Redoux Co-Founder Asia Grant On Her NoLIta Perfume Tours And Scents That Have NYC In A Chokehold

Encouraged by her co-founder, Alejandro Cuevas, at the scent brand Redoux and the obsessive #perfumetok community, Asia Grant uploaded a 15-second video last month introducing Social Scent Club tours of NoLIta fragrance stores, and 150 people signed up for a tour within 24 hours.

Now, Grant is conducting the tours twice a day on weekends and once a day on occasional Thursdays. Priced at $95, they include a two-hour guided experience, perfume shopping map of New York, personalized perfume guide and discounts. Each tour has a maximum of around eight people.

Before they attend a Social Scent Club tour, Grant asks participants to send her what they want to smell like, not in terms of notes, ingredients or scent families, but in terms of the persona they’re interested in conveying. She then compiles a curated list of fragrances based on emotions, settings and personal traits for them to try in person.

“Do you want to be an adjunct professor that also owns twelve businesses, is very happily married for 50 years, but kind of super hot? I know how to interpret what that is,” says Grant. “Mine is I want people to know that I’m a wholesome woman, but I also want to feel like I am an object that you can look at, but not touch. I have my fragrance collection to match that.”

With Social Scent Club, Grant is offering a space for perfume lovers to geek out. “It’s mainly an opportunity for us to bond over something that we all love and to help facilitate you on this journey,” she says. “Whether you’re a fragrance veteran and you have a collection of over 300 fragrances or it’s your first time and you don’t know the difference between rose and jasmine, I want to provide an opportunity to be new, have fun and explore with other great people.”

Ahead, we talk with Grant about her passion for fragrance, creating content, brands she believes are shaking up the scent scene, perfumes that have a chokehold on New York City right now, and the future for Redoux and Social Scent Club.

Where does your love of scent come from?

From my home life. My father is a Jamaican immigrant, my mom is a Filipino immigrant, and we love to eat. He used to grow herbs, and as part of cooking, he would be like, OK, this is how you’re going to be able to identify herbs in cooking, and as you develop your taste palate, you should be able to identify, does this need more salt, pepper, thyme, basil? Seeing how each of those elements bloom within a dish is very similar to perfumery, except you don’t get to eat something, your finished dish is a fragrance.

Was your love of scent the impetus for Redoux?

I started with my co-founder [Cuevas], my best friend from college and one of those people in life that give me the same feeling of eating my favorite meal. We had a whole bunch of other ideas, but we landed on scent because we both have a love for memories, emotions and food.

We would bring back little trinkets for each other whenever we would travel. He’s from Paraguay, and there’s a famous wood carving culture and specialties that are only within this border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Starting the brand around fragrance paid homage to shared memories, and the joy and emotions tied to them.

The brand started with soap. How did it expand from there? 

We launched in July 2019. By December, 2019 we came out with our candle because people were just like, “I love this soap, it would be awesome to have it as a candle.” Then, we came out with our first home fragrance spray, which was a collaboration with Yowie, a design shop and now hotel in Philadelphia, for their fifth birthday.

A lot of our product evolution has come from what our community has requested versus trends in the industry right now. I’d rather make something that you love based on the world that you want to build for yourself around our products.

What does Redoux’s Studio Juice Concept involve? 

The concept is inspired off of the way D.S. & Durga does a monthly studio juice. It’s an experimental expression that their perfumer, David [Seth Moltz], has based on whatever is happening that month. I’m quarterly or biannually because I like having more time and inspiration.

This summer, we had a very peak New York summer event and activity with Hypebeast, and I wanted to develop a fragrance that I think is what peak New York joy and lifestyle smells like. So, I designed a Studio Juice, a limited release fragrance inspired off of that concept. We did another one last summer called Paradise Service around the act of hospitality. We released that with Chef Tara Thomas, and it was a pairing of a fragrance with a menu and each of the fragrance notes were incorporated into the flavors of the dishes.

The one before that was 529. People have been asking since the beginning of Redoux, can you turn your main soap into a fragrance? We’ll come out with one at the end of this year. The inspiration is drawn from what story we think is most pertinent to tell at the time.

You’ve done personalized fragrances. Do you still do that?  

What I’m doing now is more partnerships with brands. We’ve done it with a couple of wine brands, the platform Arena and Dauphinette, the fashion label. We have another coming out later this year around the holiday season.

In terms of individual people, from the supply chain perspective, it’s challenging to make something and then have it last forever. That’s where my fragrance tours have come into the picture because I still love helping people find a scent that feels uniquely them, and it doesn’t need to be something that I make. A lot of people have grown to trust my taste or feel aligned to what my taste is, and these fragrance tours are a way that I’m able to match them with the scent that fits the identity they want to portray.

How’s content going? Are there topics you find people really interested in?

This year, I said I was making two things: content and money. People often ask me, “If you could start over, what would you do differently with Redoux?” I would’ve done content, built an audience and then launched a brand off of that audience. You can’t turn back time, you can only learn and change your actions now. Redoux isn’t going away. I still love fragrance. Let me triple down on content and treat that as a real job.

For TikTok, it’s less about the algorithm, it’s more about how engaging are you as a storyteller. I’m done blaming the algorithm. If anything goes wrong, it’s because my content was shit. That’s a me problem, not an algorithm problem.

The stuff that has really resonated has been anything that prompts dialogue. People on TikTok surprisingly want to yap. Luckily, I love to yap. The things that have performed best for me are short videos. When I say short, I mean 15 seconds speaking directly to the listener, calling them out based on who they are and what they like in the first three seconds. Then, asking an open-ended question, which will prompt comments.

