Luxury Fragrance Brand Chémin Creates A More Affordable Collection For Its First Retail Partnership

Chémin has entered J.C. Penney, marking its first retail partnership.

The fragrance brand has rolled out to 50 of the department store retailer’s top fragrance doors, including locations in Arizona, Maryland and New Jersey, with a collection of five 1.7-oz. eau de toilettes. The fragrances retail for $100 each. By comparison, Chémin’s eau de parfums typically are priced at $140. The brand’s eau de toilettes at J.C. Penney feature a lower percentage of fragrance than the eau de parfums, but founder November Nichols assures they don’t skimp on quality.

“We reimagined an affordable luxury collection for those individuals who can’t necessarily get to us in the studio, but they want a little taste of Chémin,” she says. “And so we are putting out five signature fragrances that encapsulate the brand in such a beautiful way because we believe that fragrances are for all.”

Chémin also sells $50 body lotions on J.C. Penney’s website. Body butter, crystal-infused body oil, vitamin E sugar scrub and charcoal scrub will soon join the online offering, according to the brand. Chémin is projected to generate over $2 million in sales this year spurred in part by its new retail partnership.

Chémin started as a candle company. Nichols began making candles after ones she had used for morning meditations were discontinued. She describes herself as “devastated” by the discontinuation because her sensitivities to fragrance make it difficult for her to find candles that don’t bother her. “I said to myself, ‘It can’t be that hard to make a candle,'” she recounts.

It took practice, but eventually Nichols, who worked in educational publishing and was previously a principal and teacher, perfected what’s now Chémin’s Energy candle followed by its Relax candle. The formulas for the brand’s merchandise, which today includes candles and fragrances as well as teas, pillow mists and body care products, came to Nichols via downloads or flushes of ideas usually brought on by meditation.

Initially surprised that those ideas veered to fragrance, their arrival clicked once her father informed Nichols her late grandmother blended fragrances for her community in Louisiana. She says, “I am a very spiritual woman, and I believe that there are ways to connect to your ancestry, and I believe that my grandmother is the reason why I was receiving all of these downloads.”

Nichols changed the name of her brand from L’Artisan Muse to Chémin in honor of her late grandmother. “I truly believe that Chémin is standing on my grandmother’s shoulders,” she says. “It’s a dream that she obviously had that wasn’t able to come to fruition, but thank goodness I’m able to do that today.”

Nichols thinks, in order to go fast, businesses must go slow to start. Established in 2017, Chémin has primarily been focused on custom fragrance experiences up until this point. The custom fragrance experiences make up 60% of sales. “We haven’t been very aggressive out here in the space,” admits Nichols. “We’ve been honing our craft and nurturing our community and our clients, and now I believe it’s the time for us to allow some others to experience the magic.”

Chémin’s products underwent a packaging revamp to make them appealing for retail and e-commerce. Despite the push into retail, custom experiences are expected to continue to be central to Chémin, particularly as a means to foster community. Nichols hosts experiences around the country and throws quarterly events in her home city of Atlanta.

“Retail is always and will always be important for that face-to-face contact, but I also believe that experiences that you have with your clients are critical,” she says. “I believe that people now want more input into what they purchase and what they put on their bodies, and it’s important to give people those options.”

She adds, “It is because of our community that we exist. They’ve wrapped their arms around us. When we went into the pandemic, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, as a perfumer and as a fragrance company, how do you sell fragrance when you can’t get it in front of anyone?’ But, literally, they reordered their custom blends, they ordered candles, they did everything they needed to do in order to make sure that Chémin was there when the world opened back up.”

Nichols is harnessing her education background to pay it forward by way of a white-label program that helps other people, specifically people of color who constitute small portion of the fragrance industry, branch into fragrance. “I do believe while a part of why I am here on this earth is to make beautiful fragrances, I also believe that the other reason is to educate and to provide opportunities for others,” she says. “I believe in building a table and pulling up chairs.”