when I was 10 years old, now it was fifteen years later and I was unable to wear scent without getting sick. Luckily a happy accident changed things when I found a bunch of dried lavender at L’Occitane. I admired, but could no longer wear their perfume, but when smelling the dried lavender, I thought, “This does not make me feel sick.” followed by, “How do I get this on my body?” 

I made my first plant extraction with some dried lavender and oils in a double boiler pot on my stove and I never stopped. It was beautiful and bright and has become the cornerstone of my brand. I extract from plants and build the scent from the extractions and essential oils.

After creating scents for years it took the question, “Why are you not selling these?” to start my brand. The name Modern Peasant refers to the traditional methods of perfume making I employ. The tagline “Scents for Sensitive People” is the shout out to those who cannot tolerate synthetic perfumes.

The Modern Peasant Still Room is a place to explore natural scents in perfumery either through classes, smell sessions, or your own scented research. I have a library of plant extractions and Eden Botanicals is supporting the launch with a suite of essential oils to explore. 

I regularly teach perfumery techniques virtually for the Institute of Art + Olfaction, which is based in Los Angeles. As I am in the SF Bay Area, I wanted a place to connect in person rather than online. The Still Room is a place for creating scent, learning perfume techniques, and discovering an individual relationship with our fragrant world.

The Modern Peasant Still Room is a place to explore and learn how to make natural, beautiful perfumes…and see all my crazy collection of bottles and extracts I’ve collected over the years.

Inspiration can come from a story or a feeling, a prompt or a person. 

Some perfumes are driven by the plant extract itself–a distinctive, single origin coffee bean, hops and beer mash from an award-winning craft brewer. My coffee perfumes are often named for the growers because, oh my goodness, those beans (provided by The Crown Royal Coffee Lab & Tasting Room) are next level incredible.

I also create for a feeling, like the optimism of honeysuckle and jasmine in Light Bringer or the deeply earthy, grounded scent of Orisha with oud, patchouli, and rose. Quite often, my scents are named for the aromatherapy actions of the perfume. Happy Place is bright, sunny citrus with the warmth of cardamom, the soft acceptance of jasmine, and the grounding undertones of cedar.

I create to bring this restorative beauty to anyone who needs to feel more supported in their day, whether that is Calming or Bossing Up.

That is SUCH a good question! 

I let the scent tell me. That, however, is learned. I remember thinking I could “fix” a fragrance that was wrong from the beginning. I added more and more ingredients until I had a liter of unusable product. My youngest daughter had to finally say, “Just stop! It’s horrible and not getting better.” She was so right! 

That was how I learned to start small in formulation and to take my time with it. Once I know the key note, I build one scent at a time, giving myself time to sit with the combination and discover what else is needed–either to give the combination some gravity (more of a base note) or something that sparks life, which could be a contrast (like rose and peppermint). 

I let the plants decide. In my coffee extracts, each bean has characteristics whether a fermented coffee bean with natural vanilla undertones or an Ethiopian coffee that adds a deep earthy creaminess to whatever is added to it. So these may have as little as one ingredient to create a beautiful perfume, others require many more. 

I discovered the complexity of perfume is not about how many ingredients are included, but rather how the plants shine together and what stories their scented combinations have to tell.

If I had an unlimited budget I would love to travel the world and learn about our natural resources and different cultural techniques to harvest and transform them into perfume materials. I want to know how these materials are used in the cultures. What is their significance? How are they regarded in the culture through the folklore and healing applications? How is climate change affecting cultivation and are there new transforming climates that can begin cultivation to offset sustainability issues?

I guess, if money were unlimited, I would want to learn more about the plants and resins in our world. The Earth is a naturally abundant place that can give us what we need to live well. I want to know about the plants, their gifts, and how to use them effectively. For instance, I just found out about Kombo Butter. It is made from the African Nutmeg tree. It smells like an earthy vanilla and traditionally is used to help topically with pained joints. How cool is that! Yes, more money, more learning!

My challenges have been starting a brand on a shoestring. I started Modern Peasant with whatever was left over from a Creative Project Manager’s salary after rent, 2 kids, food and gas for the commute. Really, not a lot leftover. But the love was there. The drive was there.

I am challenged by standards I don’t agree with. For instance, I love beautiful packaging, but however nice the rush of opening something beautiful, the packaging still ends up in recycling–if it can be recycled. I love the idea of reusable bottles and bags that can have some usefulness AFTER opening. But I have discovered boxes are necessary for shelves. Fancy boxes mean more sales. I am still struggling with how to create beauty people can love and offer it in a way that is the most loving to the planet–even at a larger scale.

I have to thank my partner, who has always believed in me even when I did not believe in myself. He was the one who asked, “Why are you not selling these?” He was the one who said, “You have to come to this great coffee shop. Their beans are next level.” He was looking out for my caffeine addiction, but I found the ingredient that first made the brand stand out. It was his birthday celebration that led me into Original Pattern to ask for leftover hops and beer mash, the extractions from which became breakout stars at SF Scentfest’s ‘Smell the Blotter’ session.

In this life, we have to do the work for what we want. But the inspiration and support that can come from those who truly know and love you through your best and worst times, can be the catalyst to so much more growth and satisfaction than you could have discovered on your own.

