For most, perfumery can be über-serious business: heritage pedigrees, chemistry degrees, PhDs in fragrance ingredients (hypothetically speaking). DedCool, founded by Carina Chaz in 2016 at just 21 years old, is looking to change that. Marketed as scents to live in and functional fragrance, DedCool is bringing perfumery to unexpected places: laundry detergent (also known as Dedtergent), pet shampoo, toilet drops, car freshener.

Browse on the DedCool website and you’ll find slick scents from Milk (a warm skin scent with bergamot, white musk, and amber; so popular it spawned an amplified version Xtra Milk, which the company released as a limited edition 100ml bottle for avid fans) to Taunt (a clean yet comforting vanilla, amber, and fresh dew-scented creation). Red Dakota, a citrus blend of clementine, woods, and wild amber, has also garnered itself a loyal fan base online.

Formulas are made with biodegradable “safe synthetics,” packaged in glass bottles and recyclable materials. Packaging and printed is completed by companies within a five-mile radius for localized production and a reduced carbon footprint, while products are made in small batches every 14 days for optimal freshness and minimal product waste. The fragrances are also vegan and cruelty-free.

Nowadays layering fragrances is a popular practice (especially in the Middle East but with growing adoption in North America and Europe) but DedCool encouraged customers to mix and match their favorite scents from the get-go. Equally their genderless fragrance concept speaks to a younger and less binaried-thinking audience.

Beyond the eau de parfums themselves, DedCool offers a plethora of options for enjoying their fragrance offerings. Petroleum-free Balm Sticks in delicious scents ranging from marshmallow to guava add another portable layer of everyday fragrance enjoyment. Collaborations with the likes of Ouai (dryer sheets scented with the brand’s best-selling Melrose Place fragrance) and Youth to the People (a limited edition floral scent emulating Los Angeles nights with violet, rosemary, jasmine, and vetiver) have generated further buzz online. One thing is certain: DedCool has no shortage of options for scenting one’s life.

At $90 for 50ml and $30 for 15ml of EDP, or $14 for a set of dryer sheets, there are price point entries for a variety of wallets. The company began DTC and has since expanded to over 100 US specialty retailers like Erewhon and Credo, Sephora Canada, Mecca in Australia, and most recently SpaceNK in the UK. It raised a Series A funding round of $1.75 million in March 2023, driven by Sandbridge Capital. In the last year, the brand grew over 150%, with forecasts of growing threefold in the coming year.

Chaz’s journey to reigning over a blossoming fragrance empire began at an early age, as daughter of the founders of natural body and skincare manufacturer LaNatura. Growing up in the world of natural beauty product development and manufacturing, she has a natural talent for creative direction and product development. As a teenager, she helped develop a range of fun flavored lip balms for the company, which remain a bestseller to this day.

Just shy of finishing the 7th grade, she began developing a line of scents under the name Carina Chaz for LaNatura. She created her first perfume, a scent called Carina Chaz No. 13, inspired by Chanel No. 5, at age 13. After all, the independent-minded Chanel was one of the female entrepreneurial inspirations to Chaz from a young age. It was asked to be licensed as part of the Twilight franchise, which she declined, but in return formulated a new scent for the film series, Immortal Twilight.

2010 saw the formulation of Fragrance 01 “Taunt,” created under the LaNatura brand helm. DedCool became its own separate entity in 2017, two years after launch. In between creating the foundations of the brand, Chaz studied art and business entrepreneurship in 2015 at Antioch University.

Instagram proved a pivotal tool in helping to get the brand off the ground. DedCool is also no stranger to adventurous marketing activations. For National Fragrance Day, the company launched a “Fine Fragrance For Real Life” OOH campaign with billboards across LA and NYC, showing the products' perfumes, laundry detergents, pet perfumes, and car fresheners in action. They also released a bestsellers bundle, partnered with Kristine Hanna of @paperdollminatures on Instagram on a DedCool dollhouse, and hosted a scavenger hunt.

