Out of 20 indie brands that market research firm Kline + Co. recently identified as M&A targets, there was only one in the fragrance category: Octavia Morgan Los Angeles.
Designed to offer luxury clean scents to people with fragrance sensitivities who might otherwise miss out on sophisticated scent experiences, the brand launched at 600 Ulta Beauty stores in February last year, making it the first Black-owned fine fragrance brand at the beauty specialty chain. Since then, it’s registered double-digit sales growth.
“It’s been a really great reception. Not only have we gained more customers, but we’ve also gained their customers as well,” says Octavia Morgan’s namesake founder and CEO. “We’ve had more visibility from a customer and brand perspective. When we first entered Ulta, we were adolescents, and we’ve gone from adolescence to young adults in a year, with the knowledge and the expansiveness of being a brand in retail.”
As a 2023 participant in Ulta’s MUSE retail preparation program, Octavia Morgan received a $50,000 investment from the retailer, but is otherwise self-funded. Fundraising in the future is a possibility, though not necessarily a priority.
“We’re not in a position where we have to take on funding in this moment,” says Morgan. “Any time you take on capital, you’re stepping into a relationship and, with any kind of relationship, you have to build it up. So, we’re taking our time to really find the right partners.”
Ahead, Morgan discusses the brand’s origins, fragrance development process, unique approach to store visits, and expansion into body care and home.
How did Octavia Morgan start?
I love fragrance and got my first fragrance at 5 years old, a tea rose fragrance that smelled like fresh roses. Around 12 years ago, I started to develop fragrance sensitivity. I would get headaches, feel nauseated, have sneezing fits. In spots where I sprayed, I would get a little red patch. I was having a reaction, so I went to the marketplace at the time to get a cleaner, natural alternative.
Back then, the landscape was very different than what it is now. Fragrances were single-noted. They didn’t have any power. Fragrance is very cultural in the Black community. We want you to smell us coming, and we want you to smell us gone. The highest form of compliment is, “you smell good,” and I felt like I wasn’t able to achieve that with what the offerings were.
I was a nurse at the time. I have a science background, and my grandmother was an herbalist. I took classes, got a mentor and created the first four fragrances: Legendary, Dark Rose, Oud Noir and Summer Floral. I was giving them away at first, and my partner was like, “You can’t keep doing that. You should sell.” I wasn’t sold on the idea because I had a career. I was a wife, mother and friend. Why add one more thing, especially in an industry I had no ties to?
Every day at 5 in the morning, in my meditations and prayers, I asked, “What do I do with this?” Then, I heard “Take it to the streets.” That changed the trajectory of my brand. I did a pop-up, and we sold out.
What also happened was a woman that came up to me and started to sob. She said, “I haven’t been able to wear fragrances in 12 years.” That really lit a fire underneath me.
That started me down this journey. We started full-time in 2022. In 2023, I was accepted into Ulta Beauty MUSE, which really accelerated our growth. I found out at the end of 2023 that we were going to launch in stores in February 2025. It’s been a ride since then.
What fragrance brands are you loving right now?
I’ve always been drawn to brands with a strong point of view and emotional clarity. I’m inspired by Maison Francis Kurkdjian, Chris Collins, Santa Maria Novella, Zernell Gillie, Tom Ford and d’Annam.
What they all share is a balance of craft, storytelling and identity. They know exactly who they are, and that confidence translates through the fragrance experience.
How much money and time did it take you to launch the brand?
We put in about $10,000 of our own savings. Those first fragrances took two and a half years of research and testing. I was a novice. I still call myself a novice perfumer. I’m not trained in any sense. It was a whole process for me to get to where I was happy about what we had.
How do you think about expanding the product assortment?
I know that it’s a brand, and we’re here to make money, but I only put out what I’m moved by. I go by my gut. For instance, I had been getting asked for at least two years to make vanilla scents. I wouldn’t because vanilla’s been done every which way. If I do something, I want it to be different. I want it to feel like the DNA of our brand.
I ordered Madagascar vanilla beans and sat with them for 30 days. I asked, what does actual vanilla smell like? Let’s strip away the sweetness. From that, I created two scents that expressed the vanilla beans. Vanillin Supreme is creamy and floral, while Casablanca is deep and rich. Both show what vanilla can really smell like.
