March 24, 2021 • 27 mins
Boy Smells reinvented the fragrance industry when co-founders and partners Matthew Herman and David Kien started making candles in their kitchen—which don’t just smell and look incredible, but also challenge the gender binary. Now, the cult-favorite brand has branched out into underwear and wearable fragrance. This week, Matthew joins Bobbi to talk about how his fashion background led to Boy Smells, why nontraditional fragrances are a source of inspiration, and how Boy Smells is working to defy the expectations of gender norms—from the scent itself to the signature pink packaging.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Beyond the Beauty is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm your host, Bobby Brown. I remember the first time
I saw these cool candles, probably on Instagram, and I
saw that there's this brand called boy Smells, and I thought, Wow,
(00:25):
that's so different, and I just instantly like envisioned what
it would smell like. I reached out and said, cool brand.
And I've always been intrigued by this concept of new
ways to do things. Matthew Herman is the founder behind
boy Smells, and I'm really excited to talk to him
(00:47):
and find out how and why he started this brand
and mostly how he did it because I know he
had a job when he started making these candles in
his home with his boyfriend. So here's my conversation with
Matthew Herman. Matthew, Hi, Bobby, it's so nice to meet you.
Where are we catching you? Where are you? I'm in
(01:07):
my home in Los Angeles, California. Yeah. So, yeah, you
have that beautiful light. Yeah, we do, we do. Where
you are? Where are you right now? In New York?
In New Jersey, New Jersey? Yeah? Anyway, So where are
you from originally? Um, I'm originally born and raised in Austin, Texas. Yeah. Uh,
(01:29):
for some reason, a lot of people I know from
California have moved to Austin. It's crazy, it is crazy.
It's um it's amazing how many people I didn't know
knew each other know each other between this like triangle
of New York in Austin and Los Angeles. Um. But
you know, there's a lot going on in that city,
(01:50):
and I think it is a city that really fosters
new ideas and entrepreneurship. And so you know a lot
of people are moving there. There's a lot of opportunity
and a lot of exciting stuff happening. Well, I have
to tell you, congratulations on your brand. It's really cool.
Thank you. I remember you followed us like years ago,
(02:12):
and we like literally all like just fell out of
our chairs when it happened, just like it was. It
was a huge validating moment for us in our in
our brand trajectory. We were like, we've made it by
follows us. Do you remember a fragrance called child years ago?
(02:33):
I think it was like Fred Siegel or some like
some indie perfumer before there was even such a thing
as indie beauty companies, And it just smelled like a
fresh baby out of the bath, and I thought that
was so cool when I thought Voye smells. That must
smell when I first saw it and saw the logo
and the colors, and like, yeah, that should probably smell
(02:56):
something like my husband when he gets out of the shower.
Like I had no idea. Uh, it's funny. I used
to work in the fashion industry as a designer, and
you know, right before we go into some big meeting
to like present in front of the CEO or the
president or you know, something like that, I was in
the designer design side. You know, I'd be spraying on
(03:18):
some feminine fragrance, you know, like I don't know, like
too Leap by Barrado or you know, uh, portrait of
a lady, you know, or something like that. Uh. And
I look across and my girlfriends, who are design directors
for other categories, they're putting on Tuscan leather by tom
Ford or Santall from La Labo. These like much like
(03:38):
woody or more masculine sense. So you know, when we
talk about boy smells but coming in the pink box,
it's kind of just poking fun at you know, certain
cent notes being assigned to any gender and kind of
this permission to cross the binary when it comes to center,
because I could see in that moment, you know, we're
(03:58):
all creatives. Were all you know, modern people with you know,
kind of identifying in non traditional ways, you know, all
fashioned designers. Um, we know what was up and what
was cool. And you know, here I am spraying myself
with flowers and my girlfriends are all splaying spraying themselves
with woods and leathers. So you know that boy smells
(04:19):
I think is really attractive to both men and women,
just because it does give that kind of sense of permission. Yeah,
I love it. So you began working in the fashion industry.
Did you move to New York right after college? So? Um?
