06/26/2026
🌸 Notes & Networking Recap: a perfect evening, *(no) notes*🎵
This Wednesday, June 24, NextUp Florida (from near and far!) gathered at TIJON FRAGRANCE LAB TAMPA to make our own custom fragrances. Hosted by our Programming Officer, Jen Hovestadt, the event emphasized the link between fragrances, which have base, middle, and top notes, with our personalities, which are multilayered and compliment one another. To this end, she encouraged attendees to get to know each other as people, in all our “notes”, and not just what we do for a living, as well as encouraging attendees to get to know someone they’ve never met. There was a 15 minute networking session in which longtime members shared their career journeys aided by networking through NextUp, and then the fragrance creation began.
Participants had the opportunity to select among an array of pre-blended fragrance oils, and to supercharge our creativity, we picked three individual notes to add to our creation. Two fragrance creations were trialed on the skin, and then the owners at TIJON FRAGRANCE LAB TAMPA gracefully added the final ingredients to create our take-home fragrance, complete with a fragrance name of our choosing emblazoned on the bottle.
To complete the evening, we went around the room and presented our fragrance’s name and what it inspired.
Creating fragrances allowed us to connect on a personal visceral level, find common ground, and to bridge the distance in today’s digital society. Keep coming back to build on the momentum of this event for the rest of 2026!