Names like Shalimar, Coco, and Obsession might instantly evoke memories and associations with certain times and places. A whiff of CK One can be a Gen X portal back to the 1990s, and YSL’s Opium is a vexing callback to problematic cultural and marketing tropes.
Fragrance is historical, personal, subjective, and variable, whether you’re wearing it for your own pleasure or in hopes of attracting compliments — or maybe a mate — during a night out. Throughout the pandemic, when access to olfactory variety was limited, reaching for a perfume bottle felt like a radical act of joy.
Now, beyond the shelves of beloved international icons whose bottle designs and scents are part of a shared language, independent fragrance houses are attracting loyal followings without the familiar trappings of perfume buying. The experience of sampling and buying these creations does not involve an awkward encounter with a department store cosmetics department salesperson who’s eager to spritz you when you’re just trying to navigate to the shoe department.
The indie scent space is also becoming more inclusive and less conventionally gender-rigid, as well as open to traditions and perspectives across the globe. After all, scent is an invisible yet powerful connecting pathway to a wider world. In search of your next great aroma? Here are 12 innovative perfume makers to explore.
Imaginary Authors
Portland, Oregon-based Imaginary Authors takes the transportive qualities of fragrance in delightfully unexpected directions. Guided by the belief in “scent as art and art as provocation,” Imaginary Authors’ products and branding are based on meta-fictionalized literary narratives.
The foundational stories and the goods themselves are extremely whimsical, such as a label like The Soft Lawn with notes of linden blossom, grapefruit, vetiver, and fresh tennis balls that slyly nod to F. Scott Fitzgerald. A Whiff of Waffle Cone is a quirky collab with equally original ice cream company Salt & Straw. The short story collection allows curious customers to sample eight varieties of their own selection.
Pink MahogHany
Former music teacher Chavalia Dunlap-Mwamba turned her passion for perfume into a business based in Longview, Texas. The self-taught perfumer is making crucial strides to diversify the field and amplify the visibility of Black perfumers as she expands her offerings of spray and roller ball-topped perfume bottles, among other fragrance genres.
Pink MahogHany’s eau de parfum best sellers include A Mother’s Love, with notes of musk, mint, peach, and rose, as well as French Cuffs, with bright lemon verbena, juniper, charcoal, and cedar. SexYÖUality is the most recent release that defies rigid categories and celebrates expression.
Xinú
With just five personal fragrances in its lineup, less is more with Xinú. It’s also a platform for interdisciplinary brilliance. Xinú co-founder Verónica Peña spent years developing the first blend, knowing that she wanted the brand to highlight botanicals from Mexico and the Americas.
Lauded designers Ignacio Cadena (Peña’s husband) and Héctor Esrawe then translated the vision and scents to Xinú’s minimalist yet distinctive handblown glass bottle and wooden cap. Its Mexico City headquarters and shop is a part art installation, part living science lab that feels like a still-life painting tableau. It’s the perfect place to pay homage to Xinú’s irresistibly lush scents, such as the bright, agave-centered Aguamadera and richly floral, luscious Oronardo.
Phlur
Entrepreneur Chriselle Lim attracts interest in practically everything she touches. It’s no surprise the Phlur brand made a much bigger splash with tastefully sexy perfumes and body products after Lim assumed leadership of the company in 2021.
The compelling Missing Person grabs attention thanks to its modern, musky combo of jasmine and orange blossom. Somebody Wood eau de perfume is the newest addition, with bergamot and lemon top notes and sandalwood, amber, cedarwood, and other rich autumnal aromas composing the base notes. Longtime Phlur fans can still get their original favorites too.
Ranger Station
Founded by Nashville, Tennessee-based musician Steve Soderholm, Ranger Station pulls from its Southern roots. The amber, Ambroxan, musk, and woods that compose Two Trick Pony are blended to be spritzed on their own or worn in tandem with and amplify other Ranger Station scents, such as Oakmoss, Leather and Pine, and Woodland Rose.
Fueguia 1833
Fueguia 1833 is a trip, literally and figuratively. Founder Julian Bedel travels through South America and works in Argentina to provide the theoretical and material foundation for his luxury fragrance brand and its stunningly beautiful stores in multiple countries. Poetry, history, and geography engage with olfactory science to create a journey in a bottle. Bedel also cultivates native South American aromatic plants at the Fueguia 1833 Botany farm in Uruguay.
Jorum Studio
Edinburgh, Scotland-based Jorum Studio, founded by perfumers Euan McCall and Chloe Mullen, embraces a holistic ethos, using fragrance as a tool to support other ancillary concerns, such as environmental sustainability and multidisciplinary design, through its Jorum Craft Award program. Its carefully curated roster includes Rose Highland, described as “a paper cutout of a rose, tossed in saline sea air and blasted on jagged coastline rocks,” and the existentially wistful Elegy.
Régime des Fleurs
Régime des Fleurs founder Alia Raza’s background as an artist is reflected in the organic intersection of visual art and scent, and the growing niche of olfactory art itself. Régime des Fleurs fans include Chloë Sevigny, who developed a special fragrance with Raza. There is a “je ne sais quoi” about its bulbous bottle stoppers in various colors and the elegant shield-shaped label, along with scent names like Rock River Melody and Al-Dukhan.
Voyage et Cie
Voyage et Cie's shop is a très chic destination that’s a touch of France in Los Angeles (Studio City, specifically) for lovers of all things scented. The swoon-worthy, oversized scented candles are an understandable splurge, but the perfumes with classic packaging are a skillful contemporary update — and sometimes an irreverent take — on traditions.
The Harmonist
The Harmonist founder Lola Tillyaeva wants customers to have a deeper, more intentional experience. Tillyaeva collaborated with perfumer Guillaume Flavigny to incorporate principles of feng shui and the five elements — wood, fire, earth, water, and metal — when creating scents for the brand she launched in 2016. Clients are encouraged to discover their own element to nurture their own internal balance — while smelling amazing.
J. Pera
This intriguingly experimental project is a partnership between cultural heritage and education researcher and scent maker Jill Zachman and graphic artist Carlos Avila. J. Pera launched with four different aromatic oil combinations packaged in roller bottles that are easily portable.
It’s a fitting method, given that Jardin, Trek, Mole, and Conservation are inspired by multiple locales and stories that involve travel and sensory exploration. Take the narrative background of Trek, for example: Essences of seaweed, juniper, and orange blossom help recall the tale of a bonsai juniper that made its way from Japan across the Pacific.
Capsule Parfumerie
Capsule Parfumerie co-founder Linda Sivrican takes inspiration from her Southern California surroundings but isn’t hampered by geographical boundaries. She’s created multiple brands under the Capsule company umbrella, which she runs from a storefront and blending facility located on historic Gin Ling Way in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.
Desert landscapes and botanicals create the basis of the Saguara collection. In contrast, the Parallax Olfactory scents that draw from concepts and materials like violet ozone rays, white soap, and light bulbs are wonderfully bizarre and otherworldly. Other creatives, such as Richard Christiansen of Flamingo Estate, have tapped Sivrican’s expertise to help formulate limited-edition items.
Capsule Parfumerie Saguara Sagebrush
Capsule Parfumerie Saguara Sagebrush
Jessica Ritz is a Los Angeles-based writer who has contributed to Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, Coastal Living, Los Angeles Times, Palm Springs Life, and Los Angeles magazine. Follow her on Twitter @jessnritz.
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