Eileen Tan bringing her fragrances enterprise to the next level of a roller-coaster ride

Eileen, centre, with participants at the workshop.

Kilcullen entrepreneur Eileen Tan conducted a workshop on fragrances today for influencers and practitioners in various aspects of the beauty and wellness industry in Kildare, writes Brian Byrne. The event at Keadeen Hotel invited participants to learn the building blocks of perfume and create a fragrance of their own.

Introducing the afternoon, Eileen provided a short background of her childhood in Malaysia, where her interest in scents came from visits to her aunt's garden. "It was full of plants, trees and flowers, and I remember the smell of lemongrass, the green sweetness of the pandan leaves, the warmth of the earth, and the little mimosa plant that I used to play with." As a teenager, she inherited a box of perfumes from her aunt, and one of them stayed in her memory, not as a smell but how it made her feel.

She told how another major interest, music, shaped how she thinks when composing a perfume. "In music, we compose notes and chords, and it's very similar in perfume: you have top notes, middle or heart notes, and base notes. We also have 'chords' in perfumery — we call them echoes." Suggesting that a perfume's effect is unique to each wearer, it can be considered a story about the wearer. She invited the workshop participants to 'write their own story' by creating their own fragrance.

The Compose Your Own Story: Mini Fragrance Experience session guided attendees through the basics of fragrance design using a curated palette of scent accords created by Eileen. Rather than focusing on whether a perfume was “right” or “wrong,” she encouraged people to notice what they were drawn to and what memories a scent might bring up.

Participants were introduced to three key layers of perfume: Top notes — the opening impression, often bright, fresh, sparkling or citrusy; Heart notes — the emotional core, which can feel floral, soft, romantic or spicy; and Base notes — the lasting memory, adding warmth, depth, musk or woods.

The experience was structured as a hands-on fragrance lesson. Attendees first smelled different accords, then chose one from each layer, and began blending by weight in a 10ml bottle. They started with 0.50g of each selected accord, then adjusted the formula in small increments until the scent felt balanced.

The workshop emphasised observation and reflection. Participants were asked to write down first impressions, describe the mood or memories each accord evoked, and record their final formula so the perfume could be recreated later. At the end, they were encouraged to name their fragrance and describe the story behind it.

Eileen first came to Ireland in 2008, having met and married Irishman Peter Farnan in Kuala Lumpur. An initial craft venture in making cute crocheted animals, along with developing scented candles, gave her the opportunity to renew previous entrepreneurial activities. Advised by Cllr Tracey O'Dwyer to approach the Local Enterprise Office Kildare, they put her forward for Enterprise Ireland's New Frontiers programme, where she pivoted to working on a fragrance development idea that could be scaled as a business. She first showcased her perfumes at Styled for Success on International Women's Day last October, as five fragrances under the banner of Maison d'Eileen, and recently completed the third and final phase of the New Frontiers programme.

"It has been a real roller-coaster ride," she told the Diary today, but is looking forward to the next twists and turns on her entrepreneurial journey.

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