BeautyMatter spoke to Chaz about her journey as an entrepreneur, collaboration synergies, and building a brand with your community.

Starting off, I'm curious to hear how your parents’ work at Natura and studying entrepreneurship informed your own unique style as a brand founder.

When you're young, you're very resistant to anything that your parents show or teach you. I essentially was a child of the lab. I'm an only child, so being a daughter of two very hard working parents meant late nights at the office building their manufacturing side of the business. After-school time, weekends, and summer vacation were spent at the facility, doing little odd jobs here and there. The thing that always inspired me was the scent profiles of the products.

As a young person, I was very resistant to the idea of having a career based in beauty. I don't wear makeup, I don't do my hair, I'm very much low lift. Now, obviously, I'm very immersed in beauty, but it wasn't until I was 13 years old, when all of my friends started wearing Pink Sugar and whatever else was available in 2007, that I had my moment of loving this idea of personal fragrance being representative of myself and my individuality. But it wasn't Pink Sugar for me.

So it was asking the questions: How can I make a scent like I'm smelling in the lab? How can I create something that's personal for myself? That speaks to me, that I could wear and share with the people around me?

In 2007, there was no conversation around genderless beauty, and as a young person who very much identified as a tomboy, going to the fragrance counter and seeing all of these hyper-feminine scents and not necessarily identifying with that, it was the question that I asked myself again—with no understanding of what it could become—how could I create a personal fragrance that didn't necessarily blend between gender binaries? It's been a journey; I've been mixing sense since I was 13 years old. Taunt and Milk were the very first iterations of what personal fragrance meant in my own collection and then obviously now in the world of DedCool.

I joke that I'm not a trained nose. I do have an understanding of how to create a fragrance, but the beauty of my journey within scent, what makes DedCool special, is the scents are for me a moment in time and a coming-of-age story—so very much a personal experience now shared with many, many people around the world.

I'd love to learn a bit more about your creative process. Do you have any particular kind of rituals around it, or is it just that inspiration strikes and you go into the lab and start mixing away?

It's funny, the process has changed quite substantially, where now I look at it as a business and for so long, it was—it still is—a hobby. Taunt and Milk had been in my orbit since the early days. Fragrance 02 is the scent that I developed to launch DedCool in 2016, when it was just an Instagram page. At that point, I was 21, turning 22, finding myself in this womanhood. I had never truly experienced myself in that light. I was going out a lot, meeting new people, and owning this sexy moment of my young 20s. As the scents evolved, and as I fully immersed myself more into the world of fragrance, I could identify which scent profiles I liked. I could see myself engaging in notes that I hadn't necessarily been exposed to. I find a lot of inspiration in nature and through my own process and experience. All of the scents, all of the notes, it starts with a feeling and then identifying what scent profile that feeling is. Do I want to feel fresh? Do I want to feel sexy? Do I want to feel inspired? Essentially creating a template of notes that I can pull from. There's a lot of trial and error. Again, this is the very early days of DedCool.

At this point in time, a lot of the scents are integrated with not only our community but the trends that we're seeing. We never follow through within the the trend world and the trend state, but we do have retail partners that we want to ensure that we're set up for success. It's fun to navigate, guide, and work collaboratively. We have the community, our own internal DedCool team, and our retail partners supporting all new juice creation that comes from the DedCool universe.

Your choice of collaborators, from Ouai to Starface, really interests me. What do you look for in a partner when it comes to those special product launches?

We've been very lucky with not only the brands and their reputation, but in a very candid sense; it's a very small beauty industry and we're all friends. It always initially stems from [the fact that] we love each other's brands. We're inspired by one another, how can we create something that uniquely identifies not only your brand and amplifies our brand? The synergy starts from real-life relationships and wanting to instill and lift each other up, inspire one another and figure out how the two brands can live alongside each other. Whether it be the retail footprint, whether it be DTC, the beauty has always been working collaboratively with people you love. At the end of the day, that's where you find the most success.

