Fragrance house

Curionoir

Curionoir was created in 2011 by fragrance developer Tiffany Witehira and is based in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. It began as a studio enterprise making artisan candles before opening a Ponsonby boutique in 2016; the location also serves as a working studio and place for fragrance education. Tiffany Witehira is Curionoir’s founder, creator, and perfumer, and her Māori heritage, Ngāpuhi identity, family craft traditions, and great-grandmother’s Rongoā Māori practice shape the work. Curionoir evolved from scented candles into a house pairing extrait de parfum with handcrafted glass, clay, porcelain, and other scent-related objects. Its philosophy treats fragrance as a vehicle for memory, personal experience, ancestry, and connection, with scent becoming the wearer’s story. The Lilith Doll, a hand-carved perfumed doll-head candle, was the brand’s first creation. Dark Bouquet, identified as its first fragrance, draws on Witehira’s memories of the forest and of a jasmine bush encountered with her great-grandmother and grandmother. In 2022, The Shapes introduced porcelain parfum bottles made exclusively by ceramicist Kirsten Dryburgh and inspired by organic forms in nature.