Autumn dog walks in the New Forest, the sweet aroma of an orchard in summertime, an elegant night out in winter – there are some experiences you wish you could capture forever.

That is exactly what Bournemouth perfumier Sarah Ireland has done with her first unique collection of fragrances.

Despite only being launched in 2018, after she quit her primary school teacher job to follow her dreams, Sarah Ireland Perfume is already making a name for itself after being named as a finalist in the Fragrance Foundation Awards.

Each of her four unisex scents has connotations with a season, after Sarah based the fragrances on memories of her personal life.

"I've always been someone that will choose a perfume depending on my mood," she explains, "I've always had a collection – I've never just been one perfume.

"I knew I wanted to have the inspiration to be the starting point. So I had chosen an experience – for example one was based on walks in the New Forest with my dog. As it evolved, it was obviously based on autumn.

"Once I finished them they fell into the seasons. It wasn't a definite thing, but it was maybe subconscious."

Sarah moved to Bournemouth from London several years ago for her husband's job and it was then that she decided to take the leap of faith.

"I sort of started when we were in London," she says, "a bit of playing around with perfume, just because it was something I loved doing. When I moved down here, it was time to take the leap. If I wasn't going to do it then, I probably wouldn't have done it."

Once upon a time you could only call yourself a perfumier if you were born into the industry or had completed the classic, seven-year perfume training at Grasse in France. But, in recent years, independent, niche perfurmiers have been making changes in the industry, which has allowed Sarah to train herself and set up her own company.

"I'm following the groove that they set, which didn't really exist years ago," she explains.

"I did various different courses, as many different things as I could. It's just a lot of self-study – just shut yourself away with your scents and teach yourself. It's about distinguishing what different things are. But each individual material needs to be studied as well.

"So, initially, it's just being able to recognise things. Then I started doing the process of actually mixing and blending."

Sarah knew she wanted the scents to be based on her personal experiences, but she admits it was a huge learning curve.

"Each one was an exploratory process. I tried to do it as holistically, based on on experience. But how do you interpret those feelings and sights and sounds?

"Then you experiment with different materials to discover whether it's going to take you down the route that you want it to.

"Even when you've got your base perfume you have to tinker with it for ages. You've got to let the materials mould together. It's quite a waiting game."

Indeed, the four scents Sarah came up with took three-and-a-half years to create, and, although was proud of the finished result, she only had the reactions of family and friends to go on.

"It was only really at the launch in London that I got honest feedback. People were buying," she smiles.

"It was just amazing. It was one of those 'I can't believe this is happening' moments. Just getting positive reactions, I can't tell you how lovely it is."

Sarah, who also runs a bespoke service to create individual scents for clients and is looking to create a range of body oils, set up her website in June of last year, and is now working on promoting her collection, which is stocked at Gem of England in Burley.

"People don't want to buy perfume off the internet," she explains, "so I do a sample service so that people can try and I've been to various different fairs. I'd like to do a couple of pop-ups going forward.

"It's just keep on keeping on."

sarah-ireland.com Gem of England, Garden Road, Burley gemfreeman.com/gem-of-england-shop/