Between What Was and What Is

Veranica has built her world around fragrance: creating scents and brands, exploring the language of perfumery, and sharing her perspective as a voice in the fragrance community.

But behind the bottles, accords, and stories she creates is a more personal relationship with scent. For her, fragrance has become a quiet thread connecting different chapters of her life: from the home she grew up in, to the woman, wife, mother, and creative she is becoming today. Her story is not about leaving the past behind. It is about carrying what shaped her, while learning to make space for who she is now.

The Warmth Beneath the Surface

Warmth. Kindness. Intention. Authenticity.

These are the things Veranica hopes people notice before her titles or achievements. She wants people to feel seen around her—to know that she is genuinely listening, willing to help, and present in the moment.

But beneath that warmth is someone who has learned to carry much on her own. She doesn't always find it easy to express the weight she carries. So she treasures the people and moments where she doesn't have to explain herself—where she can laugh freely, speak honestly, or simply sit in comfortable silence.

And sometimes, when the world becomes too loud, she turns inward. She prays. She talks to God. Sometimes, she simply lets herself cry. There is no performance there. Just a quiet return to herself.

A Home Made of Memories and Scents

Ask Veranica what home smells like, and the answer isn't just one scent. If she could turn her memories into a perfume, it would not have a single note.

It is the warmth of incense during Chinese New Year. The oriental spices from her grandmother's cooking when the whole family gathered. The faint trace of tobacco smoke and hot coffee that reminds her of her late father in the mornings.

It is also the warm metal and fabric around her mother's sewing machine—a familiar object from the home where she grew up.

Veranica's childhood and her mother's sewing machine

These are the scents of her roots. Some memories don’t disappear when we grow older. They become part of our base notes.

Then somewhere in the heart of the fragrance would be what she finds herself drawn to.

Mimosa. Violet. White florals.

She finds herself drawn to delicate scents that reflect another chapter: the grace, responsibility, and tenderness of being a wife and mother.

Together, these scents could almost become a portrait of her life: incense, tobacco, warm woods, and soft florals. A meeting between where she came from and the life she is nurturing now.

Chinese incense to represent her past and mimosa to represent her present

When the World Gets Too Loud

Nature is Veranica's ultimate reset.

A quiet jungle. Mountains stretching into the distance. A calm sea. Even a simple walk surrounded by nature can slow her thoughts and return some perspective. There is something about being surrounded by something larger than herself that helps put life back into perspective.

Veranica's way of resting is surrounded by nature

But not every reset requires a physical journey. She has another ritual for days when escape isn't possible.

She goes to her fragrance collection. She smells. Rearranges. Explores. Moves things around until the ritual itself creates a little space in her mind. What might look like a collection of bottles becomes a small emergency reset from the noise of everyday life, as she calls it.

Perhaps it makes sense. When life becomes too loud, she returns to something that asks her to slow down and simply experience.

Veranica's way of reset through exploring her fragrance collection

The Rooms Where She Can Exhale

Veranica's safe spaces exist in layers.

There is her fragrance room, where her workspace becomes a creative sanctuary. Surrounded by bottles, accords, and ideas, she can lose herself in experimentation without needing everything to have an answer.

Then there are the homes of the few people who know her deeply. With them, there is no need to perform or explain.

And beneath them all is her faith. God, the Creator, whom she believes as her ultimate anchor—the one she returns to when everything else feels uncertain.

Perhaps safety, she has learned, isn't always one particular place.

Sometimes it is a person.
Sometimes it is a room.
Sometimes it is faith.

And sometimes it is the feeling of finally being able to exhale.

Returning to the Base Notes

Veranica enjoys people. She enjoys connecting, attending events, and being part of the world.

But she has also learned that connection requires recovery. after all the burst of energy fades away and settles, home is where she protects her inner world. Like a fragrance settling into its base notes, she finds herself in what remains after the first impressions have softened when everything becomes quieter and deeper that were there all along.

In a culture that encourages us to document everything, she chooses to let some moments remain hers. She turns off the screens. Steps away from the noise. Retreats into solitude until she feels like herself again.

Not everything meaningful needs to be shared. Some things are meant to simply be lived.

A Strength She Learned Young

The person who quietly shaped Veranica most may be someone unexpected: her younger self. From an early age, she learned to stand on her own feet. That independence eventually became resilience, discipline, and strength.

But looking back, she sees that younger version of herself differently now. She no longer needs to be as hard on her.

Perhaps growing older has taught her that strength doesn't always mean pushing harder. Sometimes, it means learning to treat yourself with the same gentleness you would offer someone you love.

A childhood memory of her with family

When Fragrance Becomes More Than Performance

There is one thing Veranica wishes the fragrance world would remember.

A perfume doesn't have to fill a room to matter.

In an industry increasingly measured by projection, sillage, and longevity, she believes something quieter is being overlooked: the art, story, and soul behind a scent. Because fragrance is not only about how far it travels.

It is about where it takes you.

A scent can become a bridge to a memory, an emotion, a person, or a version of yourself you thought you'd forgotten. Sometimes, its deepest impact is something no one else can smell.

Perhaps that is where fragrance becomes most personal—not when it announces itself to the room, but when it quietly brings you back to yourself.

At Bentala, this is the kind of journey we believe fragrance can inspire.

Not simply a scent to be noticed, but one to be experienced. One that stays with you, long after the room has forgotten.

Vera smelling fragrances at a store

 

Current Chapter: An Accord in the Making

Today, Veranica finds herself in several journeys at once: healing, building, learning, and motherhood. She is letting go of old habits and old weight, learning patience and self-compassion, while continuing to build her creative work and the life she wants to live intentionally. And through motherhood, she is constantly reminded to return to the present to what truly matters. This is the thread running through her story. She is not trying to become someone entirely new.

She is learning how to carry every chapter: the girl who learned to be independent, the daughter who remembers her father's mornings, the woman who creates, the wife, the mother, and let all of them belong.

Along the Way with Veranica is a story about remembering where we come from, making peace with who we were, and gently becoming who we are meant to be.

Along the Way is a conversation series by Bentala that celebrates every person we cross paths with on this journey of life. Through honest and meaningful dialogues, we explore the memories, values, and quiet moments that subtly shape who we are today. Because inspiration doesn't always come from extraordinary lives. Sometimes, it comes from people simply learning to live more truthfully, one step at a time.