Who we are

Mariana, the founder

My name is Mariana and I grew up in the western part of the country, where I still live. I have a degree in Food Engineering and, since 2009, I have worked in the wine sector, an area that taught me to look at aromas with curiosity, rigor, and detail.

From 2015 to 2020, I explored my side as a visual artist: I made collages, participated in collective exhibitions, sold works, and published a publication dedicated to collage artists. However, the deeper I delved into art, the more I felt I was moving away from the exact sciences, which are my first passion and the basis of my education.

In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, I had a creative block and stopped producing my visual art. At the same time, during lockdown, I ran out of perfume, and for me, being without perfume was never an option. Unable to leave the house, I had to buy a new perfume online and decided I wanted something different, something I had never used before.

The problem is that I had never bought a perfume without trying it. So I studied the subject, and that's when everything changed. What started as a simple search quickly became a hyperfocus. I began to absorb everything I found about perfumery: brands, raw materials, processes, history, and perfumers. And, amidst these studies, I discovered something that made me stop: some perfumers begin their academic journey in the food industry, especially in the flavor sector. At that moment, I realized that I already had, within my own scientific background, the perfect foundation to learn perfumery.

I started an online perfumery course, and in the very first classes, the perfumer teaching the course said: "Perfumery is a form of art and it is a science too." That's when I understood that this was the space where I could finally unite my scientific and artistic sides.

The first challenge I set for myself was to develop candles that truly smelled wonderful when lit. This is because I had always felt a little disappointed every time I bought candles that I loved so much. And that's how Jarilo was born: from the desire to share what I learned and to show other people that aromas are a form of communication, expression, and culture. And along with Jarilo, the podcast "All roads lead to aroma" was born, where I share my learning about perfumery.

After realizing that aromas are language, expression, and culture, I understood that Jarilo could be more than a candle brand: it could be a space for discovery. That's why I now want to take it to the next level, by curating indie and niche perfumes, so that more people can explore this olfactory universe and celebrate their own olfactory culture.