Two years into college, I was going to Washington University
in St. Louis, and I decided that my heart was
(04:41):
really set on being a fashion designer. I got into
n y U tube, but my parents were like, no,
you You're you be too distracted living in New York
right out of high school. Um, they're probably right. So um,
but by the time it came to declare my major,
my mind hadn't changed. You know, Like I bill wanted
to be a fashion designer. So I knew that all
(05:03):
of my idols had gone to a school in London
called Central St. Martin's, and I decided I wanted to
be a fashion designer that you know, had the kind
of career that my idols had, So I moved to London.
I lived in London for about six years and worked
for a designer they're called Giles a little bit after
I graduated, and then moved back to New York. And
(05:27):
I had previously interned at Princess Schuler, and I kind
of picked up there a little bit. And then I
worked for Zach Posen for many, many years, and then
ended up moving out to Los Angeles to work for
the fashion startup kind of darling at that time, Nasty Gal,
which was founded by Sophia Emma Rosso, whom I'm sure
you know wrote the book hashtag girl Boss, which is
(05:49):
kind of become a slogan for a generation, I think. Um,
but it was a very cool place to work, um
and kind of you know readdressing fast fashion for a
new identity, which I thought was really cool. Wow. Well,
first of all, I hope you thank your parents. That
was really nice to them, you know, way back way
(06:10):
back then. But but have you always been into fragrance,
like even as a kid. Yeah, I mean I remember
like even when like Gap came out with like Grass
and Earth, they remember those and and I was like,
oh my god, this is such like a like a
different way to approach it. And I think even Um
(06:30):
Demeter that that company that just did like dirt and
like tomato and like they had that big shop in
New York for a while. But like those kind of
like non traditional fragrances like really like intrigued me, Um
when I was you know, younger, and I was kind
of like captured by you know, that that fantasy. And
(06:52):
then of course, you know, being a fashion designer, like
the designers that always inspired me were like McQueen and
you know, Vivian Westwood and Galliano and like these people
who like really created these like really over the top
kind of environment and worlds and kind of created these
own narrative for which their customers can kind of live in.
(07:14):
So I've always loved the idea of like creating a
world in a culture and sent has always been really
interesting to me. Um, and dualities are like always what's
really interested me. I think what I loved about those
fashion des iers work is that like McQueen would always
combine like tailoring with draper and drapery, which is like
something very masculine with something very feminine. And I've always
(07:36):
loved like, you know, neo classical or the way product
does something that feels like very vintage with something like
hyper modern and sporting. So I see a lot of
what I've done in the past, and like what my
interests have always been kind of like rolling into this
kind of perfect combination with boy Smells that really centers
(07:57):
around combining masculine and minute together and creating sin and
creating this. You know, it's been it's really fun to
be I mean as sure you know, um, you know,
it's really after working for other people your entire life,
it's just really fun to kind of take the things
that you're passionate about and take everything that you've learned
from your past experiences and and and work for yourself
(08:20):
and create your own culture for your company. It's, uh,
it's really exciting, and it's something that I've always wanted
to do and and and Boye Smells, if you'd asked
me ten years ago, do you think you'll like own
a candle in fragrance company. I would have said, no way, um,
but I'm so excited that this is where my my
life is kind of turned and endured towards. Yeah. So
(08:59):
you started this company at home with your boyfriend? Correct,
I did while you both had other jobs. Yeah, yeah,
we were you know, I had read Girl Boss and
you know, drank the kool aid over at Nasty Gal
and they really encouraged everyone to have a side hustle,
which was so weird. Like at my interview and like
my onboarding, they were like, we really encourage everybody to
(09:21):
have a side hustle. And I was like, okay, okay, um,
I guess I gotta get on that. And so um
that was super cool. And David was in between jobs
at the moment. At the moment that we decided to
start working on this, we had talked about wanting to
have a store really kind of centered on home and
maybe some fashion basics that just didn't feel like overly
(09:45):
gendered to like one side or the other. And also
as gay men like and queer men, we didn't feel
like there was a lot of like queer or gay
products or stores that really like represented had the taste
level that we liked. You know, we live in we're
like Silver Lake and Echo Park adjacent in Los Angeles.
(10:07):
You know, we like a pretty like you know, casual,
like you know, laid back, kind of elevated California lifestyle.
And you know, we didn't see you know, ourselves necessarily
represented and some of the stores that you might find
and West Hollywood or Chelsea. We actually felt like very
estranged by those aesthetics, you know. Um, and so a
(10:31):
combination of those things. We started just playing with candles. Um.
