A Journey That Began with a Whiff
Jane Bates didn’t fall into the world of scent by accident – she followed it. After earning a degree in cultural anthropology, she spent the better part of her twenties traveling through regions where scent isn’t just part of hygiene, but heritage.
From Moroccan souks heavy with amber and musk to the subtle floral distillations in the mountain villages of Northern Thailand, Jane immersed herself in how different cultures understand and craft aroma.
She apprenticed briefly with a family of perfumers in Southern France and later studied botanical extraction methods in Turkey, often trading labor for knowledge.
These hands-on experiences sparked a passion not just for perfume, but for the science of scent itself – how certain smells cling, linger, soothe, or repel. When she returned home to the U.S., she launched a small-batch perfume studio from her kitchen, using natural ingredients she collected during her travels.
The fragrances were meaningful, but what caught people’s attention was something she hadn’t expected: how effectively her blends eliminated odors, not just covered them.
When Perfume Met Purpose
As demand for her handmade perfumes grew, Jane noticed a pattern. Customers weren’t just buying scents – they were asking questions. How do you remove smoke smell from vintage clothing? Why do some air fresheners worsen the odor? Is there a natural way to deal with musty closets or kitchen grease? What began as scent artistry quickly became a quest for answers.
By 2025, Jane decided to focus less on selling perfume and more on sharing what she’d learned. She launched Freshness by Febreze as a space to explore odor removal through practical, proven methods, with a mix of traditional wisdom and modern chemistry. From tackling pet smells to understanding fabric absorption, her articles offer the kind of advice you’d expect from someone who’s lived with both the science and soul of scent.
A Nose for Everyday Needs
Today, Jane lives just outside Seattle, surrounded by cedar trees and shelves of essential oils, old recipe notebooks, and air quality monitors. She’s not chasing luxury fragrance anymore. Her mission is simpler: to help people understand why things smell the way they do, and how to fix it when they don’t smell good.
Whether it’s digging into the origins of bad refrigerator odors or comparing enzymatic sprays to charcoal filters, Jane writes with the curiosity of a traveler and the clarity of someone who’s cleaned a hundred secondhand rugs. Through Freshness by Febreze, she continues to bridge the gap between everyday needs and time-tested knowledge, one article at a time.