A Journey For The Senses

He went from a car accident that left him disabled and impaired his sense of smell to making bespoke scents for Hollywood stars like Jennifer Aniston and Hugh Jackman. This is the story of how Cord Coen’s life changed, and how he came to found his spa collection, Zents.

It isn’t every day that one gets to sit down with a 47-year-old whose work relates to his childhood dream. Meeting Cord Coen, founder of body-care brand Zents, it’s hard to not feel a sense of wonder at the mix of faith and destiny that’s led him to where he is today.

Coen was 12 when he decided he wanted to be a therapist. He started learning reiki – a Japanese technique intended for spiritual healing – from a reiki master at her forest cabin in Boulder, Colorado, where he grew up.

At 17, he began practising reiki and craniosacral therapy, an alternative healing method said to alleviate pain. Then a car accident left him disabled.

“I had a difficult time talking – the words would form in my mind, but I couldn’t get them out. I was in constant pain. I could not walk in a straight line. Even something as simple as holding up a cup would really hurt,” he recalls.

A year and a half of rehabilitation in hospital saw no significant improvement. The doctor told his parents it was probably as good as it would get – he wasn’t completely bedridden, but he was unlikely to hold a proper job again.

“My parents refused to believe the doctor. They told me not to believe what he said too, so I said, ‘Okay, I won’t’,” he says with a laugh.

Following his discharge from hospital, his parents heard from a neighbour about a Tibetan doctor in India who was said to have healed a woman with cancer. “Strange as it sounds, Boulder, Colorado is home to a lot of people from India, and I guess we just lucked out,” he says.