He comes from a fashion production background, so he was
great to figure out, how do you make this? What
kind of wax? What are the wigs? You know, like,
what do you have to do with the glass, Like,
what's the flashpoint, what's the how do you get the
tempered glass? Like, what's the difference getting braided wick and uh,
you know not braided wick. Like. So he was great
(10:53):
at figuring that out. He was not great at making sense. Um.
I really kind of came in and I was like,
let me tinker with this, let me play with this.
I was the one really kind of experimenting, and I
guess being more the designer in that regard, and then
I really loved the idea of like the Pink Box
and Boy Smells. David has a real aptitude for typography
(11:14):
and laying those kinds of things out. So it's really
just like brand is really kind of a combination of
our skill sets and our aesthetics and it really just
complemented each other and making a successful product. But you
guys must fight over something. Oh we we fight tooth
and nail over some all the time. And it's like
(11:34):
it's it's not even the big stuff. It's like the
little details that we fight over, which seems so silly
because those are kind of like not the most important things.
But it'll be just like the size of our logo
on a new piece of packaging, or like like whether
(11:55):
the text is left justified versus right justified on something
like little stuff. But it's, um, you know, I'm a
lot more comfortable with confrontation and and friction, just because
I've worked in a lot of design studios, you know,
in fashion, and there's a lot of that. There's a
lot of cooks in the kitchen and the design team,
(12:17):
and there's a lot of passionate points of view on stuff. Um,
David is less comfortable with those situations but I do
think that it is the friction of our two points
of view that really create what is beautiful about our brand.
So while it's not fun to go through, I think
(12:38):
that it is important to disagree and to push things
forward and and to make better product basically because because
of it. And when do you do you have rules
like when not to talk business or does that not exist?
I mean I wish we could say that it does.
But you know, Voice Smells is bootstrapped. We own the
(13:02):
entire company ourselves, Like we side hustle this for two years.
We've ran it out of our house for three years. Um,
we're unfortunately, are in the habit of it. This is
really kind of our lives, you know. And there's no
fallback you know, investor if things don't work out, you know,
(13:24):
and we're really proud of, you know, having built this
from scratch um all, you know, with a little bit
of our own money and just kind of reinvesting everything
we make. So there's really not a lot of boundaries.
But I hope that as we become a bigger company,
as we build out of our build out our teams,
that will be able to start to draw more lines,
(13:45):
you know, between what we can and can't do. And
you also have a line of underwear which I can't
say that I have seen and I need to go
check them out. Tell me about the underwear. Yeah, so
it's called boy Smells Unmentionables. We made these underwear men's,
well what we would traditionally be called men's and women's,
(14:06):
same colors, similar cuts. You can mix and match, but
there's no difference in colors or materials between what is
traditionally the men's and women's. The women's are called flat front,
so you have a flat front brief and a flat
front trunk. What's traditionally called men's is called a pouch
front brief and a pouch front uh trunk, and then
(14:27):
we have the brawlett so um. You know, we really
want to make gender diversity, gender multidimensionality, gender expression to
be really up to the person, um, and so taking
out those gender pronouns from in front of our underwear, UM,
we thought was the smart choice and really allows more
(14:49):
representation uh in in that line. But it's kind of
cool to see the pouch front briefs and the pouch
front trunks. You know, they're in these beautiful like pink
and lushed and lilac tones. And it's really cool, especially
on Instagram, to see a lot of men wearing these
much more feminine colors. It's really really fun to see
(15:13):
kind of a more feminine expression for men and underwear
on the Graham and New Identities, kind of embracing a
different version of men's underwear than you usually see. And
you're in three hundred retail locations. We are, Yes, wholesale
is over three hundred locations. Um, I'm really excited to
(15:36):
announce that we have We've been tested at Nordstrom in
their Space section for the past year and a half
or two. We're now rolling out into all into one
hundred doors in Nordstrom this year. So that's four doors, right,
that'll be another hundred yet. Wow. And and do you
have you're not out of your home? You have an office?
(16:00):
Just check in. No, I mean it was crazy to
three years ago when we moved out of this space.
I can't even imagine what it would be like now. No,
we're Um, we've got a nice three thousand in square
foot office. Now that's really cool. Now you also have
wearable fragrance. Yeah, now what does that mean? Yeah, it's
(16:21):
called cologne depart fone kind of poking fun even further
at you know what's traditionally men's and what's traditionally women's.
