UNDERSONG BY APPOINTMENT
A 60-minute sensory experience hosted in our coastal perfumery in Bicheno, east coast Tasmania.
Visit the lab and see a distillation in progress. Smell a variety of botanicals (including Australian/Tasmanian). Hear about the history of perfume. Sip on Tasmanian sassafras leaf tea and taste home-made kunzea shortbread, while taking in front-row ocean views of The Gulch and its teeming wildlife (dolphins, seals, whales, sea eagles…).
All with your host, Undersong founder, author and perfume storyteller Hilary Burden.
Bookings limited to a maximum of eight. For private booking enquiries, email here
A$55 per person +GST.
Select your preferred date and time via the BOOK NOW button.
STORY
PERFUMERY
VALUES
PERFUMERS
GONDWANA
GONDWANA is Undersong’s first Eau de Parfum – an instant classic.
A limited release, GONDWANA evokes a love of land from old time, an era when flowering plants first arrived in the southern hemisphere 100 million years ago. Tasmania has some of the rarest temperate rainforests in the world with links to the former great southern landmass of Gondwana.
GONDWANA started life as a hydrosol blend distilled from a small rainforest on a private property in Northern Tasmania. Branches of Leatherwood, Celery top pine, Sassafras and Tasmanian Mountain Pepper were gathered, which Hilary steam distilled separately, and blended to evoke the rainforest. The fragrance’s distinctive shade of green comes from Tasmanian Mountain Pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata) which thrives in Tasmania, the home of Undersong Perfumery since 2021.
Resonant and grounding, GONDWANA was one of six distinctive Undersong aromatic mists (all steam distilled hydrosol blends created by Hilary) chosen by Grasse-based master perfumer Marianne Nawrocki. While in Sydney, independent perfumer Jocelyn Fullerton brought an Australian perspective and connected with the Gondwanan story.
SPRING
SPRING Eau de Parfum is everything you expect it to be: fresh, floral, a walk in the breeze.
Starting life as a hydrosol blend, the fragrance was inspired by the regenerated landscape of Spring Bay Mill, the former woodchip processing factory on Freestone Point, Triabunna, Tasmania.
The large coastal site overlooking Maria Island was once an Aboriginal gathering place for Palawa people, but despite that, the world’s largest woodchip mill was sited here from the 1970s until its closure in 2011 when environmentalist Graeme Wood purchased the mill to restore the landscape’s ecology.
Tasmanian landscape designer and horticulturalist Marcus Ragus helped reimagine the landscaped grounds of the events venue, leading remediation and restoration of its contaminated ecosystem.
Undersong founder Hilary Burden toured the site with Marcus and was eventually inspired by an avenue of ancient flowering blackwood and the eucalypts that were once fed through the mill. Blending steam distillations of acacia, blue gumnuts and blue gum blossom, Hilary first created SPRING in 2022 as an aromatic mist.
On the Spring Equinox, September 2024, SPRING is released as an Eau de Parfum, amplified with essential oils to add impact and longevity.
Undersong, established in 2021, creates wild fragrances as an expression of the Tasmanian landscape. Using high-quality Australian essential oils and steam distilled botanicals, our Eau de Parfums are 100% natural – created, distilled, blended, and nurtured by hand in our East Coast Tasmanian perfumery.
The Australian island of Tasmania is at the heart of Undersong’s story. British-born founder, the acclaimed author, journalist and broadcaster Hilary Burden, spent her childhood and early adult years in Tasmania, before pursuing a career in magazines and media in Sydney and London. Returning to Tasmania to write and live closer to nature, Hilary wrote the much-loved memoir A Story of Seven Summers – Life in the Nuns’ House (2012), and the critically acclaimed Undersong – A Tasmanian journey into Country (2024).
The lessons learned in the writing of Undersong – a journey deep into place – inspired Hilary to explore the aromatic expression of the landscape in the island she now calls home.
The Tasmanian wilderness, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982, is an area of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance. Thirty-five thousand plus years of Aboriginal settlement are cited as an outstanding example of humanity’s interaction with the natural environment, while the island’s plant life and wildlife are ascribed as having “outstanding universal value".