I see the trend reports, but I want to be authentic to who I am and to who this brand is. We have a scent that I’ve been working on for a year and a half that comes out in August. It’s not mainstream, but I feel it’s good for our brand and my customer.
Octavia Marogan has been in Ulta for a year. What made the retailer a good partner for the brand, and what’s it been like?
They really understand our brand; they work hard with the placement; and they’re so supportive of what we’re doing. Especially emerging brands, that’s the key that helps you to expand and have success.
You need field support. It’s one of those things that’s not talked about, but that a brand really has to lean into. You need to have these people in-store who are really avengers for your brand, letting the customers know you’re here, spraying the scents and educating them.
Our field team is trained in three core areas: storytelling, layering and connection. We teach them how to translate fragrance beyond notes into emotion, memory and lifestyle. That’s what drives conversion. For founders, the biggest takeaway is that distribution alone doesn’t build a brand, what happens in-store does.
What role does direct-to-consumer play at Octavia Morgan?
We have six scents in Ulta. The others customers can experience on our dot-com. People that have smelled the scents and bought in Ulta are also interested in supporting us on dot-com.
We currently operate at approximately a 60/40 split between DTC and retail, and that balance is very intentional. Retail is where discovery happens, where a customer experiences the brand for the first time. DTC is where we build the relationship, deepen the story and expand the customer journey. The strength of the brand comes from owning both sides of that ecosystem.
DTC helps with the expansion of our line. We have body and home, which both are in the middle of rebranding. Our body oil is coming out in our three bestsellers, Vanillin Supreme, Midnight Orchard and Dark Rose, at the end of this month. Those will be dot-com exclusives.
What are you hoping to revamp with the home line?
We go to hotels, and they have a signature scent. The home you live in should have a signature scent. Le Hotel was my first home scent. That’s very clean. I had a lot of gentlemen buying that scent from me because it made their home smell good without it smelling feminine.
The second scent I worked on was Hotel Provence, which is more floral, but it’s very crisp and bright. The last scent that we completed was called Hotel Morocco. It smelled spicy and like orange blossoms as if you were in a bazaar in Morocco. Those will come in the home spray, candles and diffusers.
What does your marketing look like?
We do social. I love a good static picture moment, so I love IG, but, as we lean more into TikTok, it’s opening up a wider audience to us. We also do well on YouTube. I drop educational shorts where I’m behind a screen, have a video playing and am talking about scents and ingredients. We find that those do better on YouTube than the other platforms.
But I’ve found the most effective is word of mouth. One person has the brand, and they’ll bring two, three more people to buy from us. That’s how we’ve been able to steadily build our name and acquire consumers.
Who are the Octavia Morgan customers?
Our customers are 25- to 45-year-olds who live in major cities. They’re very cosmopolitan and are looking for something that is different, but in a price point where it doesn’t feel like they can’t use it every day. I didn’t want to overprice because we don’t want you to be like, “Oh, I’m going to spray this for a special occasion.”
What’s your art of layering tour with Ulta?
We’re going to Ultas across the country and, in those stores, we have a painting component where we have customized pencils and the customer will be able to paint on their bottles and talk with me.
When I do masterclasses, I always ask, “How many people actually understand layering?” If it’s 100 people in the masterclass, maybe 10 know how to layer. It’s thrown around so much with #PerfumeTok and IG, but, for the general public, they really don’t understand how to layer. We’re having in-depth conversations, and you get customized layering with me and our brand.
We also partnered with a non-alcoholic beverage company, and it’s almost like Paint & Sip, but with fragrance. We have tour T-shirts, and everyone can come in with their tour merch. It’s really about community building.
What are short-term and long-term goals that you have for the brand?
Last year was the year of the fragrance. This is the year of the body. We have our body oil coming out at the end of the month, then we have a body lotion that’s coming out closer to the fall, and we’re going to have a body cream to go with that. It helps your fragrance to stay on longer. It helps to really capture the essence of the Octavia Morgan girl. 2027 will be the year of the home. We’ll be expanding our home line.
While we’re doing those expansions, we’re also looking into other retailers that we’re going to be in, not just domestic, but international.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.