Established in 2019 in memory of my Grandad, Fred Hatton, a gentle man who spent his life walking the hills and forests with his love, Kath. 

A Personal Journey of Healing, Ritual, and Resilience
By Felicity Stuart-Menteath, Founder

My Story

I didn’t set out to start a skincare brand, but I was definitely on a journey, trying to feel like myself again after 13 years of work that was meaningful but extremely intense, and all-consuming.

In the middle of it all, Menteath emerged. It became my mission to help people use Earth’s attar to shift how we think and feel about ourselves - and how we connect with the world around us.

Because how we feel in our skin matters more than how it is judged. Perception shapes experience. And how we see ourselves is where transformation begins.

While healing, I began formulating oils and scents unlike anything I had encountered. Studying the science of how they interacted with the skin led me further - into understanding their psychological impact. I wanted to know why they shifted my mood, my perception, my sense of self.

That is when I discovered aromachology.

For years, I worked on the front lines of crisis response in refugee support, male prisons, and aviation disasters. The environments were intense and emotionally charged, and because I’m highly sensitive, I didn’t leave work at the door. I carried home the grief, the fear, and the constant vigilance of those places, along with the stress of working around injustice and in toxic environments. Over time it seeped into everything. My nervous system stayed on high alert, sleep became unreliable, and my body held stress in a way I couldn’t talk myself out of. It affected my relationships too, I wasn’t a happy person then, and it coloured everything. I saw the worst in situations, assumed the worst, and I was constantly reactive. I was flooded with cortisol, and it started to show on my face, in my posture, and in how I moved through the world. Even today, I carry a lot of memory loss from those 13 years.

Healing didn’t arrive in one neat moment. It came slowly, through small rituals that gave my body something steady to hold onto. I kept thinking about the people I’d worked alongside over the years, refugees and displaced communities, and how even when everything else had been stripped away, ritual, community, and connection still remained. Wellbeing isn’t just survival, it’s how you recover and come back stronger after the harsh lessons life gives us.

Scent became my lifeline because it could reach me quickly when I was spun out. I didn’t have to analyse it, my body responded before my mind could get involved. Through aromachology, I started to understand why: scent moves straight into the nervous system, memory, and emotion, it meets you right where stress lives.

I was also brought up with my sister to be self sufficient, if you want something, you make it. So I did what I’ve always done: I started blending. Perfume, aromatherapy oils, plant extracts. Not just because they smell beautiful, but because they do something. That’s why scent in Menteath isn’t separate from skincare, it’s part of how the formulas work, pairing aromatic botanicals with active plant ingredients to support the skin on the outside, and the mind on the inside.

Because real skin health is both. It’s what you put on your skin, and what you’re carrying underneath. It’s how you think, how you feel, how safe your nervous system is, and how connected you are to other people. Community and friendship were a huge part of my recovery, and as I began to soften and regulate, I saw it in my skin. The change was dramatic. My skin started turning into something I hadn’t seen since I was younger, calm, clear, genuinely healthy.

At the heart of what I make is smoke, inspired by the Sudanese Dukhan ritual and by my own lineage too: the rich peat of Scottish whisky, frankincense clinging to old stone church walls, open fires in our English cottage, and the wild blaze of bonfire night in Lewes. There’s something ancient in smoke. It grounds us, quiets the mind, and pulls you back into your body.

The ritual is built around the elements: earth to ground and nourish skin and spirit, air to clear and calm the mind, fire to transform, protect, and empower, and water to soothe, hydrate, and renew.

Menteath is made with science backed, neuro active ingredients, formulated not only to support your skin, but to support your nervous system too. It’s modern science held alongside ancestral knowing, multisensory skincare designed to help you return to yourself.

In memory of Nuke, Indigenous Rights Activist | Mentawai Islands, Indonesia.

The elements are essential to the ritual. 

• Earth grounding and nourishing the skin and spirit

• Air clears and calms the mind

• Fire transforms, protects, and empowers

• Water soothes, hydrates, and renews

This elemental framework shapes the way we design, formulate, and experience skincare - bringing deeper meaning and sensory connection to every step of your ritual.