Perfume as a Ritual: Exploring NEH with Tara Derakshan

Written by Kristina Kybartaite-Damule

NEH — the perfume universe shaped by Tara Derakshan — blends ritual, frequency, and intention, transforming scent into a moment of presence and mindfulness. For this PlezuroMag interview, we meet the woman behind a quiet but powerful new voice in modern perfumery.

Tara Derakshan / Images provided by the brand

I met Tara in Cannes last October, during TFWA week. From the first moment, she radiated something different – a warmth that felt grounding, almost familiar. Speaking with her was effortless, as if reconnecting with someone I had known for years. That rare ability to create safety and openness is woven into everything she does, from her brand identity to her intimate new moon ceremonies, where people return month after month to breathe, reset, and simply be.

Born and raised in Sweden to Iranian parents, Tara grew up surrounded by contrasts: Nordic minimalism and Persian opulence, Scandinavian restraint and Middle Eastern expressiveness. Her mother’s scent wardrobe — an uncommon luxury in Sweden — became her earliest gateway into beauty, identity, and emotion. 

Today, she owns her own perfume brand NEH, where every fragrance is shaped as a portal to the self. This philosophy is most clearly expressed in Altered States, NEH’s collection of six fragrances, where each perfume is accompanied by affirmation cards and original frequency compositions that deepen the experience. The collection evokes the essence of a sacred ceremony: a moment to reconnect with yourself, to shift your inner state, to remember who you are beneath the noise.

In our interview for PlezuroMag, we talk about Tara’s creative awakening, the meaning of ritual, the link between luxury and mindfulness, and what it means to create from the soul.

How did you decide to start your path in perfumery, what led you to create perfumes?

That's a great question. I think I've always been very interested in beauty as a way to express myself and enhance myself. And my mom had a scent wardrobe and I remember it so clearly from when I was little: she always had this table in the bathroom where she would fix her hair and everything. And she had all of her perfumes lined up.

I live in Sweden where a perfume wardrobe, a scent wardrobe, isn't a normal thing. Most people only have one fragrance that they use or maybe two. But I think, in Iran, it's also really a way to express yourself. And I think a lot of it came from my mother. When I became a teenager, I had my own fragrance wardrobe and it was something that I loved to play around with.

I didn't consciously think of it then, but it's something I realised has followed me ever since I was little.

I'm a certified hairdresser as well. So in high school I did hairdressing and I wanted to be a stylist. And I think that was also part of it. I'm a very creative person and I love to help other people enhance their looks. I think that's all connected to identity. In that area of my life, I was very in line with wanting to help people to really access their identity and make them feel and look their very best.

But then life took its own route. I fell into expectations, I think from both society and myself, my parents. So I put that aside and I went to university, and I did everything that I was supposed to do to build my future. I worked in tech, I worked in philanthropy. I've moved, I've lived in a few different countries: New York, London. I lived and studied in Paris.

But I think that part of me that wanted to work with my creativity never left. So I founded Sniph, which is my other business. At that time, I always felt like something was missing in my soul. Like it wasn't where I was supposed to be. And then I met my co-founder of Sniph, and we started talking about perfume and she smelled what I was wearing, a perfume that I'd found in New York. And it was just synchronicity. It was just life doing what life does. We both loved perfumes and were thinking how we could create something that is both business, which I also love, but also work with something that we're so passionate about. It all went very quickly. We founded Sniph, a subscription-based fragrance discovery service, where we hand select and curate from the niche houses around the world.

That was eight years ago. And so I dove right back into the world of beauty and perfumery and have worked with that for the last few years. And then, a year and a half ago, I launched NEH, my first own perfume house.

Tara Derakshan and Kristina Kybartaite-Damule

And at what point did you realise that you wanted to have your own perfume brand?

It was the same thing. I never dreamt about having my own perfume house. It wasn't something that I planned. It was again, just life doing life. It just came through me one day. I went through my own personal awakening, my own spiritual journey. I got really unwell in 2019. I’ve got an autoimmune condition, I have MS. And it's under control right now, but it came into my life again to shake me. It led me to explore the path of mindfulness and mind-body-soul, the brain and the nervous system. I studied that for a few years because I wanted to understand myself and to have the tools to be able to heal my body.

And with that, there were new levels of consciousness. I became so aware of my thoughts and how they shape our reality, how they can also create illness in our bodies and how everything is connected. Everything that happens in the mind is so connected to how we feel in the body. And if we're not connected to that, we're not connected to our soul.

So it was that journey. And then the final thing was when I was at a plant ceremony and I reconnected with my full name, Taraneh. And for me, that was a major aha moment where I reconnected with everything that makes me who I am, and I just felt whole in myself. That was a pivotal point for me. It healed my body. I wasn't sick anymore. It was also a moment when I realized that NEH means nose in French. It was literally from that moment that it became a calling. I was like, I have to create a perfume house and it has to incorporate so much more so I can share this medicine and do it in a way that's approachable. I wanted to create something that would work as a tool for me every day to help me anchor and remember who I am, but also be of service to others.

