The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
She's a Witch arrived in 2022 from Caitlin Hayes, the perfumer behind Sorce. The brand launched that same year, which makes this one of its earliest explorations into the gourmand territory the house would become known for. Hayes sketches each composition by hand before blending, and this one reads like a love letter to a particular kind of kitchen, the kind where Italian anise cookies cool on a wire rack while someone reads nearby. The witch in the name is less Halloween costume, more folk-magic archetype, the woman who knows what you're hungry for before you do.
Anise and heliotrope are an unusual pairing in a gourmand, and that's where the fragrance earns its strangeness. Most cookie-forward scents lean on vanilla, almond, or brown butter to do the heavy lifting. Hayes uses anise as the lead instead, which brings a cool, almost minty crispness to what could otherwise read as one-note sugar. Heliotrope adds the powdery, almond-adjacent softness that makes it wearable rather than weird, and the soft woods and musk underneath give it a skin-like base that keeps the sweetness grounded.
The evolution
The first ten minutes are all anise, bright and sharp, almost like biting into a black jelly bean. That crispness softens quickly as the heliotrope and powdered sugar rise to meet it, and the whole composition warms into something that smells less like candy and more like an actual baked good pulled from a hot oven. By the thirty-minute mark the cookie accord has settled into its final shape: buttery, slightly toasted, with that dusty heliotrope sweetness threading through it. The anise doesn't disappear entirely, but it retreats into the background, showing up as a faint coolness rather than a declaration. What lingers past the two-hour mark is mostly the soft musk and woody base, a skin-close warmth that smells faintly sweet if you press your nose to your wrist.
Cultural impact
She's a Witch sits in the small but devoted corner of indie fragrance where gourmands and herbal notes meet. It's found its audience among collectors who want something specific and edible without the cloying sweetness of mainstream bakery scents, the people who read note lists for fun and chase down anise-forward compositions. The anise note makes it a divider: wearers either love the cool licorice lift or find it too sharp for the first hour, and that polarity has helped it build a reputation as a fragrance with a definite point of view.
The House
SorceSorce began as a modest experiment in Charlotte, North Carolina, where founder Caitlin Hayes turned her home‑lab blends into a small‑batch perfume label. The brand offers a rotating catalog of niche scents, each released in limited quantities and presented in minimalist glass vessels. Sorce’s lineup includes playful titles such as In Dreams and Fairy Tales Blueberry (2025) and more contemplative notes like English Major (2024). The house focuses on scent as personal expression, inviting collectors to explore fragrance as a daily ritual rather than a fleeting trend. By keeping production tight and distribution direct, Sorce maintains a hands‑on relationship with its community of indie perfume enthusiasts.
The Creator
Caitlin HayesCaitlin favors natural extracts that whisper rather than shout. Lavender, vanilla, and freshly cut herbs appear frequently, often paired with unexpected mineral accords that evoke rain‑kissed soil.
