Retired Early: The Sunset Line

Welcome back to another issue of Retired Early, a series exploring the discontinued collections and scents of P.F. lore. This series shares our fragrance and design process, along with behind-the-scenes trials and errors of running an independent business.

If you missed the first installment, I did a deep dive on Terra, our all natural line housed in a terra cotta pot - and why it was discontinued.

This is a long post with so many fun photos. I recommend reading in browser or app.

In 2019, P.F. released a very, very 70s-inspired line called Sunset.

How 70s? This was the home page slide on launch day:

We rented a house in the valley for this shoot. It was epicly 70s, but sadly, most of my professional shots (done by our photographer, Grant Puckett), are lost to the ether, so you’ll have to enjoy this iphone ones, including when I was a blonde.

I’m almost certain a lot of the design inspiration came from this sunset artwork that was my parents, seen here at a photoshoot in 2018. I reframed it right around this time and looking at my camera roll, was obsessed with mustard and rust color palettes.

I was not the only one obsessed with this hazy, warm vibe - check out my friend Trent’s bathroom tile below (him and his husband Wesley ran an airbnb in Big Bear called Harvest Moon Chalet - that’s how we met!)

Here’s my fragrance sketch notes from 2018 (it’s very intimate showing you all my terrible name ideas, go easy). Sunset launched a year later.

Swell was a juicy and aquatic scent, and the most popular of the bunch - we still get requests to this day.

The official description: 12pm. Salty skin, steady tides, endless afternoons in the hot summer sun. Vibrant, juicy, aquatic.

Scent notes:

• Top: Calabrian Bergamot, Orange, Black Currant

• Middle: Blue Cyclamen, White Jasmine, Tuberose

• Base: Sandalwood, Sea Moss, Amber, Vetiver

Golden Hour was Tom’s favorite. This scent helped me understand what it is to smell a texture - yes, you can FEEL the texture of a fragrance, especially with heavy ambery, scratchy, or powdery notes.

Official Description: 5pm. Rustling grasses, baked earth, sun rays split between trees. Mellow, dry, tranquil.

Scent notes:

• Top: Field Grass, Bergamot, Cyclamen

• Middle: Hay, Eucalyptus, Golden Poppy

• Base: Cedar, Blonde Woods, Clear Musk

I wanted to create a scent that captures the way taking a quiet walk by yourself at dusk, peering into people’s homes feels - that melancholy feeling of watching family life from a distance that is feels intimate yet lonely. I remember Dusk smelling a bit like shaving cream or cologne. Make of that what you will.

Official Description: 8pm. Taking the long way home, the buzz of streetlights, everything washed in shades of blue. Mysterious, dreamy, captivating.

Scent notes:

• Top: Green Leaves, Clary Sage, Lemon, Black Pepper

• Middle: Blooming Iris, Lavender, Petitgrain, Fir Needle

• Base: Palo Santo, Cypress, Dark Cedar

Moonrise was a favorite. It was a subtle, balmy, and humid scent. I’d love to bathe in this!! The memory that inspired this was driving late at night in my Volkswagen Cabrio convertible in humid Virginia, wearing a floral and rich perfume.

Official Description: 12am. Heatwaves from asphalt, late night crowds, the lure of the dance floor melding smoke and strange perfumes. Balmy, ambiguous, free.

Scent notes:

• Top: Lemon Zest, Clary Sage, Yuzu

• Middle: Warm Amber, Indian Jasmine, Cedar Leaf

• Base: Juniper, Smoked Cedarwood, Musk

Sunset was fun and clearly concepted - but we had issues, right from the beginning. Here’s why we discontinued it.

The specificity. Sunset was such a wonderful time and place - but in retrospect, I can see it was a fun trend we rode, not who our brand is at its core (vintage nostalgia, absolutely - but specific to the 70s? not necessarily). Sunset would have been perfect if we planned for supplies to last a shorter amount of time.

Diffuser Issues. The reed diffusers were sprayed with matte paint to match the tin vessels. To close the diffuser, we used a rubber gasket and an open-top cap. The gasket was removed, and you re-threaded the open-top cap (we have a similar design on our HI-FI diffusers now). But the issue was the paint - when paint made contact with the diffuser liquid, it would peel back or get all swirly. There were also leaking issues with this set up. We switched to a cap closure.

Sunset incense cones tins. We designed the tin lids to invert and be used as a base, but the lids were very, very hard to remove!! We switched to paper packaging, with a shiny gold envelope, which I always loved to shoot in production.

The glow. There was no glow from within the candle tin. It was as improvement on Terra in that the tin created a reflection - golden - that you could see from a coffee table perspective. This solidified a P.F. candle design principle: always see the glow.

The dings. The tin candles vessels would come in with a number of dings, scratches, and impossible to repair seconds.

The MOQs. Diffusers, incense cones, and candles all move at a different pace. We couldn’t keep up with the incense tins, and switching to the box helped (it was easier to store, too). But we ended up over-ordering vessels because of the MOQs needed for candles.

Sunset was such a time of creative expression - it influenced logos, store design, and even the way I dressed. What I learned from the Sunset era was that P.F. can take on trends with our own spin - but limited quantities are an easier way for a self-funded company to handle it.

over n out,

Kristen