Reek Perfume: A Tribute to Formidable Women

Reek was an Edinburgh perfume house founded in 2016 by Sara Sheridan, a historical novelist, and her daughter Molly, a make-up artist and art director. Its two perfumes, Damn Rebel Bitches and Damn Rebel Witches, were made with perfumer Sarah McCartney of 4160 Tuesdays and named for women history had been happy to forget.

What Was Reek Trying to Do?

Reek set out to celebrate women history had overlooked, starting with the women of the Jacobite risings. The Jacobites fought between 1688 and 1746 to put the Stuarts back on the throne, and the women among them raised money, carried messages, nursed the wounded and, in a few cases, raised troops. Most of the history books left them out.

The perfume was only part of it. Molly Sheridan’s 2016 piece for the Dangerous Women Project describes a campaign shot by Bethany Grace with models from size 8 to 22 and no retouching, and Reek handed out feminist stickers alongside the bottles. The perfumes were vegan and cruelty-free. The founders told Metal magazine that a backlash against the campaign only sold more perfume, to the point of crashing the website.

What Does Damn Rebel Bitches Smell Like?

Damn Rebel Bitches is a fresh gourmand: blood orange, hazelnut, clary sage and malt, according to McCartney’s own archive. Every note was chosen as something Jacobite women would have known, and the malt is a nod to Scottish women’s long history as brewers.

Read together, the notes suggest orange peel over a warm, nutty, faintly bready base, something like an orange-studded malt loaf. Clary sage is the quiet structural note. It’s musky, herbal and a little ambery, and it’s also the plant that gives perfumers sclareol, the starting material for ambrox. So there’s a chemical thread from this small Scottish perfume to a great many modern woody-amber fragrances.

The name comes from Maggie Craig’s history Damn’ Rebel Bitches: The Women of the ‘45, which tells the stories of the women of the 1745–46 rising. It’s worth reading if the perfume sent you looking.

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What Does Damn Rebel Witches Smell Like?

The second perfume moved from rebels to the women accused of witchcraft. 4160 Tuesdays lists tobacco, orange, twigs, musk, oakmoss and hazelnut brew.

It shares the orange and hazelnut with its sister but takes them somewhere darker. Tobacco and oakmoss pull it toward the woods outside the village instead of the kitchen. “Twigs” is a lovely note to put on a list: dry, green, slightly bitter, the smell of kindling. If Bitches is the tavern, Witches is the walk home through the forest.

Can You Still Buy Reek Perfume?

Reek has closed, but the perfumes didn’t quite disappear with it. Sarah McCartney kept a store of the concentrate after Reek shut down and released it through her own house, 4160 Tuesdays. When we looked on October 19, 2026, Damn Rebel Witches was listed among 4160 Tuesdays’ retiring fragrances, so if you want either one, the 4160 Tuesdays shop is the place to look.

McCartney’s own line is the nearest thing to more Reek: small-batch, story-led perfumes made in London. For other independent makers working the same way, see St. Clair Scents and Aftelier, and the niche-house guide has plenty more. For where storytelling perfumery came from, the history of perfume goes back a few thousand years further than the Jacobites.