Our East Coast perfumery is situated in the beautiful surfing and fishing village of Bicheno, in a former seafood processing factory on the edge of the ocean.
Undersong Perfumery moved to its coastal home with views over Waubs Gulch and Governor Island Marine Reserve in January 2024. It’s a perfect location to smell the sea air, watch whales migrating north and south, and observe the teeming birdlife, from white bellied sea eagles soaring overhead to little penguins and cormorants, sunning their chests on the sloping granite rocks.
Distillation of native botanical hydrosols used in our fragrances takes place on site. Hilary made her first distillation using a copper alembic still purchased from Casa Luzarte, central Portugal, makers of everyday copper utensils for over 80 years. Pandemic lockdown enabled Hilary to practise the distillation of native plants growing wildly along back roads and in open country where plants thrive in exuberant abundance, away from chemical fertilisers and human interference.
Undersong’s wild fragrances start with the foraging and gathering of plant materials sourced from special locations for the purposes of distillation. The distilling process produces two end products: essential oil (the oil-soluble parts of the plant) and hydrosol (water-soluble parts of the plant which contains microscopic drops of essential oil). Using perfumery methodology, Hilary blends separate hydrosols to create natural fragrances, each designed to express the places where they grow in nature.
Undersong fragrances are created to respect and celebrate the native aromatic botanicals of Australia, within the context of modern perfumery.
Whilst Aboriginal Australians have always used plants for medicinal purposes, the story of plants grown for fragrance is firmly embedded in the northern hemisphere.
At Undersong, we aim to celebrate the aromatic botanicals of the unique island of Tasmania for the purposes of fragrance. Australians are far less aware of the existence and beauty of their own beautiful, endemic fragrant plants than they are of the rose, gardenia, orange blossom, lavender, tuberose or iris, widely grown for commercial production in Europe.
Our hopes are that in shining a spotlight on the lesser-known aromatic plants of Australia, an Australian perfume industry might grow and mature, and more people will learn to appreciate, care for and plant endemic plants in their own back yard.
100% natural fragrances
Natural essential oils, hydrosols and organic sugar cane alcohol are used in the creation of Undersong’s wild fragrances.
Australian botanicals
All fragrances are proudly handcrafted using predominantly Australian ingredients.
Boutique
Fragrances are distilled and blended at the Bicheno perfumery; each individual bottle is handled and nurtured to perfection.
Culture
Undersong respects the long human history of Tasmania / trouwerner / lutrawita, and the First Peoples' custodianship of land, sea, rivers and sky Country for more than 65,000 years.
Hilary Burden
Founder, Hilary Burden's passion for perfume is informed by two decades working as a magazine writer and editor in Sydney and London. Returning to Tasmania, her love of the island landscape, and friendship with Aboriginal Elder Aunty Patsy Cameron and her husband Graham, inspired her to explore its aromatic botanicals for fragrance.
Raw ingredients are gathered seasonally by hand from six different regions in Tasmania, then distilled separately in a copper alembic. The resulting botanical waters are blended to create fragrances with an authentic sense of place. To further evolve these delicate fragrances, Hilary sought the skilled expertise and bespoke guidance of two perfume mentors who specialise in natural fragrances and botanicals.
Marianne Nawrocki
Marianne Nawrocki, master perfumer and lecturer at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery (GIP), southern France, specialises in natural fragrances. She designs fragrances for international fragrance houses as well as private clients. After graduating in Advanced Fragrance Creation at GIP in 2023, Hilary collaborated with Marianne to improve and develop the intensity and longevity of her uniquely Australian aromatic mist, GONDWANA.
Jocelyn Fullerton
Continuing to fine-tune the fragrance, Hilary consulted with Sydney-based independent perfumer Jocelyn Fullerton. Jocelyn graduated in Naturopathy with the NHAA award for clinical excellence, and lectured in Botany, Pharmacognosy, Cosmetic Science, Essential oil Chemistry & Herbal Pharmacy at Endeavour College of Natural Medicine, Nature Care and ACNT for over 15 years. She has also trained with the Grasse Institute of Perfumery, France. As a perfumer, Jocelyn runs workshops and events from her Cult of Scent Atelier in Stanmore, Sydney.