Perfume Room

Ever wonder how certain fragrances make their ways into different publications’ ‘Best Of’ lists or editorial roundups? Is it determined by the quality of the product OR perhaps just the quality of the PR team behind it? Today, Refinery29’s Sr. Beauty Editor Amanda Mitchell is answering all the hard questions. As a beauty editor, Amanda is not only constantly testing new products, she's also trying...

If you made potions with your parents' beauty products as a kid, congrats there is a 99.999% chance you are now a fraghead. Today's guest went one step further -- from potion-making to perfume-making.  Chronotope Founder and Perfumer Carter Weeks Maddox is in the Perfume Room today! Though Carter is an entirely self-taught perfumer, the lens through which he creates is backed by an MA in Crit...

You didn't think we were done yet, did you?! Please enjoy part 2 of the Black Girls Smell Good x Perfume Room Holiday Gift Guide episode!  Maiya shares her big announcement, we talk about our fav candles, lotions, gels, gift sets, AND we answer YOUR specific holiday gifting requests! FRAGS MENTIONED: JHAG Not A Perfume, Ellis Brooklyn Super Amber, Chris Collins Citrus Grandis, Montale So Inte...

Black Girls Smell Good Creator Maiya Nicole is BACK(!!!) in the Perfume Room today! With over 112K followers on TikTok, 54K on Instagram, and 45K on Twitter, @blackgirlssmellgood is beloved across platforms for her entertaining and incisive POV, impeccable production quality, and expertise. Maiya has remained one of your favorite guests of the pod, and she’s one of mine too… which is why I am so h...

Today we are joined by the one, the only, Ashley Benson! Actress/Tastemaker/Entrepreneur-extraordinaire, you might know her as Hanna Marin from Pretty Little Liars. Ashley further proves my theory that all the best celebs love perfume; she just launched her own line, Ash by Ashley Benson. We discuss the first two fragrance launches in the collection and the personal inspiration and stories behind...

Another *Perfume Room Required Listening* This week’s guest has not only authored Perfume Legends (vol I and II), he IS one. I am joined by the person responsible for the taxonomy of fragrance as we know it — Founder of Fragrances of the World, Inventor of the Fragrance Wheel(!) — Michael Edwards. It is because of Michael that we have universal and empirical language around perfume. We discuss eve...

There’s an Instagram account (consensually) sharing the highly coveted (and otherwise secret) formulas behind all your favorite scents; this week I am joined by its founder: Erik Constantin. If you’ve ever wanted to teach yourself how to be a perfumer, Erik’s account @fragrance.drama is a must-follow. Erik’s passion for fragrance extends beyond this account; by day, he is the main trainer on perfu...

Tracy Wan, AKA Invisible Stories on IG and TikTok is in the Perfume Room today! Tracy is a content creator and fragrance writer, and in fact, it was words — discovering the  language of fragrance through prominent industry voices like Luca Turin and Chandler Burr— that first propelled her down this scented path. Tracy's love for perfume runs deep; from taking a perfumery course in Grasse to t...

Meet the woman re-imagining what Langston Hughes' home would have smelled like. Teri Johnson, Founder of Harlem Candle Company pays homage to iconic figures and spaces of the Harlem Renaissance through her luxury candles and fragrances. To do this, she and the perfumers she works with become investigators, conducting hours of research to get every note just right. And lucky for us, Harlem Candle C...

Jorum Studio, one of my *new* fave-ever indie fragrance brands, is in the Perfume Room today! I chat with Co-Founders Euan McCall and Chloe Mullen about the perfume scene in Scotland, the irreverence of the brand not just in their actual fragrances, but in how they source inspiration, the fragrance oil house (Scotland's only one, btw) to fragrance brand pipeline, and why the best thing you can be...

*I'M BAAAAAACK* It's another palate cleanser, a little amuse-bouche if you will... This week, it's just me and here what's on deck: a particular niche fragrance house that is simply blowing my mind, some recent sniffs that I. just. can't. quit, why compliments on fragrances are not good barometers on whether they're 'good' (unless the compliment is coming from inside the house), my favorites from...

A perfumer and a person with congenital anosmia walk into a bar... What ensues? A multi-sensorial fragrance created around everything BUT smell. Together Mane Junior Perfumer Ugo Charron and Journalist Emma Dancourt , who lives with congenital anosmia (meaning she has never smelled), set out on a most challenging endeavor: to create Emma’s signature scent. How do you capture someone’s essence in f...

