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Brooke & Shoals founder Alison Banton on success, scents and trusting yourself
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Brooke & Shoals founder Alison Banton started her fragrance business in 2010, a time when no one thought she could succeed. Fifteen years later, her business is thriving. Here she shares all she knows about success, scents and why believing in your product is key.
What inspired you to start Brooke & Shoals Fragrances?
I started my career in stock-broking and capital markets as an economist, but after a few years, I felt the need for a more creative path. I studied marketing at night and eventually moved to London for a marketing role. Returning to Dublin, I managed a marketing team in corporate pensions, but I was never passionate about the products I marketed.
I always knew I wanted to create and market my own brand. My love for essential oils and the calming effects of fragrance, particularly scented candles, became my focus, influenced by the flowers I smelled as a child in my great aunt’s garden.
At that stage in my life, I had two young children, a demanding corporate job and a side hustle running a gift shop in Greystones. Something had to give, so I eventually left my corporate role to step into the new life I’d been consciously creating and actively manifesting for years. I upskilled in scent blending, fragrance design and product manufacturing, which gave me the confidence to start my own business, Brooke & Shoals Fragrances Ltd, in 2010. Creating fragrances and designing products has been incredibly rewarding. I have job satisfaction, and I still love it today.
What sparked your passion for fragrance?
My interest in fragrance most certainly goes back to my childhood. When I smell the petals of beautiful roses, this conjures up happy memories of picking pink rose petals as a little girl in my great-aunt Mollie’s circular rose garden. Mollie used to say that the ‘babbling brook and the whispering shoals’ would help to turn my petal mixture into perfume. However, overnight, she would add real perfume to the mixture and fool me into thinking I had designed the wonderful scent creation! So, my great-aunt and the mysterious ‘brook and shoals’ awakened my interest in perfumes. When I decided to start my own fragrance business, I added an ‘e’ and Brooke & Shoals became a name filled with cherished fragrance memories.
What has always been at the core of your brand’s ethos?
Since the beginning in 2010, sustainability and community have been at the core of my business in terms of consciously minimising our environmental impact and creating local employment. The collection uses superior-grade ingredients, including vegan plant-based wax, which is kinder to the environment than paraffin wax, and glycerine-based, alcohol-free diffuser oils from a renewable source. We print all of our product packaging in Ireland to reduce our carbon footprint. We use vegetable-based inks and FSC-certified cardboard. We get a local carpenter to make our display stands from wood, and we paint them ourselves in-house.
Were you scared to take the leap and start your own business?
Yes. It was 2010, and one of the worst recessions in decades. I left a well-paying corporate job to start a business making and selling luxury products. People told me I was crazy, but I believed in what I was doing. I saw a gap in the market, and I was a real grafter. The company started at my kitchen table with just three candle products. The business grew gradually and organically. I believed that if I could make it work in a recession, I could scale up when the economy improved. I was right, and slowly we went from strength to strength.
Now we have over 70 different Brooke & Shoals product SKUs. Everything is made in Ireland. The brand employs 13 people across our manufacturing and retail sides. Our products are sold in over 250 retailers, and we still have our gift store in Greystones, where we offer jewellery, accessories, and our own-brand fragrance ranges. In the last 15 years, we have won 16 awards, in both Ireland and the UK, for the quality of our products, our innovative scents and our manufacturing integrity.
