A store built around a founder's story, not just her products
KAS Fragrances is a boutique perfume brand whose entire value lives in story and sensation. You cannot smell a perfume through a screen, so the store had to do the smelling for you, through words, imagery, and a sense of who the founder is. We designed and built it from scratch.
Overview
A brand that is a feeling, not a product grid
KAS Fragrances is the work of founder Kim Steenkamp, who relocated from South Africa to Portugal at 50 and turned a lifelong love of scent into a brand. She trained in perfume-making during the pandemic and now crafts uplifting fragrances, diffusers, and body care, sold direct to consumers across Europe and the UK.
The brand is built on a feeling: elegance, feminine empowerment, and personal story. Kim's brief was unusually clear. The store had to sell the story and the feeling, and make customers feel proud and beautiful, not just show them bottles. Most fragrance stores are product grids that list bottles, notes, and prices. That would have flattened everything KAS is. Our goal was to design and build a store from scratch that makes a visitor feel the brand before they read a single product detail.
Client at a glance
- Boutique fragrance · Shopify DTC
- Founded in Portugal, sells across EU and UK
- Perfume, diffusers, and body care
- Audience: founder-led, premium, story-driven buyers
What we delivered
The Challenge
How do you sell a scent nobody can smell?
Kim's brief named the real problem: the store had to tell a story rather than showcase a product, and inspire trust and belief in that story. That is hard on Shopify, because every default template does the opposite and leads with the product, the variants, and the price.
A sensory product, sold online
The core value of a perfume cannot be experienced before buying. The page had to make people feel the scent through story, language, and imagery.
Fixed product photography
The products had already shipped with their packaging, so no new product photos could be taken. The design had to carry the emotion with what existed, using mood imagery and copy.
A bilingual EU and UK audience
The store had to work in English and Portuguese from day one, built into the structure rather than bolted on.
The founder story is the brand
Kim's story is the strongest asset and the biggest trust signal, so it had to run through the whole site, not sit on an About page.
Insights
What the brand told us before we opened Figma
With no existing store, the work was deciding how the brand should feel online, then building to it. Five insights shaped every decision.
The Build
Design bets we built the store on
We designed the experience in Figma, then built it as a custom Shopify store around a signature story-first product flow. The product page is the heart of it: instead of leading with notes and a buy button, it opens with a feeling.
Open with a feeling
Every fragrance opens with a feeling and a one-line scent poem before any product detail, so the first thing a visitor meets is emotion, not a spec sheet.
A two-tier product experience
The first view is the bottle, a short evocative description, and the price. A single invitation, 'What do I smell like?', clicks into a full scent-story page with mood imagery and a longer sensory description.
The founder's story, everywhere
Kim's story runs through the home page (Discover KAS, Who is Kim, Behind the Blends, Voices of Joy) rather than sitting on an About page, so the brand is felt continuously.
Calm, premium, intentional
Generous space and clear hierarchy let the storytelling and imagery breathe, with per-fragrance mood and color so each scent has its own emotional world.
Bilingual from day one
Built EN / PT from the start for the EU and UK market, woven into the architecture rather than added later.
Event-driven and orchestrated in the cloud: every step independently observable, retryable, and parallel.
What This Means If You're Planning a Build
The bar a Shopify build should hold to
A build is finished when it carries your story, fits your brand, and sells, not when it simply looks good. KAS is the standard we hold a brand-led build to.
Built around who you are
We design and build from scratch in Figma on a custom theme, so the store is your brand, not a template wearing your logo.
Sells the feeling, not just the product
For a sensory or story-led brand, copy, structure, and imagery have to do the work the product cannot do online.
Works within your real constraints
Fixed photography, bilingual markets, boutique budgets. The build adapts to reality instead of demanding a reshoot.
Every section is intentional
Nothing on the page by default. Everything is there for a reason, in service of the story and the sale.
Client Feedback
In the founder's words
I hired ObjectSingle for a full Shopify build: Figma design and custom development. What stood out was that they built a highly converting product page that actually reflected my story. The store wasn't just beautiful, it was built around who I am and what my brand means. Every section felt intentional.
Kim Steenkamp
Founder, KAS Fragrances
Common Questions
What this project shows
You make the page do the smelling. We led with a feeling and a short scent poem, then opened a dedicated scent-story page with mood imagery and a sensory description, so a visitor can live inside the scent before they own it. Story, language, and imagery carry what a product shot cannot.
Planning a Shopify build?
We design and build Shopify stores from scratch that sell who you are, not just what you make: a custom theme, story-first design and copy, and an experience built around your brand. If that is the store you want, let's talk.