Menteath

09/09/2026

Where does the smoke in Menteath come from? 🜂

It begins with a tree.

At the heart of almost every Menteath formula is a dark, resinous extraction from the juniper tree. Its scent is unmistakable — intensely smoky, earthy and woody, with the depth of resin and charred timber. It is this material that gives Menteath its distinctive thread of smoke.

But I was interested in it for more than its scent. The resinous extraction from juniper has been the subject of scientific research exploring antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial activity. That combination — this extraordinary smoky material and the science behind it — was what interested me when I began developing Menteath.

But there is one exception.

For Loch Blossom Facial Cleanser, I wanted to explore smoke differently. I turned to heavily peated wh**ky from Perthshire, a landscape connected to my own family heritage.

Before it ever became part of the formula, I spent an enormous amount of time researching and experimenting with wh**ky in skincare, testing how it behaved within the formulation and across different skin types. It wasn’t about adding wh**ky for novelty. I wanted to understand what it could actually bring to the skin, while capturing that extraordinary peated character — smoke, earth, wood and warmth.

And there is fascinating science behind wh**ky too. Research into matured wh**ky has identified naturally occurring phenolic compounds, including ellagic and gallic acids, with studies demonstrating antioxidant and free-radical-scavenging activity associated with its phenolic content and maturation in oak.

So when we talk about smoke at Menteath, it isn’t simply a scent we’ve created to smell like a fire.

It comes from the materials themselves.

Juniper. Resin. Peat. Wh**ky. Fire.

🜃 Earth · 🜂 Fire · 🜄 Water · 🜁 Air

Menteath — designed by the wild.

07/09/2026

One of my favourite parts of NOCTURNE was watching the garden become a place to stop for a while. To sit, breathe, touch, listen and simply be.

We’re doing it all again for our second and final Artwave date on Saturday 19 September.

Throughout the day we’ll have small group wellbeing sessions in the garden, alongside seated massage — which I can now personally confirm is glorious.

Adrian Peckitt’s photography will be exhibited throughout the day and through to the night, before we move into the evening and screen Beautifully Damaged, our first Menteath film in partnership with the amazing Adrian Peckitt , as the light begins to fade.

Come for an hour or stay for the day. Wander through the art, join a session, have a massage, sit in the garden and stay for the film.

𓂃 NOCTURNE · ARTWAVE 2026 𓂃
△ Saturday 19 September
☉ The Woodshed · Hamsey · East Sussex
🜃 Wellbeing · massage · photography
🜂 Beautifully Damaged screening from dusk

Group sessions + seated massage can be booked via the link in bio.

05/09/2026

02/09/2026

I don’t quite know where to start with this one.

This Saturday I’m opening up my home, and the home of Menteath, here on the farm at Hamsey for Artwave Festival .

I’ve been planning NOCTURNE for months, but I don’t think I expected the last few days to feel quite as emotional as they have. Watching friends, family and neighbours turn up and just get stuck in — helping me clear, build, move things, fix things and somehow get this garden ready — has meant more to me than I can really put into words. There have been some fairly chaotic moments getting here, and I feel incredibly lucky to have the people around me that I do.

And in amongst all of this, we’ve made our first ever Menteath film, Beautifully Damaged.

I made it with my friend Adrian Peckitt Adrian Peckitt , whose work I have admired for years. From the film industry, to Funghi, his creativity eye never leaves him and I’m always slightly in awe of the way his mind works and the things he notices — how he can take seemingly disconnected moments from people, landscape, nature and civilisation and piece them together into something that makes you see things differently.

This film has become very personal to me. It explores beauty, damage, home, safety and belonging, and our strange human instinct to control, consume, perfect and repair. In many ways it brings together parts of my life that I’ve never really known how to put in the same place before.

On Saturday night we’ll show it for the very first time, projected outside onto the barn as the light disappears, alongside a light installation in the garden.

My gorgeous friend Naomi from Naomie Cox will also be pulling her horsebox bar into the garden, which somehow makes the whole thing feel even more like us.

I think that’s what I’m most excited about. Not creating something polished or perfect, but opening the gate and sharing this place, the people around it, and a little bit of the world that Menteath has grown from.

If you’re nearby, I would genuinely love you to come.

Saturday 5 September
The Woodshed, Hamsey · Artwave Venue 9
From 6pm for film, light, sound, scent and the night garden.

△ ☾ 🜂 🜃

31/08/2026

Why is there heavily peated Scottish wh**ky in a facial cleanser?

The answer goes quite a long way back.

The Stuart-Menteath side of my family eventually made its way from Scotland to New Zealand, where my Grandma was from. But the stories of the Menteath family, and the landscape around the Lake of Menteith in Perthshire, travelled with them.

My Grandma was always full of surprises. She had lived in Africa and, something I only discovered later, could speak fluent Swahili. She was curious and adventurous, and on one trip to Scotland she went in search of our family history and quite literally knocked on the doors of the Menteath clan.

She came back with stories. Lots of them.

Stories about the family, the land and the Lake of Menteith — the only lake in Scotland — with the island where generations of the family are buried.

Those stories stayed in our family and, years later, became part of the story behind Menteath.

So when I created Loch Blossom, I wanted some of that connection to exist in the formulation itself. I chose a heavily peated wh**ky from Perthshire, the landscape our family heritage is tied to — and peated wh**ky also happens to be my favourite.

I love its deep, smoky, earthy character. Peat, fire, wood and landscape. All the things I seem to come back to again and again.

In Loch Blossom, it sits alongside h**p, walnut and poppy seed oils to gently cleanse without leaving skin feeling stripped, with sweet orange, wild marjoram, juniper, rosemary and cedarwood bringing freshness and depth.

It’s restorative, botanical, smoky and a little unconventional.

A cleanser rooted in family stories, landscape and the things I love.

I think Grandma would have rather liked that.

🜂 peat · smoke · fire
🜃 earth · botanicals
🜄 loch · memory

27/08/2026

I spend a lot of time climbing, and my hands definitely show it.

Chalk, rock, rope, cold air, washing them over and over again — I love what my hands allow me to do, but they can end up incredibly dry and rough afterwards.

I don’t want soft, slippery hands before I climb. I need the grip and I need the calluses. But once the chalk comes off, I want to look after the skin underneath it all.

That’s where Smoked Bay Hand + Body Balm has found a very natural place in my own life. I wash the chalk off, dry my hands and massage the balm into my palms, fingers, knuckles and around my nails. It helps soothe and soften dry, worked skin without the idea that I need to somehow erase the evidence of using my hands.

And the smoky, botanical scent has become part of coming home for me too.

I think this is increasingly what Menteath means to me: skincare for the life I actually want to live. Outside, using my body, getting dirty, climbing things — then coming home and taking care of it.

Grip first. Restore afterwards.

△ Earth
Designed by the wild.