WWD - "Dawn and Samantha Goldworm Launch Scent for Good"
Posted by WWD 02/20/21
Olfactive branding aficionados Dawn and Samantha Goldworm are bringing their noses to the medical space.
The founders of 12.29 are scenting the mundane — and medicinal — with their latest venture, Scent for Good. The company has two prongs: it has created an environmental fragrance for hospitals, and will also be selling a scented hand sanitizer and mask spray for $30 and $45, respectively. Industry sources estimate the direct-to-consumer products could reach $300,000 in retail sales for its first 12 months, although the brand declined to comment on the estimate.
The idea for the brand came from the pandemic-sized white space caused by the emphasis on health and sanitation. Dawn Goldworm, who was trained as a nose during her time as a fragrance designer at Coty Beauty International, wanted to find a way to negate the unpleasant odors found in hospitals.
While Goldworm was more often creating scents for Nike and Virgin pre-pandemic, she wanted to parlay her skills back into personal care. “We can really work with emotion to make people feel better about their lives,” Goldworm said. “Why shouldn’t we do it when it really matters?”
To that end, Goldworm created a fragrance to mask unpleasant odors such as bleach. She developed an accord meant to hide the olfactory triggers associated with hospitals to create a sense of comfort, she said. Despite the scent’s masking power, it’s disarmingly neutral. “The basis is for it to feel like someone just opened the window,” Goldworm said. “We wanted to bring joy and comfort to these otherwise anxiety-ridden experiences.”
The sisters, who are twins, also believe that, even as coronavirus vaccines become more accessible, consumers will continue to wear face masks and sanitize their hands regularly. “Let’s hope at some point that I can put my masks away, and that we can all get back to wearing makeup normally, but hand sanitizer existed before, and it will continue to exist afterward,” Dawn Goldworm said.
“It’s just about putting the two pieces of the brand together to create more moments of joy during health care, whether you’re experiencing it in your face, or whether you’re experiencing it on the go or at home,” Samantha Goldworm said.
The brand is launching on its own website, and considering broader retail partners. “We want to make sure that the first wholesale account we go into shares our values of care compassion in the community, and really align with them to launch it through their distribution,” said Dawn Goldworm.
The brand’s hand sanitizer, called Mother Earth, is dermatologist-approved for sensitive skin, features 60 percent ethyl alcohol in accordance with FDA guidelines, and is scented with sandalwood, bergamot, lemon, iris flower and tonka bean. The Inner Peace Mask Spray is scented with amber and musk and is intended to be sprayed on the outside of a face mask.
Philanthropy is at the heart of the brand. An undisclosed portion of the profits will be donated to the Lower Eastside Girls Club, “because young girls have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19,” Goldworm said. “On the b-to-b side, we have also filed a 501(c)(3), which will act as a scholarship for the federally funded hospitals that do not have the money for these types of initiatives.”