The Passing on of Knowledge is Powerful and Beautiful

Sometimes, it is the passing of stories, wise words and knowledge that builds the deepest bonds between us. Working also as an inspiration for our own journeys or inner understanding in a confusing world. Many of us have been lucky to have a parent or mentor who passed on powerful and beautiful insight, amplifying our worlds, engaging us in such a way that it impacts our creative and working world. One family legacy is the Connock family business and how daughter Amanda, inspired by her father, created her own line of perfumery and scented products, Connock England. Find out more in The Passing on of Knowledge is Powerful and Beautiful, here.

Hawaii US State

It started with a nut, or a nut on a tree or a tree that just happened to be the National tree of Hawai’i. In fact, it started with the Candlenut tree, which is Hawaii’s official state tree.

Candlenut Oil

In ancient Hawai’i, Kukui fruits, from the Candlenut tree, were burned to provide light. The nuts were strung in a row on a palm leaf midrib, lit on one end, and burned one by one every fifteen minutes or so. This led to their use as a measure of time. Hawaiians extracted the oil from the nut and burned it in a stone oil lamp called a kukui hele po, meaning light, darkness goes

Kukui Nut Oil

There are many other uses for the tree, including leis from the shells, leaves, and flowers; ink for tattoos from charred nuts; a varnish with the oil; and fishermen would chew the nuts and spit them on the water to break the surface tension and remove reflections, giving them greater underwater visibility. A red-brown dye made from the inner bark, a coating of Kukui oil helped preserve fishing nets, and the oil can often be found in hair-care products and in cosmetics.

Image Forest Starr & Kim Starr

Family Link

So what relationship does Amanda have to this obscure tree? Amanda Connock’s father, Alan Connock, was a key figure in the natural ingredients industry who founded the family business A&E Connock in 1973 alongside his wife, Elizabeth. Alan travelled the world to source unusual, high-quality ingredients for the perfume and cosmetics industry. He often took his family with him on his travels, and so family holidays also became reconnaissance trips.

Fragrance Samples

Amanda spent her childhood exploring her father’s old fragrance samples and even making floral waters. For five years, she worked alongside him before his death, carrying his passion into her own business. His adoration for the highest quality exotic oils and botanical ingredients inspired Amanda’s fragrance line, Connock London. And one of the most precious oils was from a place she visited with her family, hence her initial fragrance: Connock London Kukui.

As if caught and bottled from a childhood memory, the scent available in candle, diffuser, body wash, cream and perfume form, is her vision of the sun and beach life of this most elegant and historic island. It is her interpretation of the feelings and emotions of this part of her shared familial journey.

Kukui does have a slight, very faint, pleasant nutty/coconut scent, so it isn’t a perfume ingredient as such. The scent opens here as an elegant, floral amber fragrance with top notes of beautiful creamy floral facets of the creamy floral buttery aroma with distinct coconut, peachy, and slightly green undertones of majestic Gardenia, regal honeyed floral of Moroccan Rose, and bright zingy light of Italian Bergamot.

Its heart becomes a celebration of the flora and fauna of the islands, with rich and opulent flora from White Jasmine, powdery aquatic facets from Calla Lily, intense, spicy, honey floral from Damask Rose, hints of dry earthiness and rooty notes of damp soil, sun-baked grass, via rooty Vetiver, and a kiss of milky, rich-woody facets from Sandalwood.

The finale brings the warmth, the tropics and the beach into the finale, with rich notes from powdery, creamy and slightly spicy Tonka bean and creamy, warming Vanilla, White Amber adds sweetness that has a slight luminosity and rooty earthy ground the scent Patchouli, with a final hug of light comfort from Sheer Musk.

This is a beautifully crafted yet very wearable fragrance that is built around the Gardenia flower, one that uses other floral notes to accentuate and heighten this majestic flower, whilst Bergamot gives it vivacity, it is finally enriched with base notes Amber, Patchouli and Musk to bring a lovingly warm caress to its whole ‘bouquet.’

So loved is the fragrance that Amanda added a more intense, headier Amber version called Kukui Noir Eau de Parfum. The notes here are many of the same as the sister perfume, but here others are added, and the structure is also altered for a heightened amber experience.

A floral opening of Rose, Jasmine, is supported here with warmth and rich headiness of an Amber accord. With a ‘darker’, softer-earthier heart of Sandalwood, Patchouli, Vetiver, and an almost hot finish of rich, opulent Black Amber, leathery, smoky, resinous notes of Oud Wood, and the softest wrapping of Cashmere Musks.

The third scent in the House’s collection is Verdant Eau de Parfum, a fresh and green English garden so far away from a Hawaiian beach as you could get. An English garden will always be fresh, green and herby; a warming sun rather than a burning hot one.

This elixir opens with the magical note of biblical green, earthy, and resinous Galbanum, alongside a fruity British favourite, the juicy Blackcurrant, a hint of bright UK sunshine from Lemon, a touch of jammy fruit from Fig and an herbaceous, camphoraceous, and aromatic facet from Eucalyptus. And bang, you are in a warm English garden.

The heart takes you towards the warmth of high summer, where herbaceous borders meet with florals and British spice. Green and fresh minty Peppermint, herby rooty rosey notes from Geranium, which also echo the creamy honey facets of English Rose and resinous floral of minty fresh Lavendin, with a flash of spicy floral from Carnation adding to the finale of the heart notes with warming spice from Clove

The crescendo is the English hot summer sun as it ends the day across the garden, soft, creamy, woody hints given here by Sandalwood and a rich, low golden sunset from deeply sultry Amber.

The house offering includes perfumes EDP, candles, room diffusers, linen mists, body products and haircare. There are gift sets and discovery options across the different juices in the collection.

For all the products Amanda creates, each uses the very best of ingredients available in keeping with her values, and those passed down from her beloved father.

Continuity acts as a bridge across time, preserving heritage, values, and traditions that provide a sense of identity and belonging. They bring a shared sense of perfection here, with the best possible ingredients being part and parcel of Amanda’s world.

The whole collection goes further than preserving cultural heritage, values, and traditions. It’s more than utilising the bedrock of familial care, love and knowledge, it’s about exploring the very soul and beauty of the Hawaiian landscape to the essence of the English Garden in all her green and flowered lands.

If you enjoyed reading The Passing on of Knowledge is Powerful and Beautiful, then why not read Love Letters Straight From the Heart, here

.Cent Magazine London. Luxury Mindset