Ritual guides everything Corbin Chamberlin creates for Sage & Salt, his line of fine fragrances, jewelry, candles and crystals that imbue everyday life with a little magic. His first two perfumes, Luna Absolute and Moon Ring, were designed to honor lunar phases. For his third, released in June, the Mesa intuitive looked to his company’s origins. “Sage & Salt was built on our smokeless smudge room spray,” Chamberlin says. “Our new fragrance, Sacred Ember, was born from the idea of holy smokes around the world, sacred scents that remove negative energy.”  

Chamberlin sat down with us to talk about Sacred Ember’s fragrance notes and Sage & Salt’s success—including write-ups in Vogue and Forbes. 

Tell us about your first two perfumes. 

I wanted to create a fragrance that wasn’t just interesting on its own—it also had to carry the Sage & Salt narrative of energy and all the “woo” stuff. I wanted people to be activated somehow, and that’s where the idea of the full moon and the new moon came to be. I wanted people to look up at the night sky and say, “Oh, a new moon is coming. It’s time for me to put on Moon Ring,” or to spray on Luna Absolute for a full moon. It not only engages a customer, but it makes them so present. The moon transcends any kind of belief, any kind of culture. There’s no denying that the moon has an effect on people, one way or another. 

And how did Sacred Ember come to be?  

After the wild success of the first two, I knew that I wanted to do a third. Throughout many cultures, people burn things and light fires with the idea of clearing things. So, the fragrance has notes in it that pay homage to all those cultures. The finished product is this very glowy, smoky scent that sits on the body, but the hope is that you spray it and release yourself from other people’s intentions and energies. It’s different in its function than the other two. 

What are those scent notes? 

The first is palo santo, and then there’s a note specific to fragrance design called kade, which is smoky. There’s cashmere and tobacco. When you read these notes on paper, it sounds very masculine—I hate to use “masculine” and “feminine” when talking about fragrance, but it reads as stereotypically masculine. But it’s also so glowy and warm. It’s like you lit up palo santo next to a campfire and then you walked through a church on a Sunday. You’re getting those incense notes. It feels very sacred and energized.  

How have the perfumes been received? I know they’re in boutiques across the U.S. and even beyond. 

Honestly, this is just such a moment. I never in a million years would have thought that a brand that centered itself around the metaphysical or spiritual would be a success. Our first major retailer was Bergdorf Goodman, which is unheard of for a brand my size. Not a lot of people—let alone an Arizona brand—can say that their first retail partner was Bergdorf Goodman.  

Since then, we’ve launched into 30 stores in the U.S., in every luxury boutique you can imagine. And then globally, we got into Mecca, which is one of the world’s biggest beauty retailers. Think of it like a high-end Sephora in Australia and New Zealand. For these huge companies to have so much faith in a small brand like us says so much. 

The accolades these scents have received have been overwhelming. Moon Ring especially—it’s been named the best scent by so many outlets, it’s been in Vogue and Teen Vogue. Before it was released, Sacred Ember had coverage in GQ and Robb Report. When we launched the first two fragrances, we had 400-something orders in the first 24 hours.  

What is it like for you to express yourself in this way? You’ve done so much with jewelry and crystal curation. What is it like to create in this new medium? 

You can make a beautiful image, a beautiful product, a beautiful piece of jewelry, but there’s something about scent that lets you take people into your world and animate it. It just makes such a connection with people. And I love the fragrance community. They’ve been so good to us, and they’re so energized. Anyone who really knows perfume, when they smell our stuff, they just get it.