Start small! You do not have to mix a large batch of perfume. Start your formulation with 10ml or even less. WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN! You are creating a map in real time that you can follow the next time to do it again or make larger batches. 

The smaller amounts also allow you to pivot in your scent making. If you have only used 2ml of something in your formula that you are not thrilled with, you have a chance to add something that turns the tide from too sweet, for instance, to a happy accident as you discover the sweet with more earthy woods or resins give the scent a rich and warm feeling. 

We have all fumbled! The point is not to be perfect every time. The point is to explore the scents and the plants and understand how they dance together. Most importantly, the point is to have fun and explore new things! If you join us at the Still Room, you can smell all sorts of plants and in our Make Your Own Perfume classes, you get to try and explore scent combinations and get feedback and guidance, which only helps you learn more.

Perfection is boring! Try new things, explore what sparks your world, and mix it up!

Divine Lover is the scent I wear most days. It is my base note, if I am layering. I went on a trip to Paris to visit my daughter when I realized. I forgot all of my perfume. Luckily, I had one scent–Divine Lover–in my purse. I used it everyday for two weeks.

By the end of week one, I realized I was more courageous, ready to attempt the French language (badly!), explore Paris, and force my companions to go to sites like Universelle Buly (oldest apothecary in Paris). I realized that the scent made me feel loved and supported. Feeling loved and supported made me feel more courageous. It was like a quiet, subtle reminder that I am loved. And feeling that, honestly, can make you feel close to invincible!

I’d love to see more Still Rooms around the world–exploring local flora, traditions, and techniques and exposing more people to the beautiful restorative powers of natural scent. In our world today, being into nature, plants, and sustainable living is somehow rebellious. Well, long live the revolution! If we embrace nature we embrace healthier living and longer lives with a beautiful planet that supports us and our future generations. The Still Room is an expression of my fragrant message, “Go smell things! It’s good for you!”

My Thoughts on Modern Peasant Perfumes

Andrea here again. I’m excited to share the gorgeous Modern Peasant scents I had the opportunity to try: Esther’s Peru, Earth Angel, Vanilla Latte and Orisha. They’re subversive, complex and when I wear them, I’m reminded that I am still here, still alive, still noticing…a body of earth, remembering it is earth. They’re also just as wearable for natural perfumery newbies as perfumeheads

Orisha stood out to me the most, like the hypnotic smell of something beautiful that survived by rotting first. It’s a smoky spicy blend of oud and sweet orange up front, patchouli and labdanum through the body, with amber, vanilla, benzoin, and coumarin. It permeates the senses the way smoke arrives before you know there’s a fire, more potent than the fire itself, and already inside you before you realize it. It’s a hauntingly beautiful, meditative scent to me that’s deeply resinous and laced with the divine feminine, a powdery touch, and sweet citrus. I just watched The Odyssey in Imax, so it’s very fresh on my mind, and if the goddesses or nymphs in that movie were to be wearing a fragrance I feel like it would be Orisha.

My other favorite is the coffee forward perfume Esther’s Peru made of Peruvian coffee and named after farmer Esther Fernandez’s Cajamarca harvest. This reminds me of an orange creme latte I had at Malibu Farm once and has a full-flavored coffee base of caramel and orange under top notes of bergamot and wild orange. Esther’s Peru doesn’t smell like coffee — it IS coffee reimagined as scent with the bean’s own character (caramel, orange, bergamot) extracted. As a wannabe coffee snob, I love that coffee has layers too — aroma, body, finish — similar to the way perfumes have top, heart, and base notes. This is the perfect embodiment of that parallel. Instead of being blended with a ton of more gourmand and boozy notes like chocolate and rum, Esther’s Peru is elevated and brightened with floral and citrus.

Earth Angel is an earthy, grounding scent and a reminder that just as its ingredients — juniper fir, neroli, elemi — are pulled from the earth, so too will we return to it. That the same soil that grew this scent will one day hold me too. And I don’t mean this in a morbid way. If you’re familiar with meditation, you might have heard of death meditation (like maranasati in Buddhist practice or memento mori traditions), which isn’t about dwelling on death like its name might suggest, but about sitting with the fact of mortality to feel more present, more grateful, more alive right now. This is the one I’m drawn to most when I’m about to practice yoga because it helps me to come back to myself and the present moment more fully. A reminder that fragrance goes beyond more than scent and can be tools for healing, spirituality, expansion, grounding, self awareness or whatever you need it to be.

Vanilla Latte is such a universally appealing gourmand with notes of Inoculated Columbian Coffee (fermented coffee bean), Vanilla, Rum, Copaiba Balsam, and Jasmine. It’s sweet, subtly resinous and laced with floral elegance. I can see myself reaching for this in the colder months or even layering it with more florals or darker, earthy scents. If you’re a coffee lover, Vanilla Latte and Esther’s Peru are definitely ones you should experience.

Be sure to check out Modern Peasant and their new Still Room in Oakland! They’re having seasonal workshops every Thursday in October for you to create your own scented magic.

Modern Peasant Address:

480 23rd St
Oakland, CA 94612