Sarah McCartney started out in business at age 7, in her words “buying wooden beads, making them into things and selling them on to my friends.” That is until her horrified mother found out and swiftly put a stop to it. Fortunately this didn’t dampen Sarah's entrepreneurial spirit, and after stints writing for The Guardian, and LUSH (where she was editor of ‘The LUSH Times’), it was writing a novel about a problem-solving perfumer which led her on the path to actual perfumery. She set up 4160Tuesdays in 2010 – its name is taken from the number of Tuesdays we should expect to see if we live to see 80, stressing the importance of making the most of every day.The cheery offbeat branding of 4160 Tuesdays is everywhere you look not least in the perfumes themselves with names like “The Sexiest Scent on the Planet Ever”, “ Damn Rebel Bitches” and “Tarts Knicker Drawer.” Growing up in Tyneside, Sarah’s dry northern wit and straightforward approach makes the world of perfume far less intimidating than its normal shiny department store dwellings. She is also co-author of The Perfume Companion - The Definitive Guide to Choosing Your Next Scent, that she wrote with perfume writer Samantha Scriven. Last year, the book was a finalist in the UK Fragrance Foundation Jasmine Awards.Sarah is described by fragrance writer and expert Lizzie Ostrom as a “punk perfumer” (although she describes herself as more of a "folk perfumer") and she can be credited as one of the brands successfully combining fragrance with tongue-in-cheek British humour – even if this doesn't always translate elsewhere! We talk about her career journey, what she learned from Mark Constantine at LUSH and the challenges of building an indie perfume brand "using her own voice".
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