Launch Date: October 2021
Geography: New York City, New York
Founders:
Executive Team:
Notable Investor: True Beauty Ventures
2026 Full Year Projected Revenue: $2M - $5M, according to industry estimates
Primary Category: Fragrance
Other Category: Home
Funding: Venture Capital
Primary Distribution Channel: DTC
Other Distribution Channels:
Key Retail Partners:
2026 Projected Offline Distribution Points: 150
When we created The Maker Hotel in Hudson, New York, we weren't simply designing a place to stay. We were creating an immersive world where architecture, art, music, cuisine, craftsmanship, and fragrance came together to awaken the senses and inspire human connection. Scent wasn't an afterthought—it was an essential part of the experience.
From that world, The Maker Fragrance was born. It became a way for people to carry the feeling of The Maker with them, wherever life took them.
To us, true luxury isn't about owning more. It's about feeling more. It's finding beauty in the everyday, creating lasting memories, and moving through the world with intention. We call this living sensually.
Insights: Lev Glazman, Co-Founder and Alina Roytberg, Co-Founder
Why now and why you?
After founding Fresh and spending more than three decades building that brand, we wanted to create something that reflected everything we'd learned about beauty, emotion, design, and human connection. Fragrance was the next logical chapter in our journey—especially for Lev.
Lev's relationship with fragrance began in childhood, growing up in Soviet-era St. Petersburg. One day his mother came home with a bottle of forbidden French perfume purchased on the black market for the equivalent of a month's salary. The moment she opened it, everything changed. The fragrance transformed not only how she looked, but how she felt and how others responded to her. It revealed the extraordinary emotional power of scent. That moment stayed with him, inspiring a lifelong passion for fragrance and, years later, the creation of The Maker.
What fuels your competitive advantage?
Our competitive advantage isn't a single product or marketing strategy. It's the combination of our experience, our point of view, and the authenticity of our story.
Having built Fresh, we understand what it takes to create a beauty brand with lasting emotional relevance. With The Maker, we applied those lessons in a completely different way.
The Maker Fragrance was born from a world we had already created. It wasn't conceived as a fragrance brand looking for a story. It grew naturally from an immersive world where design, hospitality, and fragrance come together to create a memorable sensory experience.
Anyone can create a fragrance. It's much harder to create a world people want to belong to.
What’s your proudest accomplishment to date?
Launching The Maker during the uncertainty of the pandemic challenged us to bring a sensory experience to life in an entirely digital world. But what we're most proud of isn't a sales milestone or an award. It's the community we've built. Watching customers discover their signature scent, return for their next bottle, recommend us to friends, and make The Maker part of their everyday rituals has been our greatest validation.
Recognition from The Fragrance Foundation, including Stag Eau de Parfum being named Indie Fragrance of the Year, was an extraordinary honor. But knowing our fragrances have become part of people's lives is what means the most to us.
What is the one thing you wish someone had told you?
The first time around, with Fresh, we were so focused on creating a beautiful product—perfecting the formulas, designing the packaging, and bringing everything to market—that the brand story came later than it should have.
With The Maker, we started differently. Before we designed a bottle or developed a fragrance, we defined what we believed. That philosophy guides every decision we make—from our products and storytelling to our partnerships. The product may introduce someone to your brand, but it's the world you create that gives them a reason to stay.
What would you tell your past self before starting this journey?
Trust your instincts. The ideas that make people pause and ask, “Are you sure?” are often the ones most worth pursuing. In a category as crowded as fragrance, it's tempting to follow what's proven. But the brands that endure don't begin with consensus. They begin with conviction.
Looking back, we'd tell ourselves to lean even further into what made The Maker different. Build the world you believe in. Protect the details others might overlook. Be patient enough to let people discover it. Trust the thing that doesn't have a comparable. Build that.
What does success look like in the next 3-5 years?
Success is about more than the number of bottles we sell or the markets we enter. We want The Maker to become synonymous with the art of living sensually.
Over the next 3-5 years, we'll continue to grow thoughtfully, expanding into new markets and categories while staying true to what makes The Maker distinctive. The numbers matter. But our greatest ambition goes beyond growth.
We hope our fragrances become modern classics, our products become part of everyday rituals, and our community continues to grow because people recognize themselves in what we believe. If, years from now, someone tells us The Maker changed the way they experience everyday life—not just how they smell—we'll know we've succeeded.
What's one industry trend that is overhyped, and what's being overlooked?
We believe fragrance layering is overhyped. Every fragrance is composed with intention and deserves to tell its own story. If someone wants to create something more personal, we encourage wearing different fragrances on different parts of the body rather than layering them together.
What's being overlooked is the growing desire for genuine sensory experiences. Fragrance is one of the few beauty categories that can't be fully appreciated through a screen. No amount of digital content, AI recommendations, or fragrance quizzes can replace the experience of discovering a scent in person.
We believe people are increasingly looking for brands that engage all five senses, create lasting memories, and foster real human connection. Technology will continue to shape the future of beauty, but the most enduring brands will never lose sight of the power of shared human experience.
How do you think the industry needs to evolve?
The beauty industry has become incredibly good at creating beautiful products. We believe the next evolution is creating deeper emotional value. Consumers aren't looking for more launches or more choices. They're looking for brands with a genuine point of view that create lasting memories, meaningful rituals, and authentic human connection. We believe the future of luxury belongs to brands that create worlds people want to be part of—worlds that engage all five senses, foster shared human connection, and enrich everyday life.
If you could wave a magic wand, what one wish would you make for your business?
If we could wave a magic wand, people would be able to smell fragrance through a screen. Until then, we'll keep finding creative ways to bring The Maker world to life—through storytelling, sensory experiences, and the power of imagination.
