“There wasn’t a eureka moment so much as a niggle,” says Daniel Bense of the genesis of his refined personal care brand, To My Ships. “Deodorant is intimate and essential, but often incredibly uninspiring. How could we rethink this dark and smelly area of personal care and treat it with real honour and respect?”
The answer was a range of delicately scented products spanning fragrances, cleansers and underarm care – far from the overbearing smells of many mass-market deodorants and made with natural ingredients.
Bense launched the brand officially last year, and after a successful pop-up at Liberty in April, they opened a permanent space in the department store’s beauty hall this summer.
Bense, a South African who came to London after almost a decade in Australia, worked at Aesop for almost 12 years then Sunspel before founding To My Ships in 2022.
The name is drawn from Homer’s epic poem the Iliad, which also served as the inspiration for the product line. “It’s a poem of chaos, but among that, there’s beauty,” Bense says.
Bense enlisted FormaFantasma, a Milan studio with a client list including Prada, Fendi and Salone del Mobile, to design the packaging. The result is understated and considered, with elongated aluminium forms and muted colourways that look nothing like traditional deodorant brands.
Bense’s time at Aesop gave him an appreciation for products with an uncompromising brand identity. “I really learnt about the importance of strong positioning and ambition there,” he says. “Aesop is a brand with a strong conviction.”
It took two and a half years to finalise the first To My Ships product – “testing different deodorants on different armpits – my poor partner having to do the sniffs,” Bense says. “We got to a formula that worked, reducing odour, not leaving white marks and having a good scent.”
Bense collaborated with Grasse-based perfumer and Lancome and Loewe collaborator Celine Barel to create a fragrance that was bright, fresh and clean. They leant into bitter citrus and herbaceous scents to avoid overly masculine or feminine associations. “The ingredients themselves were an exercise in paring back,” Bense says. “Sometimes it is more difficult to remove than to add.”
The debut range, Of the Gods, highlights polygonum, a herb related to lily of the valley – it has a distinct smell, “like steam from an iron” – while the Stand Up Bravely scent leans into earthy smells. Both ranges include a roll-on deodorant, spray deodorant, hand and body wash and an eau de parfum.
The newest addition is an antiperspirant roll-on deodorant with fine geranium herbals called The Incessant Anxiety.
“We want to see the brand grow, and to create more with less,” says Bense.
The Incessant Anxiety by To My Ships is available now.
