Abel: “Radical Fragrance” from New Zealand, Striving to Create the World’s Best Natural Perfume

“What drew me to fragrance was the power of our sense of smell. Smell has a direct neural pathway to the subconscious part of the brain, the primitive part that processes emotions. That is why you can smell something, suddenly remember someone, and only afterward realize what triggered it.”

— Frances Shoemack, founder of Abel

Essential Information

• Founded: 2013, in Amsterdam
• Founder: Frances Shoemack
• Current base: Wellington, New Zealand, with team members also in Amsterdam and New York
• Official website: abelfragrance.com

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

An “Explorer of Smell” Raised on a New Zealand Farm

Frances Shoemack grew up in South Canterbury in the south of New Zealand. The second daughter among six siblings, she spent her childhood surrounded by nature, with a farmer father and a yoga-teacher mother.

“I grew up with the rhythms of nature. My mother grew all our food, and I am truly grateful for that.”

— Frances Shoemack

Eating organic vegetables and using natural skincare were simply part of everyday life. “I did not consciously choose a new lifestyle. Sustainability has always been part of me,” she says.

Wine and Fragrance: Where Art Meets Science

After high school, Frances studied viticulture and enology at Lincoln University in New Zealand. Her training as a winemaker nurtured the philosophy that would later underpin her fragrance-making.

“I was drawn to fragrance for the same reason I was drawn to wine. Both are creative practices at the intersection of technology, art, and nature.”

— Frances Shoemack

The conviction that “good wine can only come from good grapes, so ingredients are everything” would lead directly to the idea at Abel’s core: a commitment to 100% natural ingredients.

A Turning Point in Amsterdam

In 2011, Frances moved to Amsterdam with her husband, Dave. Encountering the world of European artisanal fragrance, she became fascinated by its depth. Yet every visit to a beautiful boutique or a department store fragrance counter brought her up against a barrier.

“I would go into lovely perfumeries and department stores and ask, ‘Do you have any natural perfumes?’ And they would tell me to go to the supermarket.”

— Frances Shoemack

One day, she discovered artisanal perfume in an art gallery in Antwerp and was drawn into that world. But the products either used petrochemical ingredients or claimed to use natural materials while lacking sophistication. At a time when clean beauty was already gaining ground, perfume seemed to have been left behind.

“Then I Will Have to Make It Myself”: The Birth of Abel

“I was genuinely shocked to learn that an estimated 95% of fragrance molecules come from petrochemicals. Coming from winemaking, an industry that celebrates nature and craftsmanship, that felt fundamentally wrong. I wanted to create natural, modern perfume, something that aligned with my values and sensibilities. When I realized I could not find it, I understood that this would be my life’s work.”

— Frances Shoemack

Frances started the brand with her own savings while continuing her regular job. The initial capital when she founded it in 2013 was approximately €30,000, equivalent to about US$29,700 at the exchange rate at the time. It was a beginning aptly described as “built with savings and sheer determination.”

“I was working full-time and doing it with my own savings. I had absolutely no experience in the industry.”

— Frances Shoemack

A Fateful Encounter: Master Perfumer Isaac Sinclair

Her encounter with the person who would be crucial to the brand’s birth began with a video. The moment Frances saw Isaac Sinclair standing in a New Zealand native forest and saying that “perfume is like wine,” she felt certain: “This is our perfumer.”

“From the beginning, Abel was never going to be a product made by its founder. I am not a perfumer, and I deeply respect the craft and the science. My approach is to find the best people in the world and work with them. Isaac and I are a completely collaborative creative partnership.”

— Frances Shoemack

Isaac Sinclair is a New Zealander from Auckland. He studied perfumery in Paris and Milan and is now a master perfumer based in Paris. Fewer than 50 people worldwide hold the title “master perfumer,” reportedly fewer than the number of astronauts. He is the only New Zealander to hold the title and has previously developed fragrances for major brands including Guerlain, DKNY, and Lancôme.

The First Perfume, Vintage’13, and the First Lesson

The first perfume, released in 2013, was a spicy woody fragrance called Vintage’13. True to Frances’s background in wine, it carried a release number as a vintage, and she even considered issuing a new vintage every year.