A lot of these pillars that define the brand—the idea of layering and mixing all these different formats, also being genderless, sustainable, and clean—felt so early to that category. What has been the key to navigating the early stages of that when you first started the company and also meeting the demand? You recently took on outside funding but for such a long period of time it was self-funded.

All of our brand pillars stemmed from my own personal association with beauty and the world of consumer goods. I always joke that DedCool was a happy accident. The brand stemmed from my own personal love of fragrance. I had the opposite of imposter syndrome at the time, I fully believed that DedCool could live alongside all of these fragrance brands that paved the way for brands like mine to exist.

When the brand started and was cultivated, not only was there no real business plan, but there was no outside dollars to essentially amplify the brand. It was up to me to ensure people could experience the fragrance and that started in the very early days of wholesale and retail partnerships. Without the mom-and-pop shops, we wouldn't be able to fund the digital side of the business. The digital side of the business allowed us to get to the next level. It took a long time. So many people seeing the brand for the first time associate it with being a new brand; I always laugh at that. Someone recently said this to me: I’ve come a really long way, but I still have so much more to go. It was very much about staying nimble being bootstrapped, not spending any money.

We didn't have a team until 2021. It was just me trying to essentially create this idea of what DedCool could be. I spent absolutely no money because the brand had four or five years of very early grassroots marketing. Not only did people love the curation of scents; there was a lot to be said about what we were doing and where the brand could stand. I took every opportunity possible. I made sure to call anyone who would give me the time of day. I hate the word, but I hustled my way into the point where we now have a full team, we have amazing investors, we have a very promising growth plan. It's funny to think that this very small idea/hobby/Instagram project five, or six years later turned into DedCool today.

We're very excited to continue carrying out what the world of DedCool is and how people can create and experience fragrance in a way that makes sense for them. Layering came based off of, again, my own inspiration and not wanting to smell like other people. When the brand had some popularity, the idea of curating a scented life amplified our consumer and allowed them to step on a pedestal and for us to give them the tools to experience DedCoo and have them own the full immersion of a scented life and what a fragrance lifestyle brand could offer.

I love what you said about the mom-and-pop shops being the reason you're here. People may think they want to go into Sephora immediately upon launching, and the path there isn't that straightforward.

No, it's definitely not easy. We joke that you need a village. You definitely need the infrastructure to support working with major retail partners; there's so much that comes from inventory to marketing to supporting the samples. We had been in conversations with Sephora two years prior to actual launch, and we were an itty bitty brand that needed to be set up for success. For us, it's really working alongside our retail partners not only to amplify the brand but to allow our consumer a destination because we are a digitally native brand, and scent obviously needs to be experienced. It was a natural progression. Obviously Sephora is one of the best retail partners that you can have, and it was a moment of realizing we're a big company and continuing to grow. We need you, the strategic partners, to help us get there and make our name known.

In terms of receiving outside funding, what was the process of pitching like, but also what are you hoping to designate those funds to?

They have been very collaborative with us in allowing us to tell our true brand story and supporting where support is needed. Pitching was daunting. It was more so understanding the opportunity and the vision of where DedCool could be, and we thankfully were in a very good cash position, but we wanted to give rocket fuel to the brand—build the momentum, and we needed outside marketing and team dollars to support that growth. We're very lucky; it's a great place to be. We did six pitches and got three term sheets, which was great. We moved forward with the best partner and continuing our success together is amazing.

What are you seeing from your customer community in terms of the engagement with the brand? What are the buzzing parts of it?

