Style

Nicole Eckels, founder of Glasshouse Fragrances, is a powerhouse in the beauty business. She talks to ZoeWalkerAhwa about her love of colour, entertaining and holiday cheer.

Nicole Eckels is the embodiment of an entrepreneurial New Yorker – though it was in Australia where she found business success with the launch of her well-known candle and homeware brand, Glasshouse Fragrances. Eckels, who began her career as a makeup artist at Saks Fifth Avenue, founded the brand in 2005 in Sydney; today she works between the two countries, with the businesses’ head office and production in Sydney.

She’s at her apartment in New York when we talk, wearing a pair of statement earrings from Kiwi jeweller Jasmine Sparrow (she raves about them). They work with her bold personality and style – red hair often paired with vibrant colour – and reflect her passion for shopping too.

Being bold has been key to her brand’s success: Glasshouse has become known for its playful and surprising scents, and its annual Christmas collections with names like Night Before Christmas (it smells like ‘dancing sugar plums’), White Christmas (cedar leaf and fruity clove), Gingerbread House (self explanatory) and Under the Mistletoe (spiced apple and red berries). This year continues that tradition with a 25-piece collection featuring illustrations by Australian-based artist Michelle Pereir, with a diverse collective of characters adorning each item. There’s also a charming concept: as a set the signature Christmas candles form a row of homes, or a village, with transparent window decals that illuminate as they burn.

That was inspired by Eckels’ childhood Christmas memories, where her mother would display her own village. “Sometimes, just coming back to yourself is where the real good stuff comes from,” she says. “And that is this year’s Christmas, a collection based on Christmas villages, which is part of my heritage, part of the way I grew up.”

Eckels’ Christmas tips are also inspired by her family holiday memories. She loves a night-beforeChristmas ritual, gathering with family for a meal. “It takes the pressure off,” she says. “The whole idea is you have all these people over potentially and you need to be present for those people.” She suggests moving the labour intensive things to the night before, then relaxing and enjoying the day, knowing you’re prepared and have things you can put out on a platter.

This year, she and her family will continue their tradition of dressing up on Christmas day – it used to be matching PJs, but now, with adult children, it’s “ugly sweaters”. And she’s already working on products for next holiday. “I’m always living in Christmas!” jokes Eckels. “But even when you’re perpetually in Christmas, I still get excited just to get the tree out.”

I HAVE A BIG WARDROBE,

that's my thing. Fragrance and fashion are my thing and I just am constantly shopping, looking, buying, finding new stuff. I have an unlimited imagination.

I LOVE SUITS. I love formal wear. And when I say formal, I don't mean black tie; I mean being a little more put together and feeling buttoned up and polished. That makes me feel incredible. I have a few favourite suits, including a cream one by the brand Lafayette 148 New York, which goes with anything. I wear that all the time and I love it.

I HARDLY EVER WEAR BLACK.

Right now I’ve discovered all this new black leather, which I love, but normally I like a lot of colour. It makes me feel present, happy, self-aware. Not enough people embrace colour. It brightens the skin, brightens the face, especially at my age. I think the older you get, the more colour you need to wear.

I LOVE RED LIPS, AND ALWAYS WEAR THEM.

Someone turned me on to this brand, Kjaer Weis – when you put this on, it is not coming off and I’m not talking about it in a weird way where it dries on and then you have to take it off with a chisel. I also wear Hermès – they do such good beauty, love the lipstick. But that’s changed for me: When I was younger, I didn't wear much but definitely whenever I'm wearing black, the red goes on.

MY APPROACH TO BEAUTY HAS NEVER CHANGED.

I’m extra – in every way. I will buy, wear or do anything. But what has changed is that I finally settled on the idea that there are some things that I just know work, and some that don’t. I've always been blessed with pretty good skin so I don’t really need to fuss too much. I don’t even get facials.

FRAGRANCE IS AN EXTENSION OF FOOD.

Everyone has their memory of eating something every Christmas, or their mother making something – and every Christmas scent is an extension of that. You can really mark an occasion with scent. One of my biggest challenges is that we don’t really do a lot of newness around Christmas because we’ve created these nostalgic scents that have now been embedded into people’s lives and traditions. There’s this responsibility, you have to keep the family rituals. But this year was particularly special for me because we got to launch our Hanukkah candle. We finally did something new at Christmas.

IF I WAS TO LOOK BACK AT THE PAST FOUR YEARS IN TERMS OF BUSINESS,

it is whitewater. But if you’re comfortable existing as a leader in a place where it’s always tumultuous, then you’re in a good place – because that’s the way it works. And Covid, if anything, showed us that we have no idea. We have to navigate it, we have to figure it out. No one’s going to tell us what to do – we just have to get on with it. So I think the big learning, if we ever go through anything like this again, is that there’s no control.

WHAT’S EXCITING ME RIGHT NOW

is the US market and our growth there, which has been phenomenal. It allows me to be a little more experimental with fragrance and I love that. It’s like a renewed way for me to really explore the craft and come up with amazing ideas and new product categories. And, because of the volume, I don’t have to worry about as many minimum order quantity issues. There are all these things that we can do now because we have the US business which is unleashing creativity.

I DO HAVE SOME FAVOURITE SCENTS.

I have some nostalgic things, like when I was a kid, I had this grumpy neighbour who had an enormous lilac bush out in the front of her house. It would bloom once a year. I would go down there and I would clip this beautiful lilac off the bush and take it home to my mother, and the scent was so strong that we had all the windows open. We had a big house in the country and the scent was so strong that the lilacs would billow throughout the house. I’m in the process of trying to recreate that because it’s very hard, especially in Australia – you just cannot find beautiful lilacs that are fragrant. The other thing I really love, that’s very nostalgic for me, is the scent of fresh cut green grass. It’s exceptional. And when I moved to Australia, it was one of the first scents that I launched because I loved it so much.