AUNTRI is a founder-led house of wearable scent rituals, rooted in the quiet intelligence of Chinese incense craft.

I founded AUNTRI because I believe a small sensory ritual can change the texture of a day. I studied psychology at the University of Oregon, where I became deeply interested in the inner life: the ways our surroundings, relationships, and daily rhythms shape how we move through the world. In busy workdays and full social lives, I kept looking for a simple way to return to myself—something tactile, beautiful, and close at hand.

That search led me back to scent. For me, fragrance is not meant to perform for a room. It can be private: a warm wood note on a commute, a soft resin between meetings, or a familiar trace that makes a crowded day feel a little more spacious. AUNTRI was created for those small moments of comfort and attention—for when you want to pause, breathe, and reconnect with your own rhythm.

This is the philosophy at the heart of AUNTRI: to see the world, to see others, to see yourself. It is a way of paying attention to the natural world that gives us our materials; to the people, hands, and histories behind what we wear; and to the self we can hear more clearly when we slow down. Inspired by the Daoist appreciation of harmony between nature, human life, and the inner self, we approach tradition as a living source of perspective rather than decoration.

Hexiang (合香) is the art of bringing aromatic materials into harmony. In Chinese incense culture, ingredients are considered not only one by one, but in relation to each other: how woods give depth, how resins create warmth, and how a blend changes slowly over time. By the Song dynasty, incense culture had developed a sophisticated vocabulary of materials, blends, and appreciation, with manuals recording complex formulas and ways of understanding scent.

AUNTRI works with Chinese heritage craft masters to hand-form every incense bead. From the proportioning of aromatic materials and the cultivation and selection of botanicals, to grinding, binding, kneading, shaping, drying, and hand-polishing, each stage is carried out with patience and close attention. The finished beads become wearable scent objects with texture, story, and time inside them.

The name AUNTRI carries the belief that what is truly right is personal. The best scent is not the loudest or the most universally loved; it is the one that meets you where you are.

— Renee, Founder of AUNTRI - Aura, Inner, Tri