ABOUT OUR PERFUMER SARAH MCCARTNEY

Born within the sound of the North Sea crashing on Saltburn beach. 75% Teesside, 25% Cockney. Boro supporter, yoga teacher, clarinetist, and writer of books. Guilty pleasures: playing on the swings at the park, red lipstick, cosy crime novels, craft beer, Eurostar. 

As a child, I did not make perfumes from rose petals. That was for softies. I made magic spells and wanted to be a witch when I grew up. When I was 16 I bought a bottle of Diorella and fell in love with perfumery's magic powers. Since I started to make my own scents, I've been attempting to create my own ideal citrus chypre. I studied maths and sciences, practised music and French and wrote books on brands and their evil twin (counterfeiting) and online marketing.

For 14 years I was the head writer for Lush while the company grew from four shops - one in Poole and three in London - to 700 worldwide. I was writing 50,000 words every three months for the Lush Times, aiming to encapsulate the products' scents in their descriptions. During that time, I bought and read 200 books on essential oils and herbalism.

In 2010 years I took some time off to write a novel featuring a problem-solving perfumer. In it, I described the scents that she made and I wanted to have them available for people to smell. So I set off on a quest to see if I could buy them. This turned out to be impossible because no one was making exactly what I wanted, so I started another quest to see of I could make them instead. Of course that turned out to be even more difficult, but once I'd started, I just kept going. 4160Tuesdays perfumes is the result.