Two Seafaring Women Create A Scent That Evokes Salt Air And Freedom

Aug 20, 2023

Poseidon perfume can be purchased in a rose quartz "figa."

A love of the sea, feminine wisdom, and an eye for style brought two women together to create a new perfume that’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.

The scent’s creators, Yosh Han and Marie McCarthy, have deep roots in San Francisco. McCarthy owns Fiat Lux jewelry, with locations in the Mission (“punk rock”) and the Fillmore (“pinkies up”), and Rose Gold’s Tattoo and Piercing in Haight-Ashbury. Han is a veteran scent expert who has developed a wide range of scents and also runs her own perfume brand, YOSH.

Despite having so much in common, they’d never met until a mutual friend had a hunch they might create something amazing and made the introduction. They quickly got to work developing a new scent.

“We connected over our love of the water but didn't know how the scent would transpire,” Han said. “As we started to collaborate, it became more clear that we each spend a lot of time wild swimming and have a deep relationship to the ocean and bonded over it.”

Marie McCarthy applies the new perfume she developed with Yosh Han, Poseidon.

The result is Poseidon, a perfume that evokes the ocean with notes of salt, cypress, and seaweed, with helichrysum at its center.

“Marie spoke of swimming in the Mediterranean Sea in Greece and how beautiful it is,” Han said. “One of the ingredients I wanted to include was ‘everlasting,’ aka ‘immortelle,’ aka helichrysum. In Greece, this particular coastal spice flower glows like the sun on the top of the cliff against the azure sea. It was a key ingredient in this scent aside from seaweed and other marine elements.”

Han and McCarthy’s shared love of sailing and swimming in the ocean led them to Poseidon, Greek God of the ocean, when it came to naming the scent.

In 2017, Han helped deliver a kitesurfing catamaran from Papua New Guinea to Palau. On that passage of more than 1,200 nautical miles, she crossed the equator where it’s customary for sailors to make a significant offering to Poseidon.

“I had been wearing a fake wedding band while traveling overland with Remote Year during 2017 and as the year was nearly ending, I decided to toss this ring into the Pacific Ocean and 'marry myself' to Poseidon. Since that moment, my life has changed.”

Following that offering, she became a scuba instructor in Indonesia, earned her captain’s license from the Coast Guard, and raced in the prestigious TransPac from LA to Hawaii with Sail Oro, a program promoting inclusivity in performance racing. She has clocked more than 16,000 nautical miles at sea and sail in Micronesia, Polynesia, Caribbean, Mexico, and two trips to Hawaii. She also hopes to sail in Turkey and Greece later this fall.

McCarthy has her own personal bond with the Greek God: “I was married at Poseidon's temple, the only one that stays absolutely white as it is battered by the sea air at the southern most point of mainland Greece. (Yosh and I) both love the crispness of the sea, the beauty, it feeds us.”

Fiat Lux founder Marie McCarthy displays her "figa" pendant, which is filled with her new scent, ... [+] Poseidon.

Crisp is an apt way to describe Poseidon the scent as well, with helichrysum giving it’s signature edge.

“Yosh sent me on a ‘scent walk’... I was assigned to go to the beach, close my eyes and walk, exploring and experiencing all the different notes as I went,” McCarthy said. “It was experiential and magnificent. I don't usually take that kind of downtime.”

She also brought vials of various distilled notes into the shop for McCarthy to smell. “I really learned what I was attracted to and what I was not into through that.”

The result, Han said, is one of her favorite fragrances—which is saying a lot considering her career in scents began in the late ‘90s, plus her experience as founder of YOSH, creative director at Scent Trunk, and producer of the Scent Festival.

“It's refreshing, uplifting, and grounding, yet really expansive,” she said. “When you smell it, your lungs wake up. You really feel the energizing element of the salt, the atmosphere, the coastal forest in your lungs.”

A rose quartz "figa" necklace contains Poseidon perfume.

McCarthy designed a small rose quartz vessel that doubles as a necklace (perfect for touch ups on the go) in the shape of a “figa,” a hand gesture believed in many cultures to ward off evil (in others it’s middle finger adjacent). Each figa wears its own permanent bracelet, for which Fiat Lux has become famous. “The details!” Han said.

The rose quartz pendant and 1 dram dropper set are available at Fiat Lux for $380, the 10ml perfume oil rollerball is $85.

McCarthy said we can expect another scent before long. “Yosh and I had a split in the path during our exploration and we loved both paths so we're going to launch the other one (more ambery, what she's known for) in the fall.”