Since launching Houseplant as a cannabis-oriented brand in 2018 with Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen has increasingly refocused his attention on home scent. Merging product design, ceramics and fragrance, the brand has recently collaborated with the likes of Ripple Home on an incense collection, and with Droplet on a series of products that merge home fragrance with interior accessories.
For Houseplant’s latest launch, the brand collaborated on a rethinking of Droplet’s Scent Burner Set, a sleek object activated with a few drops of scent to enhance the olfactory experience in a space. The burner comes with a specially developed scent, developed by Rogen in Grasse and featuring a balance of florals and woods with a concoction of pink pepper, soft peony, warm santal and rich pine.
On the occasion of the launch, Wallpaper* caught up with Rogen to discuss how the brand has been evolving and the role of scent in his work.
4 questions on scent with Seth Rogen
Wallpaper*: How has Houseplant evolved since you first launched it?
Seth Rogen: Oh man, in some ways so much, and in others it’s exactly the same as when we started. We’ve been able to meaningfully expand what we make and get into different product categories. We can now sort of fill up an entire completed living room with Houseplant products, which was always a goal of ours. When we launched, we had like three products: a lighter, an ashtray, and a vinyl set. Now we have this pretty wide range of products, and I think there’s something for everyone, whether you smoke weed or not.
W*: What have been the brand’s most significant projects for you?
SR: Some of my favourite items have been the whole Gloopy collection, which [features] a glaze technique I have experimented with a lot, and that other people seem to like as well. And then still our main ashtray set that I designed – it’s cool to think about how many homes those are in, and how often they are getting used. We also launched THC beverages, which taste amazing and provide people with a really intuitive and approachable way to enjoy THC.
W*: What has surprised you in this journey so far?
SR: Probably just how much people have embraced Houseplant and they come up to me and tell me how much they love my ceramics and the products we are making.
W*: Why did you start working on scent, and what most attracts you to this world?
SR: With film and television, you don’t really have to think about smell. In the real world, though, smell is very important. It can completely change the mood of a space. When I was in Grasse, France, with my wife and some friends, we got to create our own fragrances. I obviously do ceramics and like working with my hands, and so for me it was cool to see another medium get built from the ground up.
We worked with a perfumer, or ‘nose’, they call them, which is a funny name already, and we went through all these different fragrances to figure out what I liked and what I didn’t, and that eventually became our ‘House Scent’, which we’ve now paired with our last two Droplet launches. And then to bring it to life with beautifully designed vessels and packaging, it makes a great combination.
The Scent Burner by Houseplant and Droplet is available from houseplant.com and thedroplet.co.uk