The funny thing is prior to Instagram and digitally native brands, these big beauty umbrellas couldn't directly speak to their consumer like they can now. Going into the world of community, speaking to our consumers, we have a really good dialogue that happens digitally with surveys, over Instagram and TikTok. We can directly speak to our consumer, and they tell us what they want and need to see from the brand, what we're doing wrong, how we can be better than our competitors. The platform of social media has allowed us to truly engage with our consumer in a way that brands haven't been able to in the past. It's an amazing position to be in. At the end of the day,  they're ultimately buying the products, and it's so impactful to have their input and suggestions.

I find it fascinating that we're, in part, shifting away from this idea of a very Eurocentric idea of perfumery with the velvet rope and all the behind-the-scenes mystery. DedCool speaks to that idea of engaging with fragrance in a way that's unpretentious, customizable, and also more approachable in a way. I am curious as to how it's all going to evolve or where it's going to lead.

For so long, and you still see it today, the idea of fragrance has been rooted not only in gender, but in luxury. Allowing our consumer to enter into the brand at a lower price or with a laundry detergent or an air freshener—these are easy ways to interact with the brand. People don't necessarily have to utilize and experience fragrance on special occasions; they can integrate fragrance into their daily life. They can be expressive with it; it can be a personalized experience. We're doing everything we can on our side to create this new idea of how scent can be at every touch point of your life, how you want to experience it, how it shows up in your everyday mundane products. It’s  about telling a story, setting us apart, and doing something a little bit different from what fragrance had been for so many decades. We want to be transparent. We want to elevate our consumer. We want give you the tools to choose your own adventure.

How is that echoed in the visual and online marketing of the brand?

Obviously, selling fragrance online can have its challenges. But again, it's all about storytelling, staying true to who we are, working with the right creators, working with our community alongside our real customers to ensure that we're not only capturing their personal experiences; that we're amplifying it and extending it across all platforms. Tempering is obviously huge for us. The retail footprint has been amazing; people are experiencing the brand in real life, and there's so much more we can be doing, slowly but steadily, making strides every day.

You recently launched into the UK with SpaceNK. What else does the future year ahead bring?

We continue to surprise and delight. We want to ensure that our overall brand message is staying true to who we are and how we've cultivated the brand. We have some really cool collaborations in the mix again; there's always a fun shock value to really engage with our consumer. We’re focused on building our Sephora partnership and global partnerships like Mecca and SpaceNK to continuously grow our community and work alongside them. Hear how as a brand we can show up, so it's new product extensions, new scents. There's a lot going on, but we’re in a very exciting growth period for the brand. The possibilities are endless.

As a brand largely known for its Gen Z audience, do you also have other consumer generations responding to your product?

The beauty of what DedCool holds is we are a brand that can speak to all kinds of people and all different demographics. There is a product for everyone. We just had a launch in the UK, and we had a pop-up shop; to see moms coming with their daughters, there was this funny moment of this product can be specific to this person or to this group of people. It's hard to not only have cross category but to speak to so many different kinds of people and have them identify their love of the brand within a different landscape. It's been really cool to see that  happening, especially in real time.

In some ways the operating paradigms of the industry dictating to consumers has changed. I think about things like #FragranceTok and that democratic element; now fragrance consumers are leading the charge. You're voting with your dollar. The creative angle of the brand, because it's positioned in this way where it can speak to so many people because it's not trying to pitch into any one sort of category, is a huge benefit. Lastly, I was wondering how your leadership style as a brand founder has evolved since the early days?

That's definitely been a unique journey. I always joke that I'm still CEO- in-training, creating this brand and having it be very much a personal journey, and now leading a team. I’m still very young; a lot of our team members are all the same age. At the end of the day, we're all very good friends navigating through what it means to be a leader and how to ensure that the vision of the brand comes to life. It's definitely a new experience, and I'm learning a lot from true experts in the room. I feel very lucky to be in that position. The beauty of being a one-woman-show is I can understand the business as a whole. If I don't necessarily understand the ins and the outs quite as well as the experts, then I'm there to absorb, grow, and work alongside them. We always joke that we look to each other to make each other look better.