“Vintage’13 was made only with organically certified ingredients. I was a fierce idealist and initially insisted on organic certification. But I soon realized that there were so few certified natural ingredients in the world that we would only be able to make one or two perfumes. So we changed direction. Even so, we never compromised on the central principle of using no petrochemical ingredients.”

— Frances Shoemack

This experience shaped Abel’s present position: “100% natural, but not restricted to organically certified ingredients.”

A Name Connecting the Netherlands and New Zealand

The brand name Abel comes from Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. Known as the first European to reach New Zealand in 1642, Tasman symbolizes a connection between New Zealand and the Netherlands. As a New Zealander working from Amsterdam, Frances reportedly found empowerment in the name’s sense of “someone navigating uncharted waters.”

“When I first tried, everyone said it was impossible. I felt like a sailor heading into uncharted waters, and the name gave me strength.”

— Frances Shoemack

Returning to New Zealand and Creating Abel Fabriek

Frances returned to Wellington with her family in early 2020 and established Abel Fabriek there, with fabriek meaning “factory” in Dutch. She renovated a former bakery into a base combining a perfume factory, laboratory, office, and community space. Open to the public four days a week, it functions as a place akin to “a winery cellar-door experience.”

Funding and Growth

In 2022, Abel raised US$1.35 million from early-stage investment firm Maker Partners. For the major relaunch in 2025, discussed below, it secured $1.5 million in funding. It has also achieved annual sales growth of 30–40% over the past five years and expanded to at least 33 countries.

The Brand’s Commitments

The Philosophy of “Radical Fragrance”

Abel’s tagline is “Radical Fragrance.” Rather than simply positioning itself as a natural perfume brand, it expresses a determination to challenge the industry’s assumptions themselves.

“I could not stand hearing natural perfumes described as ‘well, good for something natural.’ In sustainability, that is not enough. It means nothing unless you deliver value.”

— Frances Shoemack

Abel does not want to be compared only with other natural perfumes. It aims to be judged on equal terms with all fragrances.

Inspiration from Bordeaux Winemakers

Frances’s opposition to petrochemical synthetic fragrance ingredients is rooted in the philosophy she developed in the wine world.

“What would you think if a Bordeaux château were adding sugar or flavoring to its wine? To me, that seems insane. I approach synthetic ingredients in fragrance with the same feeling.”

— Frances Shoemack

Since its founding, Abel has held unwaveringly to one principle: “Good perfume comes from good ingredients.”

Combining Fragrance with Biotechnology

Abel’s innovation goes beyond “natural.” It actively adopts biotechnology, using biotech ingredients produced by fermenting and refining plant-derived raw materials. Examples include upcycling passionfruit and tangerine extracts from food-industry waste, and incorporating biotech-derived ketamber and anisaldehyde into formulations.

“When I started Abel, biotechnology was not yet being discussed in fragrance. It has only become a reality in the last six or seven years. I think we have adopted it faster than any other brand in the industry.”

— Frances Shoemack

Abel’s other perfumer, Dr. Fanny Grau, is a French scientist with a PhD in biochemistry who plays an important role in exploring biotech ingredients.

A Creative Process Built Around Three People

Abel’s fragrance development brings together three different talents: Frances, the “radical thinker”; Isaac, the “artist”; and Fanny, the “scientist.” This trio connects New Zealand and Paris, collaborating across continents.

The creative process usually begins with a specific vision from Frances. Inspiration often comes from places she has experienced, emotions, or scenes in nature, which Isaac and Fanny then bring to life as fragrance.

Transparency Through Full Ingredient Disclosure

The perfume industry has a practice of withholding ingredients as “trade secrets.” Abel takes the opposite approach, having published complete ingredient lists on its website since its earliest days. This pioneering commitment to transparency forms a central part of the brand’s identity.

Next-Generation Packaging

The packaging was completely redesigned for the 2025 relaunch. The bottles are made in France from glass containing 11% recycled material, and the removable spray pumps allow for curbside recycling. The caps are made from an advanced biotech material called Vivomer, a fully compostable material that biodegrades within 20 weeks when returned to the soil. The boxes are made from 100% recycled paper, consisting of 40% discarded coffee cups and 60% post-consumer waste, and the carbon footprint of the paper packaging has been reduced by 96% compared with the previous version.

