The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Janna Sheehan founded Ojai Wild in 2015 with a simple conviction: if you want a fragrance to smell like a place, grow that place. Redwood Leaves started as an obsession with the trees themselves. Not the wood, not the lumber, but the leaves, the green, resinous, slightly medicinal scent that rises when you crush a redwood needle between your fingers. Sheehan planted sequoia on her Ojai farm and harvested at peak expression, distilling the extract within hours of cutting. That immediacy became the fragrance's backbone.
What makes Redwood Leaves unusual is its refusal to separate green from warm. Most botanical fragrances lean one direction: either fresh-cut grass or dried herbs. Here, the fresh redwood leaf extract sits alongside blond tobacco and angelica root, creating a tension between the living forest and the afternoon heat that follows it. Chamomile doesn't soften the composition, it adds a honeyed quietness that makes the leather and musk feel inevitable rather than heavy. The result is a cologne that smells like standing inside a redwood grove at three in the afternoon, sun coming through the canopy, the ground warm beneath your feet.
The evolution
The opening hits green and immediate, petitgrain's citrus-bitter bite giving way to sequoia leaf, that California conifer freshness arriving before anything else. No pretense. No top-note theater. For the first thirty minutes, it's the actual smell of crushed redwood needles: resinous, bright, slightly astringent. Then the handoff. Chamomile edges in quietly, not displacing the green but warming it. Blond tobacco follows, dry and slightly sweet, like sun-dried leaves on warm stone. Angelica root grounds everything with its earthy, slightly medicinal depth. By hour two, the leather emerges, not sharp, not animal, but the warm, worn leather of something that's been used and loved. Musk holds everything close. Redwood Leaves settles into the skin rather than filling the room. Moderate sillage, intimate presence. On most skin, four to six hours. The next morning, a faint green-wood trace remains, like the smell that clings to a jacket after a long walk in the forest.
Cultural impact
Ojai Wild arrived in 2017 as part of a wave of indie perfumers prioritizing authenticity and provenance over brand heritage. Redwood Leaves sits alongside other woody-botanical colognes from houses like Diptyque and Tauer Perfumes, fragrances that reject the safe green fragrance playbook in favor of something with actual character and a point of view.
The House
Ojai WildOjai Wild is a small-batch fragrance house based in the Ojai Valley of California, founded by perfumer Janna Sheehan. The brand distinguishes itself through vertical integration, growing and distilling aromatic botanicals on its own farm before transforming them into fragrance. Sheehan formulates each scent herself, overseeing the complete process from seed planting through final composition. The collection launched in 2017 with four fragrances: Redwood Leaves, Juniper Berry, White Sage Leaves, and Pink Peppercorn. All products are cruelty-free, with the brand emphasizing that it controls every stage of production. The fragrances aim to capture the specific terroir of the Ojai Valley, using ingredients grown in soil the brand describes as holding over 10,000 years of recorded history. Beyond fragrance, Ojai Wild produces skincare products using the same farm-grown botanical approach.
The Creator
Janna SheehanSheehan's signature emerges through her confident use of woody materials and her ability to extract complex aromatic profiles from raw botanicals. She demonstrates particular skill in preserving the integrity of natural ingredients throughout the creation process, resisting th…

























