How Heretic Founder Douglas Little Became The Perfumer Behind Viral Candle This Smells Like My Vagina

While out with a friend at a restaurant in San Francisco, Heretic founder and perfumer Douglas Little overheard two women chatting about This Smells Like My Vagina, the world-famous geranium, citrus, bergamot, cedar, rose and ambrette seed candle from his brand that’s sold by Goop for $75.

One of the two women said, “‘Oh my god, have you seen this ridiculous candle that Gwyneth Paltrow is making?’ And the other woman was like, ‘Um, I think it’s fucking amazing!’ And she was like, ‘You know what? Men have talked about their dicks for the past hundred years, and now I’m talking about my vagina,’” recounts Little, who couldn’t help but laugh at the conversation. “The girl looked at me and she was like, ‘Excuse my language.’ And I was like, ‘No, please don‘t excuse yourself.’”

He didn’t inform the women he’d worked with Paltrow on the candle nor that their tête-à-tête was precisely what he and the Goop creator were trying to instigate with the product’s now-viral moniker. Elaborating on the candle in an interview with Beauty Independent, Los Angeles-based Little says, “There is something wonderfully curious and something that is provocative and that is a little naughty, and I just feel like we’re at this incredible place in the United States where I think sexuality is in a transformation and going through a revolution, where we’re becoming so much more accepting of people’s needs, wants and desires, becoming more accepting of the idea of male female transgender, gay, straight, bisexual, like this language is becoming much more acceptable, as it should be, and people are able to live more healthy and fulfilled lives because of it.”

Of course, the women at the restaurant aren’t the only ones discussing This Smells Like My Vagina. After hitting Goop in November on limited release, it promptly sold out in January following press mentions in The Cut, People and more publications, and it sold out again on Valentine’s Day. Paltrow has brought it up on the late-night television show circuit, including during stops at “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” Elton John reportedly bought 100 This Smells Like My Vagina candles. The product is currently back in stock at Goop.

This Smells Like My Vagina
Heretic’s $75 This Smells Like My Vagina candle has sold out twice on Goop. Its geranium, citrus, bergamot, cedar, rose and ambrette seed notes are intended to capture the sensuality of warm skin, not be a knockoff of Gwyneth Paltrow’s anatomy.

Heretic’s partnership with Goop predates This Smells Like My Vagina. The brand seemed like a no-brainer for the e-tailer because it and Paltrow’s chic wellness destination share an affinity for clean formulas. Heretic’s fragrances are made from botanical ingredients. Prior to This Smells Like My Vagina, Little composed a number of fragrances for Goop Beauty, notably Eau De Parfum Edition 02 Shiso.

While testing scent strips for a new fragrance, Paltrow blurted out, “Uhhh, this smells like my vagina!” The phrase became an inside joke. “The moment was uncomfortable and funny, and we both leaned into it and really embraced the concept,” remembers Little. “Why is there so much stigma and shame and anxiety about a woman’s vagina? What is the big deal about it?” The notes in This Smells Like My Vagina are meant to capture the sensuality of warm skin, not an olfactory knockoff of Paltrow’s anatomy. Anyone with the candle, however, can decide what they want it to convey.

“Why is there so much stigma and shame and anxiety about a woman’s vagina? What is the big deal about it?”

For Little, scent has always been the ultimate provocateur, and subverting expectations is his thing. While mass-market companies sell affluence and conventional sex appeal, Heretic pushes boundaries with stimulating imagery, scent concoctions and names straight from nature. Little’s notion of luxury is feral forests, scorched herbs and crushed stems.

“Heretic comes from wanting to show something that is radically different. I really try to make fragrances for people that don’t want to smell like perfume,” he says. “Fragrances are very much designed to provoke and inspire and seduce the senses.” Since launching Heretic in 2015, Little, previously at the helm of D.L. & Co., has grown a loyal following for his brand’s organic unisex scents with edgy names like Pistil Whip, Dirty Ginger, Blood Cedar and Florgasm. Their prices range from $65 to $210. Outside of Goop and its own website, Heretic is stocked by Credo, Tigerlily Perfumery and Twisted Lily. Last year, it received investment from Sekhmet Ventures.

Heretic founder and perfumer Douglas Little
Heretic founder and perfumer Douglas Little

As a child, Little spent his free time studying plants with his mother, a photographer and avid gardener. He became obsessed with poisonous and carnivorous species. By age 12, he was a regular at botanical shows and occult shops. His bedroom was filled with hemlock and belladonna seedlings, and bottles of essential oils. Little’s deep love affair with the wild, dangerous and mysterious side of beauty influences his compositions.

Florgasm is designed to evoke the aroma of a flower having an orgasm by stringing together bergamot, orange blossom and jasmine. Blood Cedar is an ode to feral spruce, juniper and oak moss. “Fragrance is about giving someone something that they can connect to,” says Little. “If wearing a fragrance called Florgasm can give someone permission to talk about their sensuality, and it gives them that spark, that is the magic of fragrance.”

“Fragrance should inspire. It should provoke. It should make you feel. I’m trying to bring back that spark of magic.”

When he first met with fragrance manufacturers about launching natural scents, Little was shocked by rampant greenwashing. He discovered notes marketed as natural that were synthesized using chemicals and lacked the essence of the plants they were intended to imitate. Rose was artificially engineered to remove its inherently earthy core. “That was really heartbreaking,” says Little, adding, “I love natural perfume materials because of their wonderfully raw aspects. I want to smell traces of the plant’s origin, elements of the soil, bits of the leaves and stems. I was connecting to these materials in a way that was almost spiritual.”

Bringing his clean vision to life on his terms presented significant obstacles—organic sugarcane alcohol is notoriously unstable, to mention one obstacle—but, as a niche brand, Heretic has the ability to be nimble. Little methodically experiments with samples until he lands on safe, compliant formulas. Fragrances can take him as long as two years to refine. Heretic often produces 300 bottles at a time, so that Little can keep a close watch on materials and quality, a practice beauty behemoths don’t typically implement.

Before This Smells Like My Vagina, Heretic pushed the needle with names and imagery in fragrances such as Florgasm, a blend of pink pepper, bergamot, orange blossom, tuberose milk, jasmine and ylang-ylang.

Going an unusual route can invite scrutiny and occasionally ridicule. Martha Stewart mocked This Smells Like My Vagina as a stunt for “guys who are horny.” What Stewart failed to notice is that it’s women snapping up the candle. “Women are buying it for themselves, and they’re buying it for other women,” says Little. “We are seeing this incredible ownership of power that women are taking. For the people who really love the candle, they feel like it gives them some empowerment. Fragrance should inspire. It should provoke. It should make you feel. I’m trying to bring back that spark of magic.”

Little is clearly tapping into an undercurrent that mass-market fragrances aren’t addressing. The majority of fragrance advertising from large companies relies on the assumption that women are motivated by attracting men and vice versa. The traditional paradigms inherently require a woman to be sexually available to a man, which isolates and excludes many consumers. Heretic’s customers are looking for a product that represents them. “Women are becoming very unapologetic about their needs, wants and desires,” says Little. “I’m not making these products to placate to that world, I’m making these products provoke curiosity, wonder and amazement.”