Maison Black Honey: Turning Scent into Visuals

The Challenge

How do you sell scent without smell?

For Maison Black Honey, fragrance is the product and the challenge.

Around 70% of customers purchase without ever smelling the candles, making visual storytelling the primary driver of decision-making. Each candle is inspired by a destination or a journey, which creates an additional constraint: the imagery needs to evoke places, atmospheres, and emotions that are impossible to capture through standard packshot photography.

“It's great to have accessories that ‘embody’ the scent, like violet flowers, cinnamon sticks, lemons… A concrete example is the ‘Coup de soleil - Calanques’ candle, which has a smell of iodine. Being able to stage my candle with visuals containing water, bergamot... it's magical. With Omi, we put an image to a scent!”
- Gwendal Tissier, Founder & CEO

Traditional photoshoots quickly reached their limits:

• Physical locations were inaccessible or unrealistic

• Seasonal shoots had to be repeated continuously

• Visual production lagged behind campaign timelines

• Content creation became reactive instead of planned

As a solo founder managing everything from production to marketing, Gwendal faced a growing bottleneck: lack of time, lack of flexibility, and rising costs.

The Solution

Breaking free from physical constraints with Omi

Omi Studio allowed Maison Black Honey to decouple creativity from logistics.

“I need to showcase destinations, but I can't go to Tokyo for a packshot photoshoot! Omi is the solution that allows me to make my products travel without actually traveling.”

Using virtual photography, Maison Black Honey now creates visuals ranging from realistic to fantastical candles staged on islands, in abstract interiors, or surrounded by symbolic elements that embody scent notes while maintaining a coherent brand aesthetic.

“I use Omi everywhere: on my website, on my Instagram, on my Pinterest, for my reseller website. Even with a professional photographer and a great camera, you can't match the quality of the 3D that you can generate through the Omi app.”

The realism of the visuals has become a competitive advantage:

“At my place, 9 out of 10 clients think that Omi's results are real photos! I have been asked several times for the name of my photographer or studio.”

This visual credibility enabled Maison Black Honey to elevate its brand positioning and support expansion into premium retail environments without increasing production complexity.

From reactive to proactive content creation

Before adopting Omi, content production was cyclical and exhausting.

“I was in the pre-Christmas period, I had just done a photoshoot with a professional photographer, but Christmas hadn't even passed yet and I had already exhausted all my photos and was already going to have to start over with another photoshoot... It was endless.”

With Omi, the workflow fundamentally changed.

“Now, I no longer wonder how I'm going to do my Christmas photoshoots. Starting from October, I have my thematic templates in the app, and I create my visuals in advance.”

Seasonal content is now planned months ahead:

“I'm at least a month and a half ahead of schedule when it comes to producing seasonal content. I imagine my plans, I create my scenes, I anticipate. For key events, 2 and a half months in advance, it's all ready to go.”

Virtual photography turned content creation from a last-minute scramble into a proactive system.

The Results

Clear impact across brand, time, and cost

Results at a glance

• 80% of the brand’s product visuals created with Omi

• 6 weeks saved on average per seasonal campaign

• Ahead of schedule for every planned campaign

• 100+ unique scenes created across product lines

• 9 out of 10 customers believe the visuals are real photographs

A scalable visual library

Today, Gwendal maintains a structured visual library rather than producing content on demand.

“I produce 25 Omi visuals per month, I don't publish them all, I keep them in stock to build up a library.”

The setup includes:

• 20 products modeled as Digital Twins

• 4 product categories (large candles, small candles, mists, stick diffusers)

• 29 scents per category

• 100+ reusable scenes, often refreshed with minor adjustments

“I've used over 100 scenes and backgrounds! Sometimes I reuse the same scene but with a different camera angle.”

This approach enables continuity, seasonal refreshes, and long-term consistency without restarting production cycles.

The math is a no-brainer

The decision ultimately came down to sustainability.

“I do absolutely everything, from making the products to managing communication, creating and maintaining the website, and sending out packages. Needless to say, my time for designing visuals is limited.”

Without Omi, scaling visuals would have meant abandoning key channels:

“I was starting to neglect my Instagram even though I had identified the Instagram account as a priority from the beginning.”

The financial impact is unambiguous:

“If I had to do everything with a photographer, I think it would have cost me an additional 5000 euros.”

For an independent fragrance brand, that difference is decisive.

The verdict

Maison Black Honey now operates with a visual identity far larger than its team size would suggest. Omi enabled the brand to:

• Translate scent into imagery

• Plan campaigns months in advance

• Maintain a premium, cohesive aesthetic

• Scale content without physical shoots

All while turning virtual photography into a core creative asset - not a workaround.