So, your fragrance is like a ceremony, with all the affirmations, connected sounds.

It sounds woo woo, but it's not, and I know this from my own experience. And this is what I want to teach others, that when we are connected with ourselves, when we're aligned with our path and who we are, and not chasing anything outside of us just to tick those boxes and be successful, when we create from our soul, then all the ideas come to us, then it's nothing that you have to chase.

When people ask how I came up with the concept – literally it just came through me. And also it was everything that I use. It's everything that has helped me and everything that I know. Like the frequency music – it has its function: it calms our nervous system, it brings us into alignment, it makes you calm and it makes you breathe better, and it activates your energy. The affirmations are to help us reprogram our subconscious thoughts, because I know that our thoughts are the way we create our reality.

Let's talk a little bit about the ceremony you are holding every month, every new moon. How do you come up with this idea? Is this a way to connect with your community as well?

My vision is really to build a community that is connected, that shares the same values. It’s not only about growing the brand, but the mission, to plant those positive seeds in more people, elevating the frequency, creating the world that I want to live in, which is a world that is kinder, softer, more love. And that starts obviously with me and the relationship with myself, and then everything through this work, and then everyone who interacts with the work. And I see that it creates a snowball effect out into the world.

So I started doing the ceremonies live and I still do them live. But then, since our global community has grown and we have customers from over 30 countries, I wanted to extend this. So that's why I created the digital version. I love hosting them because it gives me so much. Every time I give my time to this, it gives me 10 times back. It's like it anchors me back into the messages. So I just created it as a room to be able to share the magic.

I haven't been doing them for that long, but I have some people that have come back like three, four times. And I also look at the emails they write to me and how they share the message and it's exactly like I envisioned it. It's not that they're sharing my journey. They're sharing their journey, but through the lens of NEH. And it's so authentic.

Perfume is a luxury. How do you see the connection of luxury and mindfulness?

I want to be very clear. I love luxury. I like high quality things. I like jewellery. This is who I am.

I always want to surround myself with beautiful things and materials, highest quality of perfumes.

But for me today, luxury isn't just consumption. It is things that actually impact my soul. And so the luxury that I consume is very intentional. I believe in quality over quantity. I believe in purchasing things that enhance your identity as not only who you are, but who you want to be. I think that it's just a more conscious way and more of an intentional way to consume.

How do you ensure that the mindfulness element of NEH doesn't feel performative or commercial? To me, it feels very authentic.

NEH is born as a gift from my heart. NEH is an extension of everything I am as a person. It's my writing, it's my singing, it's my poetry. It's my design elements. It's me sitting with the perfumers working. I talk about unconditional self-love being the highest frequency energetically on the planet, but actually the highest frequency scientifically has been shown to be authenticity. You can't fake that.

I'm not trying to sell anyone anything. From the very first moment, I've always said, I know that the people that resonate with NEH energetically will find NEH. And I trust that.

Tell me a little bit about your creative process. When you create a perfume, do you begin with the emotion? Do you begin with the raw material or the story you want to tell?

So it's always the intention first – what story I want to tell and what feeling it is that I want to evoke.

And then, based off of that, I work with my perfumers so that they fully align with what we're trying to create. So it's always there. It's always the story and intention and the energy first.

One of your perfumes, and my personal favorite, The Light, was very well received and got multiple awards as well. How does it make you feel?

It just affirms to me that it's resonating and that I'm on the right path. And obviously any recognition is always a beautiful thing because it helps more people see your brand. But for me on a deeper level, it just shows me that, okay, I'm aligned, keep going and keep creating from truth because that's felt and people recognise it. So I guess it's more motivation, and there's a bit of magic too, that we could get three awards in less than a year. It just feels that this is the path that I'm supposed to be on.

What rituals or daily habits do you have personally? What helps you to stay grounded and inspired?

I listen to a lot of frequency music. I often have that type of music in my house because it keeps me still and it grounds me. I spend a lot of time in nature. I have two dogs and I take long forest walks. I think that's my daily ritual.

And then I want to say I meditate a lot, but I don't sit and meditate. I don't always have time for that. But I work a lot with affirmations and things just to fill my mind and remember to be grateful and to live in the moment.

What's coming next for NEH? Right now you have six perfumes with six pillars. What is coming next? Are you expanding the collection? Are you going in a different direction?

I actually have a lot going on right now. I have another collection that's in the making and I envision that as a part two of the Altered States collection. It won't be the Altered States collection, but it will be an extension, like the next step after you've reconnected to yourself. What do you do to create your dream life? So that's a little hint.

I call the collections the portals. They are portals to you to help you increase your consciousness and to be able to create a more beautiful life that's aligned with who you are. So the first Altered States collection is about shifting your state, calming your nervous system, helping you remember and align with yourself and your soul. And then the collection after will be something completely different. It's going to be magical.

Sounds exciting! Thank you for your time.