No products in the cart.
Featured Image Credit: Moodeaux
When we think of luxury, it’s not only about material worth, it’s more of an experience. A way of living and feeling. Through the years, boutique fragrance houses have shown us different paths to achieve that luxury status.. The fragrance world is one of the oldest beauty industries to exist, and it roots way back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. It was born from older practices of religious rituals and various uses. From being a day to day practice, it has developed in a sign of high status in today’s society. It is also an established industry traditionally dominated by European Luxury houses. However, this panorama is slowly being challenged by upcoming black-owned labels that leveled up the game. Changing how the current industry works. Through the years, there were many innovative black-owned fragrance brands that started to stand out, like Outside, Brown Girl Jane and Maya Njie Perfumes. Our favorites? Chris Collins Fragrance and Moodaux, the queer black-owned brand founded by Brianna Arps.
Chris Collins, CEO of Chris Collins Fragrance, is one of the reasons the fragrance game has changed in the past few years. His passion for fragrances flourished from a very early age. Influenced by his father’s mannerisms of always smelling well and fancy, he started to develop an interest in the fragrance market. Growing up in Harlem also had a big impact. Harlem is one of the cities that has more transcendental black culture that can be found in every corner of the city. Everything from food, music, fashion and more. This phenomenon, mostly known as the Harlem Renaissance, aligns with how Chris Collins created his very first collection known as Renaissance.
Â
His path in fashion started way before the fragrance industry, he might be a familiar face to many of us since he’s been a brand ambassador and model for Ralph Lauren for 20 years. It was not till one of his residences in Paris, he came to the realization that he wanted to be a creator of fragrances. Not impulsed by the money he could potentially make, but it was his big passion for a project in which he would be able to create an experience of luxury. He’s a firm believer that projects that start from passion, will get successful in the journey. His working experience with Ralph Lauren has guided him into a deeper understanding of luxury and how to make it into a functional brand, that it is not defined by dollars. It is defined by an experience and a journey.Â
Â
Chris Collins Fragrance launched officially in 2018 with his Renaissance Collection. With the help of Kilian Henessy, a french perfume entrepreneur and owner of Kilian Paris, Chris was introduced to the world of niche perfumery. It is important to highlight that Collins’s brand started from his own money and other three team members. Its retail growth is reflected on public sales numbers, and shows that premium niche perfume brands have doubled up their sales. Wider perfume brands have shown to only have grown 49% on its sales.
Â
This leads us to re-think, what are these small entrepreneurs doing differently from bigger well established brands that have more experience in the sales game? Collins affirms that something essential for his work is meeting with the stores he is doing retail with. He builds a close relationship and closeness that not many businesses have in the market, that makes him stand out!
Â
Just six years after his first launch, he joined the board of The Fragrance Foundation. A significant upgrade since this consolidated his institutional leadership as a black owned brand on the market. He also highlights that his jump to more known audiences was thanks to his collaboration with Sephora. Before this, this fragrance company was mostly used by people between the ages of 25 to 60 years old. However, this collaboration brought new eyes from the female and young audiences. The fragrance brand started as a more male centred essence, but now it has opened its horizons and reaches women that are more drawn towards masculine scents.
Brianna Arps, creator of MOODEAUX Fragrance and winner of the 2025 ESSENCE BEST IN BEAUTY, has come to challenge the current industry with its scientific and creative purpose with her fragrance brand. Her journey into the fragrance world almost started by chance. Her initial interests were towards journalism. It was not until she was doing a marketing internship at ESSENCE that she started to connect with the world of storytelling, and how she could scientifically explain how fragrance affects people’s moods. Before attending the School of Aromatic Studies, she became self taught by watching video tutorials, reading books and attending free courses. Any kind of free media she could find. Thanks to her own experience she actually pushes for her community to get involved into STEM careers that are not that attended, such as in the area of fragrance.
Â
Moodeaux made its debut in 2021 with just 2 retailers, Credo and Urban Outfitters. Later on it started getting popular among the masses, gaining new names on its retailers list, like Sephora, and appearing on the public media, such as Good Morning America and the TODAY show. The lapse of only 3 years created a jump in success for a project that started as an indie fragrance label. Their successful strategy? Creating a strong brand identity and community and not relying on celebrity culture. Since the beginning, yearly Moodeaux has generated growth that reaches from 172% to 228% in 2023. Also topping the number of 101 million in non paid exposure value.
Â
Community is an essential pillar for Arps, so she founded Black in Fragrance. This foundation was created in order to generate global support for upcoming entrepreneurs and members of the community that want to generate a network with professionals in the industry, consumers, buyers and media outlets. She is creating a fund of help for emerging black creatives in the industry that she did not have at first. She is giving back to the community.
Â
Both creators, along with many others, are a source of inspiration for emerging black owned brands and continue to diversify the industry of perfumery. They both proved to show excellence in a field that is known to be eurocentric, by providing skills and help towards other people from the community, and telling their own narratives. Collins with its empowering blackness heritage that resembles the proudness of it, and Arps showcasing unisex scents that are related to identity and autoexpression. Moodeaux and Chris Collins Fragrance celebrate culture, diversity and representation. They continue to generate a legacy and open doors for future entrepreneurs that want to get started and get successful just like them.
[simple-author-box]
Business Brandon Blackwood NYC is celebrating ten years of success, from the viral End Systemic Racism tote to a history-making American Airlines partnership. His journey Read More
Style The 90s and 2000s bandage dress is back—but this time, Black designers are reinventing it with bold cuts, cultural storytelling, and a modern edge Read More
Luxury As luxury fashion embraces Black men in campaigns, a deeper question emerges—are they being fully seen or simply styled into the same streetwear mold? Read More
I’m sharing exactly what’s going on with the basement design project
right now and what’s happening next.
