Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Paré.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Mike. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
A few years ago, after we had relocated to Milwaukee from New Mexico, my wife Melissa started a design project called Moraye, and she was producing a lot of jewelry. (At this time, Moraye has morphed into a silk painting project that has a life of its own. You should check it out.) She was doing a lot of craft fairs and selling at local shops. I have a background in fine arts. I was trying to think of something to make for the markets and came up with incense. Having grown up in Northern California and participated in some early craft market projects, I’ve had an interest in creating things that make good aesthetics accessible to a wide audience. Making incense became a focus of my studio work, and after much experimentation, I started selling it in 2016. Using Melissa’s designs, we started making cast concrete incense burners soon after. Since then, we’ve started to wholesale Zouz, and now, Zouz Incense can be found coast to coast in a variety of boutiques, yoga studios, and specialty shops.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Our growth has been slow and steady. We’ve been fortunate that Zouz has been well received and it sells itself once people smell it. It’s not like any other incense you can find.
Working out the production process from scratch has been the greatest challenge but also the greatest joy. Nobody showed me how to make incense, I had to research it and develop it myself. As we scale up production, we are finding we have to adapt our methods to meet the demand.
Another challenge has been in sourcing natural materials. I wanted to focus the Zouz brand on natural, traditional incense materials that are found all over the world. Ethically, I think it’s important to know the origins of the materials and to ensure that they were harvested sustainably. This takes ongoing research, but as a result, I’ve been able to attain many organic and wildcrafted ingredients.
Zouz Incense – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Zouz is a unique product when it comes to incense. I make incense cones by hand, using all natural aromatics: Tree resins like frankincense, copal, and benzoin. Tree powders like palo santo, cedar, and Sandalwood. Herbs such as lavender, oakmoss, clove, and many others. The vast majority of incense on the market is made with artificial aromatics, binders or burning accelerants. Things that people don’t want to put in their body. Zouz Incense is different. The whole plant ingredients in Zouz have been used for centuries as medicine and incense and spices for food, but they also have esoteric purposes: their fragrances can be used for purification, meditation, concentration, celebration and all sorts of human rituals. Zouz incense is made from things that have been used as incense for a long time, so I trust them. Zouz also makes hand-cast concrete incense burners. Melissa designs most of them. I dye them using natural plant dyes like walnut or red cabbage. I also use my favorite drawing material, graphite, as a pigment.
I think of Zouz as an “Artist-Made” Product, meaning it’s not only designed by artists, it’s hand-made by them too, and that is a very special value to put into a product. Aesthetics and beauty can get overlooked in the pursuit of marketing trends or plain profit. Artists know how to tell a story through products in a way that might be contrary to popular design norms and expectations. Artists can surprise you still.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I’d say the most fulfilling part of the Zouz project is the relationships I’m forming with other people.
Connecting with other incense fans old and new. Collaborating with other designers and creative people who I admire, like Cobra Rock Boot Company in Marfa, Texas. They make these fantastic handmade leather boots, and they approached Zouz about making a custom fragrance for them last year, which came out amazing. I’m a consumer of weird music and mystic ideas, so collaborating on projects with some of my favorite podcasts like West Coast Fog and The Witchwave has been a kick. Friends like the writer Trinie Dalton have gotten involved by harvesting wild juniper leaf where she lives in Joshua Tree. All of these ongoing connections and activities make the project really rewarding. Staying connected to roots I’ve planted in New York and the West Coast informs the work I’m doing now.
I’m so thankful for the knowledge I’m getting from others like the local Milwaukee herbalist Kyle Denton of Tippecanoe Herbs, or old school incense dealers like Barb at scents-of-earth.com. The fact that others are so generous about sharing information inspires me to spread the word too. I’m scheduling some incense making workshops this coming Spring in Summer in Chicago and Milwaukee, with more to come down the road (updates on workshops can be found on the Zouz website).
Pricing:
- Moon Mix Incense Box- 8 cones – $12
- Cup Incense burner in Graphite – $20
Contact Info:
- Website: zouzincense.com
- Email: zouzincense@gmail.com
- Instagram: @zouzincense
- Facebook: facebook.com/zouzincense
Image Credit:
All Portrait Pics by Tom Grimm, Milwaukee. Pic of cones and blue burner by Tom Grimm, All others by Zouz Incense
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
