About Us
Our Mission:
As an artisan-owned business, our mission is to create ethically made perfume as a form of accessible, wearable art and self-expression. Our perfume is passionate, whimsical, and always "crave-able".
How We Work:
Our perfumes are hand-blended in small batches in Charlotte, NC, then bottled and shipped by our dedicated team. Because we work in small batches, we are able to directly control the quality of our scents, often made with ingredients that would be difficult to source on a larger production scale.
Handling our own production means more fun, for us and for you: a wide variety of sizes and scents that push boundaries beyond what would be considered safely "marketable" at a larger scale, crafted and packaged in an environment that deeply values our team and fosters their creativity and development.
Because we are a small team working in small batches, perfume making is not a fast or perfect process. We hope that you find value in trading speed and convenience for quality and care at an accessible price, with a transparent timeline.
Above all else, we value our connection with you. We love that our customers are our people, and we want to make sure you are satisfied with your order. We prioritize responding quickly to customer e-mails, helping you however we can, and learning from errors that can be corrected by improving our systems and training as our company grows.
How We Got Started:
All of our scents are formulated by founder and self-taught perfumer, Caitlin Hayes. A lifelong perfume enthusiast, writer, and reader, Caitlin approaches scent creation much as she does writing poetry: every facet of a material adds nuance, and the deconstruction of olfactive notes, to be reconstructed and restructured in new and meaningful ways, can touch the heart and soul of a person in ways that defy reason or explanation.
A lover of most things olfactive, but especially vanillas, fruits, and gourmands, she couldn't find the bright, bold, unapologetic scents she was craving, made with the kind of quality, variety, heart, and detail that seemed to be reserved for more "serious" scent profiles. After discovering indie perfumes in 2020 and still not quite finding what she was seeking, she began to create her own, and fell in love with the entire creative process as a form of artistic expression.
Two years later, in May 2022, Sorcellerie Apothecary opened its (virtual) doors for the first time, and in July 2023, we hired our first employee and opened our first studio space.
Our Name:
In May 2022, we opened as Sorcellerie Apothecary; our name reflected our desire to create whimsical, fantasy-inspired perfumes that felt like magic (or sorcerery).
In January 2024, we began transitioning from Sorcellerie Apothecary to a shortened form of our name, Sorce, which has become our official name as of June 2024. We found that Sorce maintained the same root meaning (the Latin "sors", meaning "fate") and was much easier to share verbally with others. As our company relies more heavily on word of mouth (our growth has been completely organic) than many large companies that invest heavily in text-based and print advertisements, it felt natural to make the shift.
As an American brand owner, Caitlin also wanted to celebrate the idea that perfumery is a global art form, and our French name felt like it clashed with those ideals, as French perfumery has dominated the cultural landscape of traditional luxury brands for some time. Caitlin also liked that the name reflects the idea of a place where you can "source" unusual, handmade fragrances, as we expand to offering other small, artisan brands in our studio. Plus, it reminds her of the sorceress Circe from Greek mythology.
The name Sorce maintains the spirit of what she started in 2022, updated for the vision we have for our future. We're still here, just a little easier to share and say, and we are still making magic in our studio to share with you.