Scent and the home space have been intertwined since the dawn of civilization, but as humans evolved, so have the carriers of our favorite types of fragrance.
Currently, a quiet revolution is unfolding right on our shelves, where the humble diffuser — that stalwart of the interiors mood board, reed-and-bottle combo we've all at some point in our life bought and, guiltily, left to dust over the months — is being replaced by something reuniting functionality and style. Something you'll want to look after for the rest of your life.
It is from this encounter between home fragrance and collectible design that the first collaboration between Sophie Ashby of Sister by Studio Ashby and sustainable lifestyle brand Reia's co-founders Celia Foot and Sophie Salisbury emerges: a butter-yellow ceramic talisman that makes you question whether "diffuser" is even the right word anymore.
From a Scent in the Form of a Vessel to a Vessel That Happens to Carry Scent
Call it a scented object. Call it a ritual vessel. Whatever you call it, it represents a broader shift in how we think about fragrance in the domestic sphere — not as a background note, something to neutralize a room or perform cleanliness, but as an atmosphere, a practice, a daily act of intention.
Known for her richly layered, enlivening schemes, Sophie Ashby had been contemplating this idea for years.
"I've been dreaming of creating something beautiful, sculptural, and scented for the home," she says. The dream, notably, wasn't to make a candle, another reed diffuser, or a room spray. It was to make an object — one that happened to carry scent, rather than the other way around.
How Reia and Sister by Studio Ashby Crafted an Object That Extends Beyond Its Function
It's a distinction Reia's co-founders, Celia Foot and Sophie Salisbury, understand intuitively. Since launching in 2021 with a now-cult range of refillable hand and body washes, they've built their brand around the idea that the everyday objects we reach for should be worthy of the reaching.
Those small, repeated acts of a day deserve design that meets the moment. It's no surprise, then, that when the conversation turned to fragrance, they found themselves drawn toward the same orbit as Studio Ashby.
"Our collaboration with Sister by Studio Ashby felt incredibly natural from the beginning because we share such a similar approach to design," Celia reflects. "Both brands are deeply focused on how spaces make people feel."
Behind the Making of Reia and Sister by Studio Ashby's SERRA Scented Talisman
The creative partnership has manifested itself as a floral-imprinted ceramic box that absorbs fragrance oil and releases it slowly into a room. A mechanism that's elemental in its simplicity, but that, winking back at the porousness of early Egyptian, Chinese, and Mediterranean diffusers, imbues a visibly contemporary design with a sense of timelessness.
Heavily textured, architecturally considered, and subtly bold in that particular shade of butter yellow, this Reia x Sister by Studio Ashby debut exists in the tradition of things made to be kept, and, why not, even passed down.
"The box form has this magic combination of sculptural presence and quiet simplicity," says Sophie, "the perfect piece to store treasures or to display on a shelf." Once the scent fades, the object remains. That's the whole point.
This is the new grammar of the scented home: objects that earn their permanence. For years, the interiors world has been wrestling with the guilt of consumption: beautiful things bought, burned through, discarded. The answer, it seems, isn't to buy less but to buy objects whose lives extend beyond their first function.
"We envisioned the talisman as a treasured object rather than a traditional candle vessel," Sophie Salisbury explains, "something tactile that invites interaction." The textural surface isn't decorative whimsy; it's an invitation to slow down and engage.
The fragrance itself — SERRA — is equally resistant to quick definitions. Inspired by "sun-warmed stone, soft earth after heat, open expansive skies, and the sensation of looking up through the canopy of a tree," as Celia tells Livingetc, it is as fresh as it is deep, embodying calm sophistication.
The Reia co-founders and Sophie have together embraced scent as emotional architecture; fragrance not as something you spray and forget about, but as a gesture that slowly transforms the feeling of a room, the mood of an afternoon. Perhaps, then, this is where the distinction between scent-as-ceremonial and scent-as-product lies: the former requires repetition, intention, and a certain willingness to be there for it.
Dripping oil onto a ceramic lid is a small act, but it's a considered one. It asks something of you. In that asking, it gives something back — "it connects us back to nature and creates a quiet sense of presence within the home," Sophie Salisbury adds.
The obviously-a-diffuser diffuser served a purpose: it filled a gap on a shelf, performed its function, got replaced. But the objects we're searching now are asking bigger questions about beauty, longevity, and what it means for something to genuinely belong.
The Reia x Sister by Studio Ashby talisman is one such object: useful and useless, practical and precious, scented and — long after the scent has gone — still completely worth preserving.
Scent notes: Cypress, Vetiver, Bergamot
This handmade ceramic vessel is designed to hold the new natural, bespoke fragrance, SERRA, and comes complete with a 30ml scent refill, so that you can adjust the intensity of the scent according to your preference — described as "part sculptural object, part scent ritual."
See how butter yellow turned 'bad' in A24's new chilling psychological thriller Backrooms, or head to our expert advice and wellness pages for the latest tips on all things scentscaping.
