The Lavenderoom Conversation Series brings together individuals whose work is shaping the way we think, build and live. In every conversation, we go beyond titles and achievements to understand the experiences, beliefs and perspectives that have defined their journey.
For this edition, we are joined by Esha Tiwari — founder of Kastoor, and one of the most creatively disruptive voices reshaping how India experiences fragrance. My relationship with her goes beyond the professional — we once hosted a creative meet-and-greet together in Mumbai, centred around perfumes built on native Indian ingredients. We spent the afternoon with a small group of kulhars, soaking them in water overnight to recreate Geeli Mitti — the smell of wet earth — and hand-wrote affirmations on each one for guests to take home. It remains one of the most beautiful, purely creative things I’ve done with a brand — and it says everything about who she is: playful, sensorial, and completely unafraid to do things differently.
She is a first-generation entrepreneur building purely on instinct and creativity, and in doing so, she has quietly disrupted a fragrance world that has long played it safe — reviving the ancient art of the ittar and reshaping it for a modern audience. Her most recent launch, Once in a Blue Moon — a jasmine-forward fragrance — is already turning heads, and so, fittingly, is her Instagram: one of the most beautifully art-directed pages in Indian beauty right now.
1. Tell us about Once in a Blue Moon Frozen Jasmine — what is it, and what was the idea behind it?
Esha: Jasmine blooms under moonlight, it’s a botanical truth. But we have not seen such poetic truth being translated in its storytelling, in its product that the customer can hold.
On May 31st 2026, under the rare Blue Moon of 2026, we translated this truth into a one of a kind cinematic love story between the Moon (played by Abhay Rawat) and the Earth (played by Founder of Kastoor Esha Tiwari), an impossible love story, whose only possible manifestation is in the form of the fragrance emitted in the darkest hours of the Blue Moon night, released as Frozen Jasmine. The launch story and the campaign film is available on our social media channels to experience, shot in Kastoor’s Jasmine farm and distillery in Kannauj, on 31st May 2026, under the rare Blue Moon.
Frozen Jasmine is not an interpretation of jasmine in general, it is a portrait of a very particular jasmine. One that still carries the coolness of the night, the dampness of the earth and the silence of the hours before dawn. The fragrance opens with moonlit jasmine and a sharp breath of mint before settling into petrichor – almost as though the flower is rooted in wet soil. The blend of the scent, with its layers and architecture, is itself built as the story we narrate to the audience, like a rare cinematic and celestial moment, captured in a bottle!
Once in a Blue Moon!
2. Jasmine is notoriously difficult to work with. How is the jasmine in this fragrance sourced and harvested, and what makes this interpretation different?
Esha: Jasmine is one of the few flowers that spends the entire day as a closed bud, only beginning to unfurl after sunset and releasing its strongest fragrance deep into the night. Jasmine changes its scent at many stages, before sunrise and after, even within a few stages of sunrise the scent changes. The Jasmine here is sourced from Kastoor Jasmine farm in Kannauj under the rare Blue Moon of 31st May 2026, at the precise moment when the bud started opening to the rare Moon, a rare alignment of time, season and bloom. Frozen Jasmine is not an interpretation of jasmine in general, it is a portrait of a very particular jasmine. One that still carries the coolness of the night, the dampness of the earth and the silence of the hours before dawn under a rare Blue Moon night.
3. Who do you see wearing Once in a Blue Moon — what kind of person or mood is it made for?
Esha: Anyone looking to hold Time still in a Bottle, anyone who wants to get closer to holding a rare moment on themselves, and anyone who enjoys a niche crisp blend of Jasmine and Mint, and Petrichor layered like a cinematic story and rooted in celestial truth. I hope it makes the wearer realise the rarity of a single moment in time.
4. Take us back to the beginning — how did you first fall into the world of perfumery?
Esha: I have botanist blood thanks to my Dad and a philosopher mind thanks to my Mom. Perfumery was kind of a love story waiting to happen. I am enchanted with the power of alchemy. How an ingredient reacts with another, leaves its own form, transmutes into something else entirely which was only possible under specific conditions with specific ingredients. Every blend is a once in a lifetime arrangement of scenarios. How poetic is that!
