Perfumey Passport: OUAI’s Diana Pratasiewicz On Fragrance As Escape

If you can’t hop on a plane right now, a spritz might be the next best thing. OUAI’s newest Hair and Body Fragrance Mists are designed to transport—capturing the mood, memory, and energy of iconic destinations in scent form. From the sun-washed ease of Santorini to Ibiza’s after-dark pulse and the endless summer feel of St. Barts, these fragrances turn everyday routines into moments of escape. We caught up with Diana Pratasiewicz, Senior Director of Global Education at OUAI, to talk about fragrance as a mood-shifter, travel as inspiration, and why your next vacation might be just one spritz away. —Noa Nichol

OUAI’s fragrance mists are built around destinations rather than traditional scent categories—how does travel-inspired fragrance tap into emotion and memory differently, especially when woven into everyday hair and body rituals?

Travel is a feeling. Whether you’ve actually been to a destination or you’ve watched someone else experience it through TikTok or an Instagram dump, that place already lives in your mind. Destinations carry instant emotion—colors, energy, temperature, sound. They’re loaded with memory, aspiration, and mood, which makes them incredibly powerful when translating fragrance.

We love building scent stories around destinations because they create a fully formed world. Instead of asking you to decode traditional fragrance categories, we invite you into a place. You immediately understand how a fragrance might feel—whether it’s the bright blue water of Santorini, or the electric, after-dark energy of Ibiza and its iconic club scene.

When those destination-inspired fragrances are dropped into everyday hair and body rituals, they become more than just something you wear—they become a small, transportive moment. 

A spray during your workday, or before the gym to pump you up isn’t just about scent; it’s about shifting your mood, your energy, and how you move through the day. It’s travel, curated—effortless, emotional, and meant to be lived in.

Santorini, Ibiza, and St. Barts each evoke a distinct mood—from sunlit ease to after-dark energy. How do you guide consumers to choose a scent based on how they want to feel, not just how they want to smell?

This might sound a little unexpected, but we approach fragrance the same way we approach hair: approachable first. Fragrance notes can feel intimidating—some names aren’t intuitive, and the language can quickly become overly technical. At OUAI, our philosophy with hair has always been about simplifying a complicated category. We’re not here to overwhelm you or tell you that you need ten steps—we’re here to offer intuitive solutions that make sense. That same mindset carries directly into how we talk about scent.

Instead of leading with technical notes, we focus on how you want to feel. We want you to nod your head and think, I know exactly what that smells like—and I want it right now. It’s less about saying “this has citrus notes” and more about painting a moment—like a sun-warmed afternoon in Greece where someone effortlessly cool (and hot) makes you a fruit salad with the perfect balance of bright citrus, a touch of honey, and a hint of vanilla. It’s good for two reasons: someone else made it for you, and every bite delivers a little sweetness and freshness at the same time.

That’s how we guide our—by translating scent into feeling, memory, and mood, so choosing a fragrance feels natural, not intimidating.