About Zusa

We are a small, reputable company who have been selling and creating high-quality fragrances, and glass-ware, essential oil, and lab supplies for more than 20 years!
Layna Phenechka-Spahr, who founded Zusa, started selling traditional fragrances in the parks, sidewalks, festivals and clubs of NYC and Philadelphia, as well as festivals all across this country in the 1990’s.

We are not a factory, and our process is not automated. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Asheville, NC, we hand-craft and bottle our fragrances in small batches. Our fragrances have few ingredients, are hypo-allergenic, very shelf-stable, and are free of alcohol. Some of our ingredients are Jojoba, Castor oil, essential oils, and natural preservatives, Certified Organic whenever possible. The glass bottles, droppers, and jars are tested for leaks and other defects.

We believe in a socially, and environmentally responsible company model known as a Triple Bottom Line where
getting paid is equally important to social and environmental concerns. Zusa folks are paid a living wage, we
source our materials carefully, recycle, re-purpose, reduce, and re-imagine the way we can accomplish this venture. Even the server that holds this website is a low-energy device.

Our name Zusa comes from the ancient Germanic word Hagazussa, which means “fence-rider.” The fence is a metaphorical
barrier between the human and the wild world, and Zusa is the powerful being who is able to walk in both worlds.
Zusa is a healer and a shaman, and is symbolic of our companies’ intention to remain rooted in the
natural world. Fragrances are related to memory, imagination, and a type of magick where the fragrance can transcend the ordinary, the mundane, and the human, and invoke other states of consciousness.

Contact us if you are a retailer and want to carry the Zusa Fragrance line!