A New Routine That Just Makes Scents
Oren Porterfield aims to shake up the fragrance world with her new apothecary brand, Ritual Goods.
Whenever Oren Porterfield gets a whiff of patchouli or wood, images of her father flood her thoughts. She sees the cowboy hat he consistently sported and reflects on the wooden chair he used to rock her in when she was a young girl.
“Ever since I can remember, basically all of my memories of childhood and all of my positive memories are linked to smell,” Porterfield says.
She created the apothecary fragrance brand Ritual Goods last year with the intention of capturing and preserving some of her favorite scents in the form of body sprays and soaps. Working out of her East Austin home, Porterfield combines essential oils such as vetiver, clove and lavender into bars of soap, unisex fragrances and what she calls “vibe enhancing” sprays. When she’s inspired, she sits at the desk nestled in the front room of her charming, yellow home and, surrounded by vintage lamps, an old bookcase and a record player, pulls out her collection of oils to begin mixing.
Each of her products comes with a tag that contains a short poem describing the scent, such as “an old book’s whisper from a smoky cedar den” or “ocean air sweetened by rose.”
The inspiration behind each handcrafted scent comes from Porterfield’s innate curiosity.
“I start with one oil I’m really interested in seeing how it will interact with others,” Porterfield says. “Each oil is different on everyone’s skin, which I find really interesting. It sort of creates itself. It develops its own personality.”
She started creating her brand after she found herself getting tired of cleaning the house with harsh chemicals. The strong, toxic-like smell often left her light-headed, which led her to begin researching how to make her own cleaning supplies and experimenting with crafting various spritzers with essential oils. In March 2015, she started selling her products at the eclectic Austin store Friends & Neighbors, and now sells them online and at other shops such as Catchtilly. Porterfield named the brand Ritual Goods because she feels creating the products is similar to performing a ritual.
“I don’t ascribe to any particular religion, so I find it important and grounding to have rituals at home,” Porterfield says, “just moments where you can kind of be deliberate when you’re caring for yourself and your environment. When I’m making a scent, it feels almost ceremonial.”
Porterfield purchases some of her mixing oils at Morning Star Trading Company, an Austin store that specializes in aromatherapy products. She says she enjoys supporting local vendors.
“I like having a circle of places that I go to,” Porterfield says. “It’s nice to see familiar faces. It builds community. I think that’s important, especially with all the growth [in Austin] that’s happening.”
If she can’t be found in her home studio, you can most likely find Porterfield at the ballet studio, connecting with her dance community. Porterfield currently dances professionally with Ballet Austin and teaches ballet lessons at Dance Xplosion. She began the ritual of dance at age 3 and has been dancing professionally for the past 12 years. Her career has taken her everywhere from Ohio to Israel.
But reaching her pinnacle in the practice wasn’t easy. She’s heard and been through it all. She’s been told she’s too short, too curvy and that she just doesn’t have the right body to be a dancer. She’s suffered from and persevered through debilitating injuries. One time, she was part of a dance company that folded, forcing her to work at a restaurant to stay afloat. Other times, she’s had companies offer her contracts only to find out last minute they either didn’t have the budget to hire her or decided to go with someone else.
“For me, and a lot of women, especially, [dance is] all you want to do,” Porterfield says. “You spend many years with your eye on that and working so hard. Every other part of your life just isn’t as important.”
While she loves being onstage and taking on a character during a performance, Porterfield says having another hobby outside of dance enables her to feel empowered in a different way. When she’s at her desk mixing oils, she doesn’t have to worry about the way she looks to choreographers or directors. She simply focuses on her routine, the routine of fashioning a fragrant final product.
“[Dancing] can feel really scary and vulnerable because you’re an expert in this one area, and one day, you look around and you’re 30 and you don’t really know if you have any other skills,” Porterfield says. “For me, it’s confidence-building to work on honing a different craft, especially one that doesn’t involve the way I look or the way my body feels that morning. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with someone else casting me. It’s just: ‘I’m making this.’ ”
China Smith
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