If you are active in replying to those comments, then TikTok will say, this is a really engaging post. There’s conversation, and if there’s conversation, that means there’s something to talk about, which means we’re going to serve it to more people. So, using TikTok less so as a QVC-type thing of selling stuff, which I know they’re pushing because of TikTok Shop, and more as a conversation facilitator has worked for me.

For the Social Scent Club tours, how do you decide what stores to visit? 

The first thing I consider is, do I like this brand? Do I think people would’ve had exposure to this brand? I’m going to my favorite brands, but I also don’t want to take anyone anywhere where I’m like, yeah, they’ve already smelled all of these things. We go to an Argentine [fragrance] house, which is called Fueguia 1833. Most people haven’t been there, but it’s a beautifully designed store. It can fit capacity of the 10 people, the sales associates are great, and their product is awesome.

We go to D.S. & Durga. It’s a very quintessential New York brand. The brand started here, they grew here, they still bottle and pour here, their founders live here. It’s also one of my favorites. Then, we go to Naxos Apothecary, which is the sister brand of Korres. They only have one store in the entire U.S. on Elizabeth Street. It’s Greek, and there aren’t a lot of fragrances that come out of Greece. Then, we go to Korres across the street because they have the rest of the collection. Sometimes, we stop off at Aesop since it’s also right there.

That’s the route that we’ve always done. People have been asking, can we do other routes in other neighborhoods I’ve considered it, but I don’t like selling anything that I don’t like myself. Through this, the brands have been really encouraging and want to partner together. So, we’re partnering with Korres, and D.S. & Durga now gives everyone that comes on the tour a discount in store. Aesop’s marketing team has reached out.

Are there any multi-brand fragrance stores in New York City you’re loving right now?

Scent Bar is awesome, the people are lovely. It’s hard to bring nine people in there for the tour because the store is small. Then, because there are so many perfumes being sprayed once you’re in the store, you can’t smell anything very well.

You also have to correspond with the sales associates, who are awesome, I’ve never had a bad experience with them, but since all of the fragrances are behind the counter, if you can’t communicate what you want or how you like smelling, it’s kind of hard to find something that you like. It doesn’t really lend itself to explore freely across the assortment.

Stéle in Brooklyn is awesome. I’m sad we can’t go there because it’s in Williamsburg, so it doesn’t fit on the walking portion of exploration, but that’s my favorite multi-brand store right now. The team is awesome, the in-store experience is awesome. They do a lot of programming, and they focus very much on creating community. They’re really wonderful people and very into their craft.

What fragrance brands do you think are doing exciting things? 

No. 1 is Obvious Parfums. The way that they source their materials and ingredients is very sustainable and their price point is wonderful. I think everything is under $200 for 50 or 100 millileters. Their fragrances are awesome, really wild. They just came out with a Matcha scent. It smells like a Matcha latte. It’s unbelievable. I don’t even like gourmands, but it’s spectacular. I wear Un Musc from them and Une Rose, phenomenal fragrances. On the more high-end luxury niche side, Maison d’Etto. They’re on the horse girl trend. They smell like any of those luxury houses that you would aspire to.

Then, there’s a fragrance brand called Essential Parfums. The way that they source materials is similar to jewelry brands, which cut out the middlemen and work directly with the manufacturer so you don’t have additional upcharges. They make some of the best smelling, highest quality niche parfum blends that smell like they’re $400, but they’re actually $90. They have a fig fragrance called Fig Infusion. It’s an amazing entry point for anyone that wants to get into niche fragrances and doesn’t have a huge budget, but doesn’t want something that smells like you got it from Sephora, no shade to Sephora at all.

“What I love about content is that it increases my surface area for luck and to meet really awesome and interesting people.”

Is there a scent that embodies New York now or everyone is wearing? For the longest time, it was Santal 33 and Baccarat Rouge 540. Is there a new scent rising? 

I wouldn’t say that there’s one, but there are scent families that are very much choking New York. First, rice fragrances, and the main rice fragrance is D’Annam White Rice. It’s tearing up the minimal, cool girls. I attribute this to its TikTok strategy and Instagram gifting strategy.

Next would be a musk. Every girl loves a fucking musk. I can’t guilt anyone for liking it. The original Musk was Glossier You, which also destroyed the New York woman identity until they reformulated. Those that did not stay faithful to Glossier You transferred to D.S. & Durga I Don’t Know What. I am also one of those women. I think it’s an exceptional fragrance.

A lot of women are wearing gourmands now, which is very surprising. The ones that evolved away from Baccarat Rouge 540, that one is really hard. The verdict is still out because there are too many. There hasn’t been a clear winner in the gourmand space.

What’s next for you and Redoux? 

What I love about content is that it increases my surface area for luck and to meet really awesome and interesting people. These people have come to my tours just from watching me on TikTok, and they’ve been the sweetest people I’ve ever met. Geeking out over a shared interest has been wild, and I don’t want that to stop. So, right now, I’ll continue to do content. I have to post to TikTok two to three times a day, that’s my own personal goal.

I want to focus on the fragrance tour and get that to be essentially its own operating business. I’m also seeing the tours as a way to introduce Redoux fragrances and get exposure versus pumping a whole bunch of money into Facebook ads trying to sell a product.

I want the tours to be consistent and fun with a structure and a system for women to be able to enjoy on an ongoing basis. A lot of them have been asking, “Can there be more programming around this? Would you be interested in teaching a fragrance class?” Hopefully, as I continue to build relationships with these brands, there will be private viewings or talks with perfumers, bringing out that community, experiential side.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.