The Fragrance Lineup

Abel manages its collection through a distinctive “one out, one in” philosophy. Each new release replaces an existing fragrance, maintaining a core collection of around seven creations. Frances has spoken of the spiritual significance of the number seven across both Eastern and Western cultures.

The Core Eau de Parfum Collection

The following are representative fragrances in the current collection, although the lineup changes.

Cyan Nori
Abel’s bestseller was inspired by the ocean at dusk, seen from a house perched on a New Zealand cliff. Tangerine and white peach top notes lead into a briny drydown featuring an absolute of seaweed, or nori, growing along the French coast. Released during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it initially met with a muted response, but six to nine months later became the brand’s first fragrance to take off simultaneously in the United States, Asia, and Europe. It was also almost a chance creation: inspiration reportedly struck when Isaac, watching the sunset from his São Paulo studio, said, “A seaweed absolute has just landed on my desk.”

Pink Iris
A genderless floral inspired by the timeless appeal of a trench coat. A spicy opening of Sichuan pepper, raspberry leaf, and basil develops into a floral heart of orris root, rose, and jasmine before settling into a base of vanilla and musk. It has won an award in the natural perfume category at the Clean + Conscious Awards.

Coat Check
Formerly called Black Anise, this is a smoky, dark amber fragrance. Black Anise was comprehensively reformulated to improve its depth and longevity. Abel’s interviewer at Blue Print described it as “a scent like brushing past someone through tobacco smoke in a 1920s bar.”

Green Cedar
A fragrance centered on two types of cedar, one from Texas and the other from Morocco’s Atlas Mountains. The Texan cedar gives a clean, dry impression, while the Moroccan cedar is sweet and opulent. Magnolia, cardamom, and guaiacwood add a forest-like, oriental complexity.

Cobalt Amber
A contemporary amber composed of ingredients including juniper, pink pepper, labdanum absolute, and tonka bean. It is sometimes described as “Copenhagen chic meets midnight Paris” and is highly regarded as a unisex fragrance that is both sensual and elegant.

Laundry Day
An image of freshly washed linen fluttering in the breeze on the first sunny day of spring. Bergamot, lime, and passionfruit, an ingredient upcycled from food-processing wastewater, form a fresh citrus opening above an earthy vetiver base. The use of “biotech-derived natural aldehydes instead of synthetic aldehydes” exemplifies Abel’s technological innovation. It is a creation to which Frances herself is deeply attached: “This is my favorite. It is full of that springtime joy of feeling that anything is possible.”

Nurture
A floral designed with a low-allergen formula so that it can be used during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Created with Dr. Fanny Grau, it contains therapeutic ingredients such as ginger for morning sickness. It has been described as “a fragrance like a mother’s embrace.”

Pause
A creation born from Frances’s own experience of perimenopause, the transition toward menopause. Developed with Fanny, it places mimosa, known for its emotionally stabilizing effects, at the center. It was released to coincide with World Menopause Day, October 18, in 2022.

The Apartment
A fragrance inspired by the experience of Frances and Isaac sharing an apartment in Paris. In that apartment overlooking the Arc de Triomphe, they reportedly began imagining what kind of person might live there, and that became the starting point.

Exploring Functional Fragrance

As Nurture and Pause exemplify, Abel continues to explore “functional fragrance,” going beyond perfumes that simply smell good to incorporate therapeutic ingredients intended to support well-being.

By the Way…

• Isaac Sinclair and Fanny Grau Are Partners
  According to publicly available information, master perfumer Isaac Sinclair and Dr. Fanny Grau are also married in their private lives. Formerly based together in São Paulo, they are now both based in Paris. This partnership between an artist and a scientist, somewhat unusual in the perfume world, supports Abel’s fragrance development from within.
• A Bestseller Created over Zoom During the Pandemic
  Cyan Nori was developed through video calls during the pandemic, with Isaac in São Paulo and Frances in New Zealand. “Creating perfume over Zoom is not ideal, but the creative direction was so strong that it worked,” Frances has said.
• A “Radical” Packaging Failure
  Abel is also candid about failures in its sustainability efforts. It experimented with biodegradable wrapping made from cornstarch, cassava root, and sugarcane as a substitute for plastic cellophane, but abandoned the idea after the perfume deteriorated. Honestly reporting this failure to customers strengthened trust in the brand’s transparency.