What’s the smell of the Tennessee Theatre? What about a day on the lake? A hike up House Mountain or the Sunsphere at Sunset? How do you capture the experiences and places of the city you love in smell? These are the questions that Amber Rountree is out to answer with her new company Sunsphere Scents. The journey here has been circuitous.
Amber grew up in the Appalachians of southeastern Ohio. She said it was very rural and small-town where her father worked in the juvenile corrections system and her mother, who had a degree in social work, worked in the home. Amber graduated high school at seventeen and, not wanting to attend college near home, she visited the University of Tennessee and fell in love with the school. She started her undergraduate work in 1998.
She graduated in Child and Family Studies with a certification in teaching. During her internship, after observing standardized testing, she told her advisor, “I’m not doing it. What I’ve always loved is my school librarian.” She worked in a law firm for a bit while working on a MS in Library Science from Florida State University and became a librarian at Halls Elementary in 2008. She worked there for six years, eventually deciding to run for school board which, once she was elected, required her to quit her job.
She served on the Knox County School Board 2014, being sworn in on September 1. On September 8 her first child was born. Eventually it would lead to a minor kerfuffle involving her need to leave to pump breast milk during a particularly long meeting. Not everyone was supportive, and it led to her writing an op ed piece that caused a stir. She had her second child while still serving her term.
She began work on her PhD during that time, finishing in 2020 with a degree in Education and Early Literacy, with her dissertation focused on education policy and autonomy in the classroom. As she gathered data, she did her final interview on a Friday afternoon and her third child was born the following Monday. After a stint in the Social Work Department, she got a position with UT doing institutional research and strategic analysis at the UT Conference Center.
So how did she get into perfume making?
She said she always loved smells. Living in a poor area, she remembers when Bath and Body Works was popular. It seemed grand to her at the time. “‘I get to save my money and get this body spray and I feel so fancy,’ even though it wasn’t fancy. It was a treat.” She wore perfume over the years and, “I got into small batch indie perfume, and I wanted a very specific perfume that smelled like cut grass and magnolias.” She enjoys mowing and she and her husband had magnolias outside their home.
Not finding one that fit what she imagined, she began to research perfumery. She studied. And then she began doing: She ordered her first batch of materials last fall and began experimentation. “I didn’t blow up the house!” Realizing that Knoxville does not (as far as she can tell) have a professional perfumer, she became interested in expanding her experiment. Her friends liked the scents she developed and since “perfumery is a very expensive hobby, how can I leverage what I’m doing so I can keep creating?” A friend told her the answer was obvious: sell your perfumes.
I love Knoxville . . . it’s a part of me . . . and this place has so much beauty. Everything in the collection is Knoxville-themed and from memories and places I’ve spent a lot of time.
She bought a range of products from suppliers, developed the scents (she hopes to introduce more as she goes), purchased bottles, labeled them, photographed the product, and developed the website. It’s been a journey, but a relatively quick one. After starting last fall, she launched the product at SoKno Pride in June and got a good response. “I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that it’s OK to make mistakes in public . . . I had to learn that on school board . . . there’s no bigger failure than running for public office and losing (she lost her re-election campaign to Kristi Kristy) . . . I think that has driven me to try new things and be a risk-taker.”
The scents are divided into four categories, including Legends, Seasons, Locales, and Sounds. Each of the scents come with a backstory linked on the Sunsphere Scents website (just click the pictures). The backstory for Lake Days, for example, says:
Summer days are lake days! This scent captures the perfect Knoxville summer day spent on the water: cruising up the Tennessee River or jumping in the clear waters of Norris. The mimosa trees are blooming, so it’s time to go for a boat ride and soak up the sun on the dock.
Notes: clear lake water, sunscreen, inner tubes, mimosa tree blossoms, cedarwood
“I consider it a love letter to Knoxville through scent.” She said her favorite response is from a person in California who, after trying her perfume said, “I’ve never been to Knoxville, but now I want to go.” Amber said, “I consider it wearable art.”
Check out her website and follow her on Instagram. You can explore the scents and order her perfume (including a sampler) here. She’s hopeful to get a foothold and become a wholesaler in local retail shops. If you have a shop and you are interested in carrying her scents, message her through Instagram (or reach out to me and I’ll connect you).