Lab Note · 001
Kimbra Collective began with two people, five children, a shared love of fragrance, and a place neither of us has ever stopped calling home.
We were born and raised in Southern Oregon. The Rogue Valley taught us to notice contrast: pear trees arranged in careful rows beneath a horizon of irregular forest; the sweetness of blossom season against dry summer grass; conifer shade only a short drive from sun-warmed stone. It is a landscape shaped by cultivation and wildness at once.
Its human story is layered, too. Indigenous peoples lived with and cared for this land for thousands of years before orchards transformed the valley. Later generations of growers, makers, nurses, builders, and small-business owners created traditions of their own. We do not claim all of those stories as ours. We do believe a house born here should meet them with humility, learn the truth of its home, and contribute something made with care.
Why perfume?
Because fragrance holds place differently than a photograph does. It can carry a season, a room, or a person forward in time. Shanna’s work as a hospice nurse has made the value of presence and memory especially clear. Perfumery gives us a language for both.
We are building that language deliberately. We study materials and masterworks, record every formula, and let each trial rest before deciding what it has become. We favor fine naturals, source Oregon-grown extracts and distillations when quality and provenance align, and seek relationships with local growers and artisan producers working with regional botanicals and conifers. Perfumer’s alcohol carries the finished composition. Honesty carries everything else.
The first chapter
Our first fragrance is developing under the working title Citrus Grove. We are tentatively aiming for an early 2027 release, though a smaller edition may appear sooner. We will not force the date. The formula will tell us when it is finished.
Kimbra Collective will remain a limited-production house. A run may be hundreds of bottles or a few thousand, but never so many that we lose closeness to the work. This journal will document the road from those first measured drops to the first finished bottle—always with our roots in view.
— Mike + Shanna
Kimbra Collective · Southern Oregon