State of Mind

State of Mind (stylised in French as État d'Esprit) is a French niche perfume house that pairs each of its fragrances with a matching tea. Founded in 2017 by Catherine Laskine-Balandina [10], the company describes itself as an "Artistic Niche Perfume House" whose products are made in France and represented across 52 countries. It is built around a single idea: that scent and taste belong to the same sensory experience, and that choosing a perfume can be treated as a ritual rather than a purchase.

The house is based in Versailles, where it opened its first Olfactory Tea Room in 2020, and it remains active — a second location in Cannes was announced in December 2025, alongside the launch of a new fragrance, Oriental Opulence [8].

State of Mind was created by Catherine Laskine-Balandina, of Slavic origin, whom the company calls its founder and "creative architect" [3]. According to the brand, she had pursued a career in fragrances but found the commercial market creatively restrictive, and started State of Mind to build an artistic perfumery brand offering a ceremonial experience drawn from tea culture [2].

Two independent editorial sources describe the brand as "born in 2017", the year it released an initial line of ten compositions, each pairing a perfume with a matching tea, candle and diffuser [10]. The brand's own site does not state an explicit founding year; the 2020 date it gives refers to the opening of the Versailles tea room rather than the company's founding [6]. The two dates are consistent — 2017 for the brand, 2020 for its first retail flagship.

Laskine-Balandina assembled a small creative team rather than working alone. The in-house perfumer is Karine Dubreuil, born in Grasse and trained at the Roure school, who had earlier created fragrances for houses including Lanvin, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent [3]. Editorial accounts list a slightly different set of client houses, naming Guerlain among them, but agree that Dubreuil is the perfumer behind the line [10]. The tea side is led by Olivier Scala, a fifth-generation member of a tea family and, per the company, president of France's Tea Committee. Illustration work has come from Elena Minenko and Kasiq Jungwoo Lee.

The house presents itself as "a brand for the synesthetes", referring to synesthesia — the involuntary blending of the senses, where one sensation triggers another. State of Mind applies the idea literally: each perfume is sold with a tea chosen to echo it, so that taste and smell are experienced together. The company frames both tea and fragrance as mood-altering rather than merely pleasant, and its tagline describes the work as blending "the timeless ritual of the Tea Ceremony with the Art of Perfumery".

State of Mind lists its core values as harmony, respect, purity, tranquility and sensory refinement [2]. Its logo draws on a drawing by the Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha and, by the company's account, plays on the phrases "state of soul" and "state of mind" — a wordplay meant to capture the fluid relationship between emotional and mental states.

The core catalogue is a set of "olfactory universes", each a fragrance with an accompanying theme and tea. Names include Butterfly Mind (a floral-fruity composition), Aesthetic Turbulence (floral-spicy), Fanfarone Italiano (a coffee-amber scent), Modern Nomad (oriental-leather) and Oriental Opulence, the newest, described as an intense woody amber. A tea note runs through each creation, and the olfactory families span woody amber, coffee amber, woody aquatic, oriental gourmand and floral fruity.

Beyond perfume, the range extends to perfumed teas and coffee, scented candles, home diffusers, and silk scarves made in Lyon [10]. The company positions itself at the luxury end of niche perfumery and sells directly to consumers, with the Versailles tea room as its first physical location; it has stated an intention to grow through franchising [6].

Formal awards do not appear in the available sources. The brand's own press page records a "Fragrance of the Month" mention for Oriental Opulence by the Romanian publication Zile și Nopți in June 2025, and a feature in KAYAK's Versailles travel guide the same year [8]. Cannes tourism materials have listed the brand's second tea room near the Palais des Festivals.

State of Mind is active. Its most recent visible activity is the opening of a second Olfactory Tea Room in Cannes in December 2025, together with the launch of the Oriental Opulence fragrance [8]. The house remains privately held; no parent company or acquisition history is recorded in the available sources.