Today we’d like to introduce you to Natasha Gregson Wagner
Hi Natasha, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As a child, I always knew when my mom was home or close by because I could smell her. After she died in 1981, when I was 11, I spent many days lying in her bed or sitting in her closet amongst her clothes. Why? Because of her scent. If I could somehow keep her scent alive maybe she wouldn’t be gone. Her love was real, she existed, those first 11 years of my life with her was not a dream.
For me, fragrance is a scent trail toward my loved ones. Like Hansel and Gretel following the path of breadcrumbs in the forest, I follow the scent of flower petals, incense, the grasses, and trees that lead me to the loved ones of my childhood. The people that shaped the woman that I am today. The Cyprus Rigaud candles that my mother burned in our living room, her Jungle Gardenia perfume, the garden roses in our backyard, the honey that my mom would stir In her chamomile tea at night before bed, golden jewelry and amber beads, my father’s Sandalwood cologne, the incense in the churches of my childhood.
After the birth of my daughter in 2012, I was filled to the brim with love. I felt a peacefulness that I had not known since my mom died. I wanted to celebrate my mom and the deep and everlasting love that she imprinted on my heart. Motherhood came so naturally to me because of her.
I worked for two years with perfumer Claude Dir to create Natalie, which debuted in 2016.A gardenia-based fragrance with notes of bigarde zest, orange blossom and neroli. In 2017, I created La Rose. I call it “a rose that smells like a rose.” A dewy, fresh rose with heliotrope, jasmine and geranium.
Time went by. I co-produced a documentary on my mom’s life for HBO titled Natalie wood: What Remains Behind and my memoir More Than Love was published by Scribner. Both released in 2020.
I am currently working on my third fragrance.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I knew nothing about fragrance or starting a business which means the road has been bumpy! I have learned so much, made a ton of mistakes, found wonder and success in places I least expected. It is scary and thrilling to be an entrepreneur, like riding a rollercoaster. Butterflies and somersaults in your stomach all the time!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I dropped out of college after my sophomore year to pursue acting. I acted for my twenties and thirties, had some success and a lot of failure. Acting can break your heart like no relationship. After my daughter, Clover was born in 2012, I hung up my acting shoes to be a full time mom. I still miss the feeling of acting but I don’t miss the grind. My godmother was Ruth Gordon, maybe one day I will act again-when I am older and tinier with the experience of so much life lived-like Ruth. A couple years into my daughter’s life I started a fragrance line called Natalie Fragrance. I had always been a private person but after speaking to Katie Rosman at the New York Times in 2016 about the launch of my fragrance, I realized that I felt better, more expansive, grounded and safer actually, sharing my story instead of being so private about who my parents were/are and what happened to me. Sharing publicly the connection I had with my mom and my deep heartbreak of losing her has been an unexpected point of clarity and peace for me. Now that I am older than she ever got to be, I feel like I have become her mother and the protector of her legacy and her unbelievable body of work.I want to be the one who is in control of the narrative of her life-not the press. I co produced a documentary for HBO, Natalie Wood:What Remains Behind and wrote my memoir More Than Love. My fragrance line is a way for me to express my love of design and bespoke beauty. I am a Libra, after all! I call it a scent trail toward my loved ones.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I was born in Los Angeles and grew up here. I remember when the Beverly Center was Pony Land, when there was a Toy Mart in Beverly Hills and when Hamburger Hamlet still existed. My go to order was a number 11 and a strawberry milkshake. I roller-skated at Flippers in West Hollywood and ate lychees on a dome of ice at the Luau restaurant. I love LA. My father who was British called it a lotus-eating-lala land but to me it is home.I love the smell of the asphalt after a big rain, driving down the streets when the jacaranda trees bloom in June with their purple blossoms covering the street like a magic carpet, the milky white magnolias that open like origami in February and the yellow pom poms of the acacia trees that start to blossom in the fall.
I hate the traffic and the fires. I still think I can get from the west side to the east side in 3o minutes, oh, well…
Pricing:
- Natalie EDP 110.00
- Natalie rollerball 30.oo
- La Rose rollerball 30.00
- Natalie candle 55.00
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nataliefragrance.com
- Instagram: nataliefragrance
- Facebook: nataliefragrance
- Youtube: nataliefragrance
Image Credits
Black and white photo of Natasha and Natalie photo credit Ellen Graham
