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This time, we’re looking at new-on-the-scene premium body care brand, To My Ships. The reason we’re doing this is a) three people emailed in the same week to tell me about them, which is interesting, and b) I’m a sucker for a fancy deoderant1, so it’s a chance to expense my habit.
I’ll give you some To My Ships origin story as we go, but first – well, soak up the vibe:
Just look at those brushed aluminium canisters. It’s on-point premium2: understated, tactile, just the right amount of institutional chic3. If you’re getting strong Aesop vibes, that’s likely because To My Ships’ founder Daniel Bense was formerly Aesop’s head of commercial.
Wallpaper* summed up Bense’s vision for To My Ships thusly: ‘to bring natural ingredients and fine fragrance together with intelligent packaging to create a poetic brand that might nudge consumer behaviour in a more conscious direction.’
As tends to happen with brand launches like this, most of the commentary has focused on the ingredients and the packaging. And yes, all the ingredients are natural And yes, they smell amazing. And yes, the aluminium bottles are post-consumer recycled and infinitely recyclable. All very fascinating.
But for me, that’s not the main story4. (Why isn’t all packaging infinitely recyclable as standard?). I think the ‘poetic’ bit deserves serious attention. Because it’s great, and is a huge part of what makes To My Ships work.
Let’s start with the name: To My Ships. Which I’ve written several times already, like it’s totally normal. But it’s not, is it. Luxe personal care names are often all about a kind of sonorous smoothness (‘La Mer’, ‘Guerlain’, ‘Diptyque’), like they’ve been chosen to be whispered in one’s ear by someone beautiful, sophisticated and, ideally, French5. There are some knowingly different brand names (‘The Ordinary’, ‘Allies of Skin’) – but they’re all easily ‘gettable’.
‘To My Ships’ isn’t gettable. It demands attention. Partly just because the sound is less smooth (more hard plosives and fricatives). Partly because it feels like it’s snapping at you. (‘Hurry up! To My Ships! Now!’) But mostly because it’s enticingly cryptic. What ships? Who is the ‘my’ here? Why must we go? What will we do when we get there? And since I’m asking – ‘ships’ plural? Exactly how many ships do you have?
The answer to this – and to so much more about this brand – is that it’s a reference to Homer’s The Iliad. Yes, the 8th century BCE Ancient Greek epic about Achilles and the Trojan War.
The Greek epic is an all-pervasive influence and inspiration for the brand. It’s in their naming: ‘To My Ships’ is a quotation. As are the names of their product ranges (‘Of The Gods’; ‘Stand Up Bravely’). Even their Registered Company name (‘By Your Arrows Ltd’)6.
They pepper their website, newsletters and socials with quotations and references (always scrupulously attributed):
And it features prominently on their website, where there’s a detailed disquisition on the origins, themes, and interpretations of the poem:
The essay then continues in this vein for nearly 1000 words, taking in linguistic analysis, influences on the arts, links to further academic commentary, and recommendations for the best modern translations and performances. I heartily recommend you read the whole thing in full.
Lots of brands say they’re ‘inspired by’ things: ‘nature’; ‘industrial heritage’; ‘innovators’, you know the kind of wishy-washy stuff. It’s clear that To My Ships is more than ‘inspired by’ The Iliad. They’re steeped in it, obsessed with it.
Partly what I love about this is that The Iliad isn’t by any means an obvious choice of ‘inspiration’ for a body care brand. It’s primarily a poem about war, revenge, grief, and fate. There are definitely more overtly ‘sensuous’ classical works they could have chosen.
Bense has said he admires The Iliad’s depictions of the ‘moments of calm’ before the chaos of battle, where the soldiers are preparing themselves, and how this echoes our own ablutions before the chaos of the day. Perhaps. That feels like a post-rationalisation to me7. In fact, I hope it is. What truly inspires us often isn’t explicable in obvious ways.
Then there’s To My Ships’ overall tone of voice. Here’s how they introduce themselves:
It’s formal, more than a little aloof, even kinda pretentious (‘the application of a subtractive aesthetic’).
Yet it’s also deliberate and knowing – although it’s so carefully done you could easily miss it. ‘eminent, highly accomplished peers’ is basically a joke – they mean ‘bunch of successful friends’. (I instantly thought of the characters in Donna Tartt’s Secret History.)
Notice how they eschew the energetic ‘sentence fragment’ style which has become the default syntax of almost all our online writing these days. Here’s the confirmation you get after signing up for their emails:
Most brands would hit you up with some micro-copy. To My Ships write everything in full. It’s like you’re getting extracts from a surprisingly readable academic paper8. Their semi-colon use is immaculate. And there’s that terrific line – ‘To My Ships is inspired by ancient Greek literature, a desire for cleaner armpits, and an intention to counter olfactory overload.’ It’s exquisitely crafted. I notice that I find it calming to read.
