How We Work (Proudly)
We have never consumer tested a single fragrance. The only nose that decides whether something is ready is Jun’s. That is it. No focus groups. No panels. No data telling us what the average person finds pleasant. Just one person’s creative conviction, backed by a team that trusts that conviction completely.
Is that risky? Of course it is.
We could release something that half the world finds strange or polarizing or flat out difficult to wear. And we have. And we will again. Because the moment you design a scent to be universally accepted, you strip it of the very thing that makes it worth wearing: a point of view, the very reason for that fragrance to exist. You cannot have originality and universal approval at the same time. They are fundamentally incompatible. You have to choose. We chose a long time ago.
What Niche Was Supposed to Mean
Once, niche meant something specific. A risk. A refusal. It was a language spoken quietly amongst perfume nerds only and understood slowly. It meant a perfumer or creative director creating what they believed in, not what a market demanded. It meant the wearer choosing originality over convenience, tension over ease, a scent that might not make them more likable but would make them more themselves.
Today, the word circulates freely. It is optimized, diluted, and easily claimed. A fragrance’s success is no longer measured by how it feels on skin, by the silence it creates between you and yourself, by the private recognition it stirs. It is measured by how quickly it can be explained in a fifteen second video, how efficiently it can be shared, and how seamlessly it can be replicated online. Perfume, in that process, is no longer an art form. It becomes a carefully designed commodity. A content opportunity. A trend.
We refuse to participate in that version of niche.
Perfume Deserves What Every Other Art Form Has
A painter does not survey a crowd before choosing a color. A songwriter does not adjust the chorus because a focus group found it too melancholic. A chef with a vision does not remove the dish that makes people think, just because a few guests wanted something simpler. Art exists because someone had something to say, and the audience either meets it or walks past it. That is the relationship we believe perfume deserves.
Our fragrances are not created to make you more likable. They are not designed to smooth you out, polish you up, or help you fit an image that was never yours to begin with. We do not seek to be universally understood. We do not even seek to be universally loved.
Because love that requires you to become something other than yourself is not love at all. It is compliance.
What we seek is alignment. That quiet, deliberate moment when someone encounters one of our creations and feels a bell ring inside their head. That click when scent and self meet, and the fragrance says something about who you are that you could not find the words for. We exist to support that internal conversation. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Before admiration, there is alignment.
Now Let Us Be Honest About the Other Word
We are not going to pretend commerciality does not exist in our world. It does. We are a business. We pay our team. We fund development. We invest in growth. And yes, as you know, we are entering Sephora. That is a commercial move and we have never tried to dress it up as anything else.
But here is the difference, and this is the part we need you to hear clearly: commerciality is the outcome of what we do. It is never the starting point. We do not sit down and ask “what will sell?” We sit down and ask “what do we believe in?” And then we trust that the right people will find it. Sometimes a lot of people find it. Sometimes only a handful of absolute diehards find it. And honestly? Both of those outcomes make us proud. Because a fragrance that is deeply loved by a small group of people who truly understand it will always mean more to us than a fragrance that is casually liked by everyone.
The goal was never to please the room. The goal was to make the few people in the back row lean forward.
That is why Sephora does not change who we are. We did not adjust our fragrances to enter those doors. We did not soften a single note. We walked in as ourselves, and they invited us in as ourselves. More doors simply mean more chances that someone in a city we have never set foot in picks up one of our bottles, sprays it on their wrist, and for the first time in their life thinks: this is exactly who I am. That is not selling out. That is showing up.
A Final Word
Niche is not something you lose when more people are watching. It is something you protect by refusing to explain yourself too easily. By refusing to test your instincts against the comfort of strangers. By choosing originality first, every single time, even when the safer path is sitting right there.
We are aware that we exist within a modern consumerist system. We are not outside of it, nor do we pretend to be. But participation does not require surrender. As long as there are people out there who feel something real when they wear what we create, we will keep creating exactly the way we always have.
Cult Journal Vol. 9
Mainstream vs. Niche. Originality vs. Commerciality. On why we never consumer test, never seek approval, and never intend to be easily understood. Mainstream and niche fragrances are often framed as opposites. Better ingredients versus cheaper ones. Small houses versus big corporations. Exclusive versus accessible. But honestly, most of that framing misses the point entirely. To borrow Jun’s words: it is about what you put as priority. Is it originality, or is it commerciality? That is the only question that actually matters. Not where something is sold. Not how much it costs. Not whether the bottle looks artisanal or industrial. And it is a question no one in this industry likes to answer honestly. Because the answer reveals everything. When you sat down on day one, what came first? The desire to create something original, without a single thought for whether it would succeed? Or the desire to build something safe, something pre approved, something designed from the ground up to minimize the risk of failure? Those two starting points do not lead to the same place. They never have. One leads to art. The other leads to a product. And the world has more than enough products. We always put originality first. Always. What is Mainstream Perfumery?
Let us paint you a picture. In the mainstream fragrance world, a scent does not begin with inspiration. It begins with a brief, a spreadsheet, and a target demographic. The formula goes through years of consumer testing. Literally years. Rooms full of strangers sniffing paper strips and ticking boxes. Focus groups giving feedback like “it’s nice but maybe a little too strong” or “I prefer something fresher.” And piece by piece, round after round, every edge gets filed down. Every surprise gets smoothed out. Every note that made someone uncomfortable gets removed. What comes out the other end is engineered for immediacy. Built to be understood at first breath, approved on contact, and forgotten just quickly enough that you reach for it again next week. The goal is consensus. The ambition is to offend no one and minimize commercial risk. Think of it like this. Imagine if a filmmaker made a movie, then screened it for a thousand random people, then reshot every scene that made anyone confused or uncomfortable. You would not end up with a great film. You would end up with a very expensive nothing. That is what consumer tested fragrance often becomes. A beautifully packaged, perfectly inoffensive nothing.