We have five new cents there priced at nine eight
dollars um. You know our candles are. We call this
like an inclusive price point. Um. We think that this
(16:41):
idea of luxury should be able to be tapped in
from for everyone. They're cleanly formulated, you know. Um. Each
of them combines what I think of as traditionally feminine
and traditionally masculine sent notes. So my favorite end of
wearing lately is called Violet Ends, and it had as
beautiful growing violet, this very like bountiful rue barb in there.
(17:07):
But then it mixes it with black tea and um,
tobacco leaves and smoke papyrus. So you have this kind
of like push pull of that more traditionally feminine with
the more traditionally masculine. We don't like the word unisex,
so we use a word called gender full, where it's
more about there's this full power of I think we
(17:32):
all have masculine and feminine power within us, you know,
like we all are kind of defying the expectations of
outdated gender norms, you know. So that's what gender full is.
It's really about just, you know, kind of disregarding the
rules of your gender and like plowing for it and
and blazing your own trail for whatever you want to
(17:54):
do with your life and however you want to be seen,
and and making sure that you're seeing in the way
that you want to be seen. So I have a question,
(18:15):
because there's so many people listening to this that wish
they had their own company. They want to be entrepreneurs,
they want to do something. So what have you learned?
You know that you just had no idea until you
started a company. Is there any surprises? Oh my god,
I mean they're surprises every single day. I mean I
think that's what you have to learn more than anything,
(18:38):
is to be able to think on your feet and
react and adjust course correct. And I know that this
is kind of cheesy because I feel like every founder
says it, but it's so true. I just don't view
anything we've ever done as a failure, even even if
maybe to some people it is. I just I genuinely
(19:03):
believe every single thing that we've done, if it wasn't
as successful as we hoped it to be. It was
awesome because we have that knowledge now of how to
do the next thing in a smarter way. So I
think we were getting smarter each step of the way.
But it's really important that you view this if you're
(19:23):
going to start your own company, that you view it
as an adventure and whether and that you view it
as a win for yourself, whether it closes in six
months or it lasts for twenty years, or you sell
it or you don't. You know, as long as you
are enjoying that process and love what you do and
like the value that you're getting out of the experience
(19:45):
is adding to your life. I think that that's the wind.
But then what's the hardest part? What keeps you up?
Like obsessed at night? Uh? Bandwidth? You know? Uh. Not
having taken on external finance, our funding, we are on
a very very very lean team. We are a total
(20:06):
of twelve people at the company and that four or
five of those were only added this past year. So
we are trying to tackle and do so much. We
were planning new categories. I think we launched ten new
candles last year or something. You know. We had this
collaboration with Casey Musgraves that just took off like a
(20:27):
wildfire last year during the pandemic. You know, when you know,
our glasswork comes from China, the paper comes from Northern Italy,
and it's all made of Los Angeles and it was
just like one rolling supply chain blackout after another in
those different areas. And you know it is those things
keep me up. Money keeps me up. As every single
(20:51):
year when we roll into August or September, we start
having to pay for all of our queue for production,
so all of our you know, we're candles. People love
to give candles as gifts. We do twice as much
business in October, November, December as we do in every
other quarter. So in each year as a business grows,
(21:12):
that amount of inventory doubles or triples or quadruples, depending
on how you know successful the year before was. And
that is always super super stressful. I think I used
to feel like I had to control every aspect to
know every single thing that was going on in the business.
In this past year, it's just gotten too big for
(21:35):
me to be able to do that. So at this point,
you know, really trusting and your team and um delegating
have thoes, have been um skills that I continue to
try to work on. And how did your relationship with
Casey start? She just DMed us on Instagram. I mean,
(21:57):
don't you love Instagram? I mean it just it's just
I love like being able to take off these kind
of like obstacles to communicating. You know, it's just crazy.
I think we dem with you when you first followed us,
and like it just that's just wild to me to
like to be able to have somebody like Casey muskrat
Is just like, you know, take a picture of herself
(22:20):
with your candle on their tour bus and be like,
I love cush. It's like my favorite said, I've burned
all the time on my tour of us, and I'm like,
that's so cool, Like, we love you quite a ride,
you guys are on. Yeah, it's it is. It's really
cool and I love hearing about it. But I want
to ask you a couple of fast questions, because I
ask everyone these questions. First of all, what does beauty
(22:43):
mean to you? Beauty means looking in the mirror and
thinking that this is like the crim of the cram.