OK, one final thing. To My Ships’ website doesn’t just contain a scholarly essay. It also contains an INDEX and a GLOSSARY. Both are fabulous.
In keeping with the academic paper vibe, the INDEX is essentially a collection of footnotes referencing their other influences besides The Iliad. (It’s knowingly high-brow, and includes among other things, contemporary opera, arthouse cinema, modernist architecture, the novels of Muriel Spark, and the philosophical concept of ‘Consequentialism’.9)
And the GLOSSARY (‘an evolving lexicon’) initially feels like it’s a helpful aid to reading The Iliad, with plentiful definitions of fragrance-related Greek terms:
But you quickly realise it’s where they’re capturing ideas that other brands might more lumpenly call ‘values’ or ‘commitments’. The ‘definition of terms’ format allows them to do this rather poetically:
There’s also some intellectual showboating…
And even sketches of To My Ships’ office life, which I particularly enjoyed:
The glossary format ends up being an incredibly effective way of capturing a whole host of different ideas, and allows To My Ships to lean even further into their lyrical, high-minded voice.
Often new brands launch with some ‘high concept’ idea like this, only for it to fade away as time goes on and the founders have less time for writing beautiful copy. I very much hope To My Ships remain haunted by The Iliad. It’s unique and rather brilliant.
❤️ Three things to love and learn:
Share what inspires you. Shamelessly, joyfully, randomly. Not just because there’s ‘creative inspiration’ to be found, but simply because it’s infectious. I love that To My Ships love The Iliad far more than is necessary. Most of their customers will neither know nor care about classical Greek literature. (When I spoke to the team at their Liberty pop-up store recently, they said that lots of people just thought they were a Greek brand.) It doesn’t matter. An inspiration like this fuels everything in all sorts of oblique ways.
There’s creativity in formality. To My Ships have found a voice that’s lyrical and also surprisingly formal. Yet the care and quality of their writing means this feels graceful and thoughtful, not dry and dull. There’s definitely humour here – and the few obviously funny lines are important signposts to ‘orientate’ your reading of the more formal stuff – but this is very definitely not a ‘conversational’ voice, it’s a written voice.
What formats dull your voice, what formats amplify? Notice how those unusual website sections – glossary and index – allow To My Ships to find new depth and nuance. In a way, it’s Rochambeau Club style world-building, but irl.
Phew, that was a long one! Thanks for reading this far. See you next time! Not a subscriber? Hit the button below! Also read on for how you can get access to the whole archive…
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Aesop’s vetiver root and coriander spray, since you asked. It’s what I ask for, for every birthday and Christmas. (Way too expensive to just, you know, buy.) It was writing the Tone Knob about Penhaligon’s that got me into really nice smelling stuff.
Are they a ‘luxury’ brand? At £35 for a little spray can of deodorant, yes definitely. But ‘luxury’ isn’t the correct term for the category, is it. ‘Premium’ is closer, but still doesn’t feel quite right…
The brand design is by Formafantasma. This Wallpaper* interview goes deep with Bense about the brand and the packaging. (Formafantasma also have one of the best ‘undesigned’ websites I’ve seen in ages – apparently to minimise its energy use. Fine work.)
Although to be fair, I would say that wouldn't I?
I wonder if one could make the case that these kinds of ‘functional’ luxury brands are often playing a kind of ‘exquisite servant’ role – like a lady in waiting, or a butler. That balance of being ‘always attentive and there for you’ while also being ‘invisible and not drawing too much attention’. Though let’s bear in mind that the majority of my understanding of servants comes from reading PG Wodehouse and watching Downton Abbey.
Has there ever been a brand that’s started so many names with prepositions?!
Disclaimer: It’s been a long time since I read The Iliad, and on reflection, it’s likely I skipped the lyrical descriptions of bathing and whatnot to get to the battle scenes. I fear I wanted to be seen as someone who’d read The Iliad, more than actually wanting to read The Iliad. And yes, I am now seriously considering re-reading it because of To My Ships. There’s a lively debate at the moment about the ‘death of the humanities’ and how nobody’s reading any more. I think it’s important we bear in mind that in a culture where deodorant brands are doing quality close readings of Homer, literature is probably not in the parlous state that some might fear.
‘Surprisingly readable academic paper’ would make an excellent tone of voice principle, wouldn’t it.
I also spotted cultural theorist Byung Hul-Chan, whose book The Crisis of Narration is essentially about how ‘the spirit of narration does not fit with the logic of efficiency’ of late capitalism. For instance, how interactions with GPs are now much more about ‘posting lists of symptoms into an app’ than ‘telling the story’ of how we’re feeling, with all its nuance and richness, to another human. As it happens, I’ve read some of The Crisis of Narration and didn’t really get on with it – ironically, given his ‘stories humanise us’ topic, I found Hul-Chan’s tone rather too imperious. How did we get here from fancy deodorant? I appreciate it.