COLLABORATIONS
The Second Salon has collaborated with some of Fremantle’s best businesses, and nothing brings me more joy than working with remarkable humans. Here are some of the stories.
Room Service at Fremantle Biennale
I was invited by architect Nic Brunsdon to create a sensory element - an aroma - for Room Service, a two-night event that was part of the Fremantle Biennale in November 2025. The installation transformed Fremantle’s heritage-listed P&O Hotel, with more than 40 artists taking over 31 hotel rooms, bathrooms, balconies and hallways with contemporary art, music, performance and place.
Nic Brunsdon and Cristina Guerrero Fernández brought together a creative team to bring this vision to life: natural-dye researcher Helen Coleman, sculptor Emma Lindergaard, furniture maker Spencer Parks, and me. The vision was to create a “meditative little pause space” - a room that gently transported guests elsewhere. The space was stripped back to imagine what existed long before the hotel: the trees, soil and coastal ecology that once shaped this part of Fremantle.
Scent has a powerful, intangible presence. It’s invisible, but it’s never not felt. My brief was to explore how aroma could add another dimension to the room - a way for guests to pause, soften, and settle into a quieter state, while feeling like they were being transported somewhere else.
“Scent has a powerful, intangible presence. It’s invisible, but it’s never not felt.”
DesignFreo
Object | Space | Place, Fremantle Arts Centre
So this was a wonderful first! In November 2020 I partnered with DesignFreo and created a bespoke essential oil blend to transform the Object | Space | Place exhibition with aroma.
This was the first time I’d taken on a project on this size. The challenge of this project was finding a way to project the aroma across the vast main gallery space at the Fremantle Arts Centre. And to keep it running every day for two months. We found a way. After receiving many requests (“what was that scent, I must have it!”) the blend was bottled and became what is now known as Ground.
Paper Bird Children’s Bookstore
Paper Bird is a beautiful specialist children’s bookstore in Fremantle’s West End. This dedicated kids’ story house has rapidly evolved around the specialist children’s bookshop with writers, story tellers & illustrators on hand, workshops, kids book clubs, book launches, and discussion panels make for a dynamic children’s cultural hub.
Paper Bird commissioned The Second Salon to develop an aromatic concept and retail packaging to be sold in the beautiful Paper Bird retail space.
KURA STUDIO x The Second Salon
Long-time friends and business partners Serena and Anika make up KURA STUDIO. They design and produce beautiful works of practical art. They are also remarkable humans. When the three of us sat down to discuss what we wanted this collaboration to represent we kept coming back to this idea of what it feels like when finding happiness in an honest and balanced life.
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So the three of us sat down to discuss what we wanted this collaboration to represent. We kept coming back to what it feels like when finding happiness in a honest and balanced life.
At the time we were all sitting in Serena's warm and welcoming home, surrounded by beautiful pieces of Kura art, drinking tea and eating cakes.
Life was good.
Of course we all have our own sets of challenges when travelling our own paths, perhaps bearing witness to some of the world's broader challenges. It would be remiss to ignore this fact.
But what we wanted to do was to simply celebrate when life is good.
We called this realistic gratitude; an active observation and acknowledgement of the gifts we do have.
Here's to living a good life. Honouring your needs. Slowing down. Drinking tea. Being creative. Enjoying beautiful things. Being in nature. Getting to do what you love.
Katie, Serena, Anika x
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Lemon is bright, delicate, citrusy and refreshing. Lemon always lifts a blend with its uplifting and joyful energy.
Grapefruit is fresh and bright, uplifting and inspiring. Grapefruit White is slightly sharp and not too sweet.
Rosemary is strong, fresh and camphoraceous; it’s clearing and cleansing.
Petitgrain is delightfully complex – the essential oil is distilled from the leaves and twigs of the bitter orange tree, which also produces Orange essential oil from the fruit and Neroli essential oil from the blossoms. Petitgrain smells citrusy, woody and floral – all at the same time. It feels safe, hopeful and soothing.
Cypress is woody and fresh. It slows the mind and calms the body.
Clary Sage is floral-sweet and herbaceous. Restorative and balancing.
