The Opening Chapter
I would like to tell you a story, my story and how it all began...
Meet Our Founder
My name is Tonya Kidd-Beggs, Founder and CEO of STORIES Parfums, Northern Ireland’s very first luxury, niche perfume house. I am also a Cosmetic & Fragrance Consultant within the beauty & fragrance industry, specialising in perfumery, beauty, and storytelling. I am a wife and mother to four and live in a small village on the North Down coast of Northern Ireland.
Storytelling
My fragrance house was born as a testament of the power of fragrance and to the stories which have shaped my own life. Fragrance has always been a way for me to connect with who I am and what matters to me and by sharing my fragrances I hope to give people the space to stop and connect with either their past, their present or even dream for their future. The actual inspiration for each fragrance comes by working on how I feel on the day. I do not have an idea or a strategy where my perfumes are concerned. Everything comes to life as I work, much like an artist who paints a painting. It is an expression, an art, what I like to call the art of perfumery.
From Northern Ireland, with love
STORIES Parfums reflects the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity of Ireland - an island of artists, musicians, and new ideas
It all started because of my maternal grandmother whom I sadly never met as she died before I was born. My mum always told me she wore one particular fragrance, and that fragrance which lives in my mind is what connects me to her today. I have memories of playing with her necklaces and some special clothes my mother had kept and I have a vivid memory of her smell because of the connection I had to her favourite perfume. She was an extraordinary businesswoman and broke a lot of glass ceilings for women in Northern Ireland in her time.
STORIES Parfums
STORIES Parfums launched in late 2018. As I reached my mid-forties and my children got older, I went on pursuit of a hobby which led me to Grasse in the South of France. My desire was to learn the basics of perfumery and create my own bespoke perfume. It was during this process that I realised the power of fragrance to heal, release forgotten memories and transcend personal tragedy.
Childhood Memories
For most of my adult life, I have been unable to recall my happiest early-childhood memories, which were clouded following trauma at a young age. Later in life, I took the difficult decision to undergo counselling to remove the root of the trauma, which was hugely successful. Successful to the extent that I trained as a counselling practitioner to help others, but sadly still had no connection to my own childhood memories, until – my visit to Grasse, on the French Riviera, it was here that everything changed.
Transcending Tragedy
I was transported through smell, and I was surrounded my memories from my grandfather’s rose garden, the little river at the bottom of his garden with its wet woody smell of damp leaves and grass; the patchouli plants and tomato plants that he kept in his greenhouse, the comforting waft of smoke from their pipes. As these images and scents unfolded one by one, I was overcome with emotion, tears streaming – in a really good way.
It was certainly a time of revelation and hope. I was enveloped with a wonderful feeling of peace and hope, appearing in olfactory form. After all those years, I’d been given back my precious memories – and through the process of creating fragrances, discovered that I did have a good childhood, unfortunately unhealed trauma can tell you a different story but after in depth counselling and now my newly found memories through the art of perfumery, I left Grasse with my bottled memories, and the passion to tell people my story through the art of perfumery, and STORIES Parfums was born.

The Opening Chapter
I decided to share STORIES Nº.01 and Nº. 02 with the world in the hope that you too may connect with your own STORY past, present and future. The Olfactory System It should not have been a surprise to me that fragrance reconnected me to my childhood as scientific studies confirm that there is a connection between scent and memory. The olfactory bulb recognises smells and is part of the limbic system, responsible for our emotions and the formation of memories.
The New Niche
AWARDS
MEMBERS OF
The Fragrance Foundation
The British Beauty Council
The Perfume Society