I used to be my Dad’s unpaid labour across botanical trips in Kashmir, Assam, Madurai for Saffron, Oudh and Jasmine and I understood the land academically. I fell in love with the intelligence of the land and its products. Years later I honed that skill and passion in Kannauj with my mentors and artisans and today Kastoor stands to trail blaze the art of blends.
5. What has been the scariest part of being an entrepreneur, and how did you move through it? You once told me that as we grow, our problems don’t disappear — we just evolve into new ones. What did you mean by that?
Esha: Scariest but also very joyful (if you allow it) is to meet the many versions of yourself as an Entrepreneur and the many versions of entrepreneurship in you. Entrepreneurship is the most spiritual mirror of your life, as one should constantly evolve in life, one should in entrepreneurship. Peel through its sensorial experiences , its lessons, its emotions. There won’t be a single day in entrepreneurship where a bridge is not burning, but can you evolve to dance through it, that’s real entrepreneurship and that’s real life.
6. You’re building something rooted purely in creativity, in an industry that’s historically played by very traditional rules. What does disrupting that world look like from the inside?
Esha: Joy. Authenticity . And serious dedication to Play and having fun. My only rule is to not bore myself.
7. How do you balance being a perfume influencer with actually running the business behind it?
Esha: Being a Perfume influencer is not something I aimed for. I started speaking about the history and philosophies of scent, discovering notes wherever I used to go, a day in the life of a Perfumer, my passions and viewpoints and it just happened. It’s not very compartmentalised in my head, I am always a founder first and I love educating and building a community on the Beauty of India and perfumery.
8. What does your unwind routine look like, away from the brand?
My unwinding routine ends up with lots of dog hair on my T-shirt, I play like a child with my furry daughter. I enjoy cooking Instagram recipes. I write a lot. And time and again I would like to whisk away into some part of the world, and be completely lost in its folds and moments. I deeply dislike manicured travels and have never seen an itinerary.
9. Besides your own creations, what are the perfumes and notes you personally love and gravitate towards?
The fragrance profile I love the most is Dark floral. It’s inspired by a certain genre of women. I have always held a deep affinity for women who carry beauty like a flame at the edge of a tragedy- women who refuse to play it safe, choosing instead to burn brightly in the shadows of their own mysteries. My apartment is filled with biographies of women like Marlyn Monroe, a living contradiction of so much on surface yet so much behind the curtains. Dark florals screams of the fragile innocence of a flower wrapped completely in mystery, giving you a scent that feels deeply enigmatic.
10. If you had the freedom to build one dream fragrance with no constraints at all, what would it be?
I play with my dream fragrances everyday, but I would really like to introduce and balance local notes of regions in mainstream perfumery. I was recently experimenting with Kafal as a note from Kumaon, Uttarakhand which tastes tangy, but distills woodiness and it was a joy to play around that. With no constraints at all, I would like to create fragrant immersive experiences and perfume art installations of grand scale giving people a once in a lifetime sensorial experience.
11. Lavenderoom’s philosophy is “Beauty Inside Out.” What does that mean to you — or does it read as a marketing line rather than something real?
Beauty for me will always be Authenticity. It can’t be rigged, it can’t be performed. It has to come from inside. And its magnetism is undeniable. That for me is Beauty Inside Out.
12. Five years from now, what would you like to be remembered for?
Extraordinary work.
Our conversation with Esha Tiwari is a reminder that some of the most disruptive work doesn’t come from breaking rules loudly — it comes from quietly trusting your own instincts, jar by jar, note by note. We hope this conversation gives you a glimpse into the person behind Kastoor. Stay tuned for more thoughtful conversations from the Lavenderoom Conversation Series.
Read More:
What happened Behind-the-scenes Kastoor scents shoot in Banaras that took the internet by storm?
Lavenderoom’s Fragrant Friday: Introducing Kastoor’s Modern Ittars
Esha Tiwari, founder Kastoor fragrances, shares why you should take time off as a solo entrepreneur