*REQUIRED LISTENING* Frank Voelkl—Principal Perfumer at Firmenich, and creator of cult-classics like Santal 33, Glossier You, The Noir 29, and yep, even Axe— is in the Perfume Room today!! Frank shares what it takes to set a trend, actually setting it, and of course, what happens next (hint hint: copycats, dupes, etc.). We talk about why being a perfumer isn't all coming up roses (sometimes it's m...

Maya Njie (of Maya Njie perfume) is a self-taught, London-based perfumer who combines her own scent memories, Swedish and Gambian roots, imagination, and design background to translate photos into scents. And not just any photos— ones from her own family’s archive. Drawing on inspiration from the 60s and 70s and the unique color palettes of those decades, she color picks family photos from this er...

Aurélien Guichard reaps what he sows... and then facets it. The rose and tuberose in his fragrances? It's sourced directly from his own organic flower farm in Grasse.  So yeah, in addition to being an illustrious, brilliant, 7th-generation perfumer responsible for some of your favorite smells (*cough cough* Gucci Guilty, Versace Eros, Narciso Poudree, Burberry Hero) Guichard is redefining wha...

WOWOW, have you missed my train of thought musings? You are in luck. Today's ep is just moi and I'm talking about my biggest fall trend prediction: *mac & cheese scents.* (And btw, please, do join me in making this expression happen.) I also discuss how Baccarat Rouge is a microcosm of of larger Internet behavior, specifically TikTok behavior, and more specifically, the current state of Perfum...

Fragrance Agent Bart Schmidt is in the Perfume Room today! Don’t know what a fragrance agent is? You’ll learn in this episode! Bart breaks down every aspect of the process of creating a fragrance from ideation to getting the bottle into consumers' hands — a great listen if you’ve ever been curious about how to launch your own fragrance! Bart also shares what his the trends he thinks are here to st...

Your fave candle creator, Sir Candle Man (Kudzi Chikumbu), is in the Perfume Room today! This ep has been a long time coming! Sir Candle Man and I discuss everything from his creative process for content creation, to the chance encounter in Paris that started it all, and obv, you guessed it the launch of his first-ever fragrance (in collab with L’Or de Seraphine) Soft Life! We discuss the meaning...

Icelandic Artist and Niche Fragrance Founder Andrea Maack is in the Perfume Room today. While all of her fragrances are incredibly unique, they're united by a common otherworldly feel; today we discuss exactly what that feel is [Iceland]. We discuss her background as a visual artist, the interactive art exhibit that launched her fragrance career, the fragrance scene and  niche scents permeati...

Chris Collins, Founder of the niche, luxury, Black-owned fragrance brand Chris Collins (and casual former International Model) is in the Perfume Room today! We cover so much ground including the smell of hustle (yes, it has a smell), Chris Collins' little-known secret: he’s actually quite shy, why every fragrance brand needs a homebase, High School Chris (and what he smelled like), and how for bet...

This week I am joined by your fave fashion analyst/tastemaker Mandy Lee, AKA Old Loser in Brooklyn . With over 400k TikTok followers, Mandy has played a pivotal role in both setting and predicting so many trends, perhaps most notably, the ever-loved Indie Sleaze, which we obviously scent. From Cottagecore to Coquette, we also discuss the perfect fragrance for every trending e-aesthetic. And you kn...

Breaking Beauty podcast co-hosts Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins are in the Perfume Room today! These two longtime friends and beauty editors tell the stories behind the breakthrough people, products, and moments shaping beauty history and swatch and spritz everything so you don't have to. Today we discuss the most coveted fragrances in their personal collections, how beauty editors select the fragr...

Egyptologist Dora Goldsmith is in the Perfume Room today! Dora is a PhD researcher at the Freie Universität Berlin who employs linguistics-based evidence to study and reconstruct the smells of ancient Egypt. You read that right; Dora doesn’t just study Egyptian scents, she brings them back to life(!) through perfect recreations of these ancient formulas. What did Cleopatra’s perfume smell like? Mu...

Hayley Kiyoko, AKA “Lesbian Jesus,” as her fans adoringly call her, is in the Perfume Room today! This multi-hyphenate pop-star, advocate, dancer, actress, producer, director, and ultimately queer *icon*, has added one more notch to her belt: perfume (which we obviously chat all about)! We discuss everything from the smells of her first crushes, to her newly-public relationship, to her horosc...

CHRISELLE LIM(!), Phlur Re-Founder, Bümo Co-Founder, mother, mega-influencer, Creative Director, and Rich Mom to 2.8M doting fans is in the Perfume Room today!! We discuss Missing Person—the Internet’s most wanted perfume (and its 200,000-person-long waitlist), the secret to great PR, the re-brand/launch/birth of both Chriselle and Phlur, and of course, Chriselle’s *Single* Rich Mom era—including...