Our story
Why Vessel & Reed exists.
It started with two very ordinary problems that existing reed diffusers didn’t solve.
Tom Page
Founder, Vessel & Reed
Story one
The first problem was our own office.
When I owned a previous business, we wanted the office to smell better.
Like a lot of workplaces, it had the usual mix of people coming in from the rain, damp coats hanging around and the smell of whatever everyone had eaten for lunch.
We bought reed diffusers to try to improve it.
But the options never really worked.
Some were simply too weak for the size of the space. You could barely smell them unless you were standing right next to the bottle.
Others were expensive home-fragrance products that still didn’t feel designed for the job.
We were paying more, but we weren’t really solving the problem.
The problem wasn’t that reed diffusers were a bad idea.
They just weren’t designed for the space we were trying to scent.
Story two
Then I noticed the same problem somewhere completely different.
I was sitting in a private clinic that had clearly spent a lot of money getting the space right.
Beautiful furniture. Great coffee machine. Purposefully placed books.
Everything had been thought about.
And then there were four reed diffusers dotted around the room.
Two were empty.
The other two looked like somebody had grabbed them during their lunch break.
It felt completely at odds with everything around them.
And I remember thinking: surely there must be something designed for this?
A reed diffuser made for businesses rather than homes.
Something with the performance needed for a commercial space, but beautiful enough to become part of that space.
Something that gets replenished so nobody has to remember to replace it.
I couldn’t find what I had in mind.
So I decided to build it.
Two different spaces.
The same problem.
One office needed stronger, more reliable scent performance.
One clinic needed something that looked and felt appropriate for the environment.
Both were relying on products designed primarily for homes.
That became the brief for Vessel & Reed.
The brief
- Stronger fragrance.
- Better reeds.
- A more substantial vessel.
- Replenishment built in.
A reed diffuser designed specifically for business use.