Ashley Tisdale Launches New Being Frenshe Scent: Palo Santo Sage
The latest scent from Ashley Tisdale’s wellness brand Being Frenshe may be Palo Santo Sage, but the mood, Present & Grounded, came to the multihyphenate first.
“I always create each scent based off of the mood first,” she said of the wellness brand’s products, which each have a mood and a scent labeled on the packaging.
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Present & Grounded, for example, joins the current lineup, exclusively available at Target, that includes moods like Unwind & Rest, which has a Lavender Cloud scent; Soothe & Comfort, which has a Cashmere Vanilla scent, and Awake & Uplift, which has a Citrus Amber scent. Palo Santo Sage is the first new scent since the brand’s launch.
Since inception, the company has employed its trademarked “MoodScience Scent Technology” to make each fragrance functional so that it evokes a specific mood.
While Tisdale expects Palo Santo Sage to be a fan favorite, as people look for daily stress solutions, it was something she personally needed at the time of development .
“When I developed this about two years ago at the lineup, I was like, ‘OK, what is the next mood that we just don’t have?’” the “High School Musical” star said. “I was dealing with a lot of postpartum depression… I just felt like, ‘Oh my gosh, we don’t have a present and grounded mood scent’ and so that was where it started.”
From there, as with all of her scents, she began mood-boarding and it seemed Palo Santo Sage would be the perfect way to achieve that grounded feeling she was seeking.
“I wanted to create this ritual to help you feel centered and live in the moment and give the feeling of mindfulness,” she said. “Obviously, palo santo and sage came to mind. It’s a very woody, rich fragrance.”
Big Sur, which was a location of inspiration for the scent and mood, is also where Tisdale shot the campaign for the launch.
“It’s one of the most healing places that I go to often,” she said. “I went there with my husband after I lost my dog of 11 years. I went there for my ‘babymoon’ and so it’s a really special place for me. It’s where I feel the most grounded because of the woods.”
According to Tisdale, the perfumers created “a safe, synthetic, nuanced palo santo” that “mimic[s] the notes of natural palo santo.”
While Tisdale purposefully waited more than a year since the brand’s launch to bring this scent to market, as she wanted to highlight the original five offerings, she has been wearing it this whole time. The Renewing Body Wash, $11, and Eau de Parfum, $30, have been her Palo Santo Sage go-tos.
“I constantly was asked what I was wearing, and I felt like that was a good sign,” she said. “I was like, ‘OK, I think I’m onto something here.'”
Prior to the launch, the Being Frenshe team also seeded samples to influencers. While recipients weren’t told what the scent was meant to do, feedback showed that they were experiencing the intended grounding benefits, according to Tisdale.
“[They] don’t know much about it except for what it smells like,” she said. “I’ve just been seeing so many people talk about it in ways that I obviously talked about it too.”
The new Palo Santo Sage fragrance will be available in the following stock keeping units: Hair, Body & Linen Mist, $15; Glow On Pulse Point Oil, $15; Soothing Body Serum Stick, $17; Renewing Body Wash, $11; Milky Body Lotion, $15, and Reset Candle, $11. It will also be available in the brand’s new full-sized fragrance format Eau de Parfum, $30.
These new launches from Being Frenshe, which was ideated from Tisdale’s lifestyle blog Frenshe, also come at a significant time for Target. The retailer recently announced that it would add 1,000 new wellness skus to its shelves this year, and Tisdale’s clean brand was an early partner in this mission.
“With the pandemic, I felt like wellness was going to be the next thing where we all took care of ourselves and gave ourselves a moment. Target was excited to launch with us,” said Tisdale of the early days. “To see where they’re heading now, it’s so exciting… I do find Target to be such a big wellness destination because I feel like I can get everything there.”
As Tisdale expected, wellness has blown up over the last few years and accelerated the growth of Being Frenshe.
“We’ve done way more than we expected to do,” she said.
Concurrently, some of the wins have been surprising, according to Tisdale. Specifically, the brand’s Soothing Body Serum Stick, $17, which the team thought would be a challenge to market as it’s a novel format, has become a bestseller. In addition, the brand has blown up on TikTok — the hashtag #BeingFrenshe has reached 20 million views on the platform — with creators posting hauls, reviews and routines. A slew of users have posted TikToks making statements like, “This video is for Ashley Tisdale and if you are not Ashley Tisdale please keep scrolling” before gushing over the products.
“TikTok has done so much for the brand,” Tisdale said. “I have people on TikTok being like, ‘I need to talk to Ashley Tisdale’ and I think those are so funny and I love duetting them.”
While the Maesa-incubated brand did not comment on specific sales projections, WWD reported at the time of launch in July 2022 that it could reach $20 million in first-year sales, according to industry sources. With the launch of the Palo Santo Sage line, Tisdale said more scents will be rolling out over time. She also hinted at additional newness.
“I can’t share too much but I definitely would love to expand into different categories in Target,” she said.
