How To Start Your Own Fragrance Brand! | Chris Collins & Mona Kattan

welcome back hi guys today I'm with the amazing Chris Collins founder of this beautiful fragrance brand and today we're going to talk all about our tips on how to start a fragrance brand yes and many other things yes so Chris what would you say would be your first tip for people watching who want to start their fragrance brand like what was the first thing you did to get started well you need to be so passionate about it and so obsessive about it and I think from knowing your story and obviously knowing Mine It Started from there I mean I was obsessed with fragrance as a kid I would love smelling new fragrances and I love traveling to like grass to learn the history of perfume so be obsessed about it and then let your obsession kind of guide you into the direction of what you want to launch and when you want to Launch I could not agree more I feel like it's not just for fragrances it's like any business you want to start if you're trying to create an actual brand that's going to go somewhere that's going to live on beyond your years like you need to have almost an insane obsession with that I agree whatever it may be the biggest advice I usually give to people is just start somewhere because once you start the universe will kind of conspire to help you but you have to start yeah there's this saying in Arabic it's called stay with me oh my gosh that means with movement comes blessings that's right the more you just get started start moving and as you move blessings will come that's right so what was your actual starting point where did you decide like I'm obsessed and I actually think you know I want to create a brand I want to do something different it actually started for me meeting another perfumer or Killian he ended up being my mentor but the way that I got to him was a pretty cool story first fragrance that I was ever introduced to was muskrabazure from Frederick mall it's a good one and a friend of mine gave it to me because his girlfriend didn't like the way it smelled on him and I said man what is this this is new this is different than anything I've ever smelled so I wore it I ran out of it and I asked him I said where did you get it from and he said well I got it from Bergdorf Goodman so I went to Bergdorf to buy it and they said well we don't sell it here but we have another brand and actually the guy is here who owns the brand so it was Killian so Killian was there that day when I went to go buy in Frederick Mall muscular and I ended up getting straight to heaven from Killian at the time I was in fashion but he was like super like supportive he knew that I love fragrance so he introduced me to that whole world he mentored me in like the creative process it's important to have people around you that know about perfume and can kind of guide you in the right direction because it can be a little confusing if you didn't grow up in that world but good to have good mentorship like a perfumer or someone who's owned a brand or someone who knows about the fragrance business that's very helpful yeah that's such a dance like this person gifted you that fragrance because his girlfriend didn't like it yeah that led you to like heighten your obsession and then you go looking for it and then you meet Killian that is just yeah I believe in divine intervention and the universe has kind of put you in places where you're supposed to be after you know what your obsession is and you knew yours was fragrance and you met Killian and you found this great mentor like how did you actually get started like how did you even think you know what you want your brand to be what you wanted it to look like and partners that you wanted to work with like which fragrance house tell us about that Journey because that's always really exciting and obviously probably the most hard part of the journey so about seven eight years ago I was with friends and Khan and we were all having dinner and they asked me it was like if you weren't in fashion like what would you do what would you want to do I said I would love to go like create my own fragrance I didn't think about a brand I just thought about creating my own fragrance and then the table got quiet and then they all looked at each other and said well you know grass is about 45 minutes that way and I said well what's grass so they explained to me that it was like the birthplace of fragrance so one of the friends gave me his car and I drove the grass my goodness and make any appointments because no one would take my appointment and I just drove to every single fragrance house that would let me in I remember stopping at robote wow I remember stopping at iff and you got to be a little crazy sometime something like as special as this and then I just met with them and they talked to me and then they basically gave me like a blueprint of what I needed to do that's so cool but I ended up working with like a smaller fragrance house because I knew the bigger ones were already kind of working on like bigger Brands and volumes and all that kind of stuff I found a smaller fragrance house that kind of believed in me that's so awesome it was called archville and mujon cool they created Harlem Nights one of my first fragrances my first three can I spray it from a little Patchouli um so I had to start like at a smaller house so delicious thank you oh my gosh but one that believed in me and wanted to kind of bringing my ideas to life and I love that you know giving people the advice of starting small because I feel like everybody thinks the gift and the biggest doesn't mean that it's the top either like sometimes these smaller perfume houses are actually a lot more talented a lot more passionate have more interesting resources because they don't have to worry about being as big and scaling as big and don't look at the end result of like your beautiful brand and say I want that and not understand to get there I've watched you for a long time from founder to founder I understand how much work that goes into this so everyone needs to know that you got to work your butt off what would you say is the number one lesson you learned so far well in the beginning you just want one person to buy your fragrances so when you're creating you're trying to make everyone happy I learned quickly that that's impossible there's some people that are not going to like it and if some people are going to love it you have to be true to yourself when you create because you need to believe in it it needs to come from a very honest place because people know if it doesn't and you need to tell that story so people can connect to you and to your brand and I feel like with fragrances in particular I think it's the most subjective product in the world because notes and scent profiles are connected to Memories that's right so it's not only is it like what is widely appealing maybe that will remind somebody of someone they hate exactly or someone they love exactly or bad memory or a good memory right so therefore you really have no idea if someone's gonna like that's why I never get offended when someone tells me I don't like this fragrance right it may not be that they don't like the fragrance it could be personal could be a number I don't even know it the man I know it right the important part is like the reason why you may not is because there may be a note in there that reminds you of a place in time that you don't really want to go to and this and it's different on the other end too you may love it because it reminds you of something that's a happy time in your life or a most complicated thing in the world which makes it the most amazing exactly after just figuring out what kind of fragrance you want to put out there how would you suggest people go about like marketing their fragrance or whatever it may be whatever the business may be well ironically that's something that I'm learning from you it took me you know watching you and you're amazing you're the biggest you know Champion for your brand and you're the biggest influencer of your brand and not only that you also talk about other brands and you talk about fragrances that you love it kind of like propelled me to be more in front of my brand and to be more personal you know you want to let people in a little bit let them know that you're human that you're real that you make mistakes and you have successes and we're all in this boat together but you know I'm learning that you have to you know be active in social media and but you have to shoot stuff that's like really honest and people kind of relate to you and you know yeah it was so amazing getting to know more about you and hearing all your advice honestly Chris is so wise make sure you guys check him out follow him check out his website show him some love he's sold in Sephora in the US sex Goodman Nordstrom Neiman Marcus wow stay tuned we're gonna do part two because he's just full of way too much knowledge information wisdom that I want to share more stay tuned guys bye

Channel: Mona Kattan

Views: 65,335

Keywords: mona kattan, huda kattan, huda beauty, kayali, beauty, love, personal development, therapy, reality star, huda boss, Dubai, business, feminist, fragrance, life coach, makeup, sephora, chris collins, fragrance business, world of chris collins, business 101, fragrance business 101, business tips, brand building

Id: 94Pc8lq3Gpg

Length: 7min 39sec (459 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 28 2022