How Do You Bottle a Full Moon? Talking Scents with Sage & Salt’s Corbin Chamberlin
August 18 | 4 minute read
Words by Madeleine Boles de Boer
While many people change their scent with the season, Corbin Chamberlin changes his with the cycles of the moon. It's a fitting ritual for the founder of Sage & Salt, a brand Chamberlin created to combine two of his passions: spirituality and elevated design. Crystals that are as chic as they are intentional and intoxicating fragrances that are energetically charged to shift your personal atmosphere.
Known by his celebrity and C-suite clientele (even execs need a little magic) as the 'Bougie Witch', it's evident that Chamberlin takes his mysticism seriously. Each of his brand’s three fragrances are a combination of specific notes chosen to shift a mood, release energy or reflect ritual. But they do more than just smell divine and each is bottled in a specific way – under the corresponding moon phase, surrounded by crystals and with intention – to ensure the appropriate energy is held and carried to the wearer.
Here, Chamberlin reveals how he captured the scent of a full moon ritual, the significance of orange blossom in his fragrances and some sage advice for anyone creating something new.
My earliest scent memory…
Corbin Chamberlin: The way the Arizona desert smells just before a summer monsoon. Dry earth, heat and then that sudden shift in the air right before the rain breaks.
The first fragrance I wore...
CC: Burberry Weekend. I found it at a discount store for around $25, but I fell in love with it immediately. It had this clean, almost soapy softness that felt effortless.
Falling in love smells like...
CC: Warm skin, a little sun and something softly floral in the background. Like orange blossom drifting through the air. Familiar, but with a spark to it.
My favourite person smells like...
CC: Orange blossoms. My husband wears a scent from Jo Malone that has this luminous citrus floral quality. It’s completely tied to him for me now.
The end of the day smells like...
CC: Resins and herbs, from clearing my home and office. It settles over whatever I’m wearing, usually Moon Ring, so there’s this mix of smoke, warmth and something green underneath.
Australia smells like...
CC: Something I haven’t experienced yet. I need to visit. I imagine it as expansive, coastal and sun-warmed with something native and unfamiliar running through it.
The fragrance I wear every day is...
CC: Sage & Salt’s Moon Ring. It’s my constant. On full moons I switch to Luna Absolute without really thinking about it. It just feels right.
The one note I would never wear is...
CC: Nothing. I think almost anything can work if it’s handled the right way.
The scent I wish existed is...
CC: Something that captures the exact moment a space shifts after it’s been cleared. That feeling when everything is lighter but still grounded. Not quite smoke, not quite air.
The scent that changed my life was...
CC: Moon Ring. It was the first time I translated my work with energy into something physical people could wear every day.
The first step in creating a scent is...
CC: Visualising how you want the wearer to feel. For Sage & Salt it always begins with intention.
The scent I’m most proud of is...
CC: Sacred Ember (Editor's note: coming to MECCA in early 2027!). It represents the success of the first two, but also a deeper investment creatively and personally. It feels like a culmination, and I’m still completely taken by it.
The scent with the most interesting story is...
CC: Luna Absolute. It came from taking items off my altar after a full moon ritual and placing them in a bowl. Burnt incense, rose petals, tobacco ash. That exact moment became the scent.
The note combination that surprised me most was...
CC: Green fig and tomato leaf. It shouldn’t have worked the way it did, but it captured the verdant, electric feeling of a new moon perfectly. It’s incredibly energising.
The most important thing I’ve learned about fragrance is...
CC: Not everyone is going to love what you create, and it’s important that they don’t.
The hardest scent to capture was...
CC: Sacred Ember. I struggled to find the right kind of smoke. I didn’t want anything that felt like a bar or leaned too traditionally leathery. I wanted something warmer, softer, more like a glow than a burn.
A fragrance is finished when...
CC: It stands on its own. When you don’t have to explain it and the feeling comes through immediately.