Lemon (Citrus limon), Grapefruit White (Citrus paradisi), Petitgrain (Citrus aurantium amara), Rosemary (Rosmaninus officinalis), Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), Clary Sage (Salvia sclarea)
Jordy Hewitt, Daylight exhibition
I have adored Jordy Hewitt's work for the longest time. I don’t know if I can articulate why in an elegant way. So I’ll clumsily say: I just love it. It’s visceral. To me, the work is deep, and mysterious - and comforting. I get lost in it. There’s always something new to see. These are pieces you’d never tire of seeing every day.
I was beyond excited to collaborate on a scent that was diffused in the background of Jordy’s latest exhibition, Daylight.
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Rosalina (Melaleuca ericifolia) is a darling. It’s fresh and earthy, a (little) floral and a (lot) lemony. It’s gentle on you.
Kunzea (Kunzea ambigua) is like Rosalina’s big sister. The aroma has a lovely crisp freshness, with some grounding woody undertones. It is soothing, clearing and settling.
Black Pepper (Piper nigrum) is a touch green, a touch floral, a touch spicy. Black Pepper shines in a blend - alone you could say it’s a bit of a non-starter, sorry! - bringing in crisp, fresh and peppery elements.
Frankincense (Boswellia carterii) is one of those essential oils we all love. Clean, fresh, earthy, woody, spicy-sweet. Soothing and meditative as it stills the mind and invites tranquillity.
Cedarwood Atlas (Cedrus atlantica) is solid. A gentle camphoraceous top note and sweet woody-balsamic undertone. Feels warm and grounding. Like the majestic cedarwood tree, the essential oil brings with it a strengthening and stabilising presence.
Vetiver (Vetiveria zizanoides) is a true love. Thick and viscous; representative of its intense smoky, earthy, woody aroma. Like the root system Vetiver is derived from, the essential oil smells and feels grounding. Earthy and comforting. This marvellous oil holds all the others in place, beautifully.
Stackwood Signature Scent
Stackwood is driven by the intrinsic human needs to create and learn. Their beautiful concept store (recently sadly closed) featured handmade vessels, tools and homewares, as well as a jungle of indoor plants, and the studio spaces are always bustling from the creative productivity of our resident makers.
Stackwood commissioned The Second Salon to design a bespoke scent to be diffused in the retail space and sold as a retail blend as part of the Stackwood Supply range.
ANFISA x The Second Salon
For this collaboration with Anfisa I wanted to create an aromatic concept that showed a juxtaposition between two distinct groups of essential oils: the first group light and volatile; the second heavy and lingering.
The blend allows the two contrasting groups – six essential oils in total – to work together in synergy. Each essential oil has its place and a role to play. None take over and none disappear into the blend, but rather complement and enhance each other in their respective lightness and heaviness.
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Rosalina (Melaleuca ericifolia) is a darling. It’s fresh and earthy, (a little) floral and (a lot) lemony. It’s gentle on you. It’s a top note that shows up quickly and I’ve held it back a little so the blend doesn’t smell too bushy.
Bergamot (Citrus bergamia) masterfully uplifts. Its bitter floral notes hide behind a lovely, uplifting citrusy top.
Petitgrain (Citrus aurantium amara) is delightfully complex – the essential oil is distilled from the leaves and twigs of the bitter orange tree, which also produces Orange essential oil from the fruit and Neroli essential oil from the blossoms. Petitgtrain smells citrusy, woody and floral – all at the same time. It feels safe, hopeful and soothing.
Frankincense (Boswellia carterii) is a safe place. It’s one of those essential oils we all love. Clean, fresh, earthy, woody, spicy-sweet. Soothing and meditative, as it stills the mind and effortlessly invites in tranquillity.
Cedarwood Atlas (Cedrus atlantica) is solid. A gentle camphoraceous top note and sweet woody-balsamic undertone. It feels warm and grounding. Like the majestic cedarwood tree, the essential oil brings with it a strengthening and stabilising presence.
Vetiver (Vetiveria zizanoides) is a true love. Thick and viscous; representative of its intense smoky, earthy, woody aroma. Like the root system Vetiver is derived from, the essential oil smells and feels grounding, earthy and comforting. This marvellous essential oil holds all the others in place, beautifully.
Work with me…
If you have a project you’d like to add a sensory element to, I’d love to meet you. I can create aromatic concepts for exhibitions, openings, weddings, hospitality venues and retail blends. For more get in touch with me.