Making Scents in Rhode Island

Photography courtesy of Mason Hainey

Mason Hainey wears a simple bracelet upon his wrist, four square white beads that spell out the word “nose.”

It’s an affirmation of his identity as the creative force behind M.Hainey, his clean fragrance company, and a reminder of what he loves most: finding beauty in the natural world and turning those moments into ethereal, nostalgic scents. (In the fragrance world, “nose” is the term for a perfumer.)

Perfumer Mason Hainey recently released a new line of scents through his studio, M.Hainey. Photography courtesy of Mason Hainey

After thirteen years of crafting botanical perfumes, candles and oils in his studio, Hainey recently released a new collection of fragrances. The five genderless perfumes range from a soft, musky scent enhancer (Blank Canvas) to a roasted coffee/rose gourmand (Love Language) to a leather/saffron/apricot tincture (Vintage Leather) that smells like being wrapped in a perfectly worn leather jacket.

The collection is a step in a new direction for Hainey, a self-taught perfumer who grew up at the elbow of his grandmother, whom he called Mango, as she tended to her gardens and shared her wisdom.

“Scent has always been part of my life. The thing I love most about scent is memory, and for me, most of my olfactic memories were with my grandmother,” Hainey says from his sunny studio, surrounded by hundreds of vials of materials and accords, glass bottles and paper blotters, the tools of the perfumer’s trade. “She was my best friend. She was somebody who really championed my creative energy in a way I didn’t really find elsewhere.”

The Riverside native has been rooted in creativity — and entrepreneurship — from a young age. In elementary school, he designed and sold his own candles, and while in art school sold bow ties fashioned from vintage dresses. After discovering natural perfumer Mandy Aftel’s books and using aromatherapy to combat anxiety, Hainey started crafting candles and botanical fragrances.

He launched his first fragrance, Palo Santo, in 2013 under the brand name Mizu. It’s still a bestseller.

His new collection comes on the heels of a two-year rebranding effort. Mizu — the Japanese word for “water” — has become M.Hainey, as Hainey delves deeper into the world of fragrance, using responsibly sourced synthetic materials to complement his botanical blends.

Photography courtesy of Mason Hainey

The scents can either be worn alone or layered with others to create an entirely new olfactive profile. Some, like the bestseller Blank Canvas, came to him quickly, while others, like Rose Turpentine, took two years to create. It was inspired by summers spent with his grandmother in Maine and started out as a warm, juicy beach rose. Once he started sharing his process on TikTok, however, the ideas started flowing and it morphed into a “1960s lofted Brooklyn studio — this beautiful, clean, airy space soaked in turpentine with a single rose and stretched linen,” he says. “I wanted to create a world.”

Another bestselling scent, Rain Water, conjures the scent of a just-passed storm, with nostalgic notes of violet, green mandarin, rose and magnolia, with creamy-spicy hints of sandalwood and frankincense. It’s a fragrance, he says, of “surrender and finding yourself. It is getting caught in the rain and letting it just wash over you.”

Vintage Leather was inspired by Hainey’s love of thrifting and vintage fashion: “I just love the idea of clothes and the souls they carry — the lifetimes they see.”

The new collection, as well as the Mizu line of botanical fragrances and candles, are available at his website, mhainey.com.

Even now, on the heels of a brand-new launch, Hainey is forever experimenting and playing with accords and profiles. There’s a scent that smells like a tarnished silver chain, sharp and metallic, now on its eighteenth version. There’s one that smells like tattoo ink and one that smells like the paws of his beloved blue heeler pup, River.

He’s holding pop-up events — one with Little Bitte and JohnnyCakes Design in March blended scent science with artisan cocktails — and hopes to open a retail space in the future. Perfume is his passion, one he loves sharing with as many people as he can.

“Scent is very personal. It’s very emotive. It’s registered in the brain in the same part that we have memories and feelings, and so they’re deeply intertwined,” he says. “Seeing how people like what it brings up has been my favorite part of running this business, because everyone always has such clear memories.” mhainey.com