Traditional Approach
A brand decides what a fragrance should be. They write a brief: “We want something fresh, youthful, with top notes of bergamot and musk base.” The brief is the blueprint. The perfumer executes it.
— THE DIFFERENT PROCESS
The NewNiche
Way
Different, yes. But only because the alternative was unacceptable.
1. The Idea
The NewNiche Way
We start by asking the perfumer: What inspires you? What raw materials do you want to work with? What colours do you think in? What music moves you? What memory are you chasing? The inspiration comes from the nose, not from a marketing department. The idea shapes itself through conversation.
2. Freedom & The Brief
Traditional Approach
The brief is a constraint. It tells the perfumer exactly what to do, what not to do, what the finished product should achieve. There’s no room for the perfumer’s own vision — only for solving the client’s problem.
The NewNiche Way
We give guardrails, not chains. We say: Here’s the direction. Here’s what the community is drawn to. Now — create what only you can create. The guardrails are frameworks for creative thinking, not walls. The perfumer drives the vision.
3. Raw Materials & Cost
Traditional Approach
Brands set a strict kilogram price for ingredients. This cost ceiling becomes a cost floor. It decides the palette. A perfumer wants to use a rare jasmine from a specific hillside, but it’s over budget — so they don’t. The price decides the art.
The NewNiche Way
The art decides the price. If your vision needs that rare jasmine, we source it. If it needs a costly resin, we find it. We don’t ask: Can we afford this? We ask: Does this serve your artistic vision? And if it does, we make it happen.
4. Authorship
Traditional Approach
The perfumer’s name stays hidden. They’re a technician in someone else’s system. Consumers smell the fragrance, love it, never know who created it. The brand owns the story. The perfumer is invisible.
The NewNiche Way
The perfumer’s name is on the label. Their face is in our studio. Their story is the story. We don’t hide the creator — we centre them. Because this isn’t a product. It’s authored work. And every author deserves to be known.
5. The Process & Transparency
Traditional Approach
A fragrance launches when it’s finished. How it got there — the decisions, the failed formulas, the thinking — stays locked in the studio. Consumers see the result. They don’t see the hand that made it.
The NewNiche Way
We develop the fragrance openly, with our community. Co-evaluators join the studio. They smell the iterations, offer thoughts, shape the direction. The process is transparent and alive. You see the blotters, the notebooks, the reformulations. You’re not just buying the finished work — you’re witnessing the making.
6. Skin in the Game
Traditional Approach
Most brands don’t pay perfumers for development. Instead, they ask five fragrance houses to work for free — whoever wins the brief gets a contract. If the fragrance sells millions, the perfumer gets the same flat fee they always did. Success doesn’t stay with its creator.
The NewNiche Way
We pay a development fee upfront. Then, with every bottle sold, the perfumer earns a royalty. Success stays with the maker. We treat perfumers like musicians or painters — they get paid when their work is performed, exhibited, sold. Not once and forgotten.
7. Visual Collaboration
Traditional Approach
Brands commission packaging designs. Many now use AI-generated artwork — fast, cheap, done. The visual has nothing to do with the fragrance. It’s marketing wrapped around a product.
The NewNiche Way
When a fragrance is finished, we invite a visual artist to read it. Not to illustrate it — to converse with it. They spend time with the scent, understand it, and create a painting in response. That artwork becomes one face of the cube. Scent and vision merge into one cultural object — the Shared Canvas. Two artists. One creation.