You know, I really believe and hope that we can
migrate towards like the uty standard you have for yourself
is what is in the mirror. Like I think that
(23:04):
there's so much representation and cool stuff happening and in
fashion and beauty, and I just I'm obsessed with it
and I love it, and I think it just provides
so much more room for people to feel good about themselves.
And what's your daily skincare ritual? So I washed my
face with a tauta Harper face wash um. Then I
(23:26):
get out of the shower and I mix um a
couple of drops of a vitamin c acity kind of
thing with my toner, and I rub it together and
put it on my face, and then after that I moisturize.
But that depends, Like I mean, as I'm sure you know,
(23:49):
we get gifted a lot of other brands that like,
we collaborate with or do giveaways with, so we kind
of always have this never ending supply of like really
cool new stuff to you try out. Um. But I
recently did an Instagraham Live in a giveaway with Shado,
and I'm actually wearing their Vital perfection Um moisturizer today
(24:14):
with a little bit of face oil that my friend
who owns a company called mullan and sparrow with one
of her um clarifying face oils. Yeah, okay, Well what
do you do for fun? I like to go out.
I like to travel with my friends when I can. UM.
I live in l A now, but as I might
(24:34):
have mentioned, I've lived in New York and I've lived
in UM. I lived in London and I have I
sall have a lot of close friends in Austin, but
I'm from So. I love to go on trips and
travel with my friends. And my parents actually live in
Mexico half the year, UM, and so I love to
go and when they're down there, I love to go
(24:55):
and visit them and really relax. UM. So traveling with
my favorite And how about your cocktail of choice? I've
really been into the grownies lately. UM. I like bitter things,
but I also drink like a lot of natural red wine.
The natural red wine. The natural wine scene in l
(25:17):
A is very vibrant and and I've totally drank the
koolaid there. And one last question about your business? Where
do you want it to go? So? This is like
means a lot to me. So I want to make
sure I land I land it right. I think what
(25:38):
boy smail stands for, and like how I feel about beauty,
how I feel about gender, and and even Casey Musgraves,
you know, like her being a really cool liberal female
in this like hyper uh conservative male dominated industry. Like
everything that I do, I want to be about challenging
(26:00):
the status quo or challenging what is just inherited to
be true in the social fabric. I really believe that
there's a lot more space for different identities in the world.
So everything that we do, I really want to be
about creating products for modern identity. And I think that
(26:24):
we happen to make candles underwear and find fragrance now,
but I think that the sky is the limit for
what we can do with the brand, because it's really
about being an opportunity for authenticity, you know, and if
we can bring that to all the touch points in
your day that are often throw away, just like brushing
(26:45):
your teeth or putting on your fieldorant like or slipping
on your underwear, like those are often people don't think
about those moments they're throwaway, but if they're there's an
opportunity for that to be and identity the authenticating experience
for you UM, I think that that's incredibly powerful and
(27:07):
super cool. Well, I can't wait to see where you're going,
and I think it's really cool. I think you've a
great brand, and I see a lot of opportunity, and
I'm really happy that I had this opportunity to talk
to you. Oh my god, I this is so exciting
for me, and getting to talk to you is a
highlight of the boy Smells experience so far. And I
(27:28):
really really deeply and genuinely appreciate your interest in our
brand and your support of it. Um. It really means
a lot of good luck with everything. Thank you, Bobby,
I really appreciate it. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Beyond the Beauty is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm your host, Bobby Brown. I remember the first time
I saw these cool candles, probably on Instagram, and I
saw that there's this brand called boy Smells, and I thought, Wow,
(00:25):
that's so different, and I just instantly like envisioned what
it would smell like. I reached out and said, cool brand.
And I've always been intrigued by this concept of new
ways to do things. Matthew Herman is the founder behind
boy Smells, and I'm really excited to talk to him
(00:47):
and find out how and why he started this brand
and mostly how he did it because I know he
had a job when he started making these candles in
his home with his boyfriend. So here's my conversation with
Matthew Herman. Matthew, Hi, Bobby, it's so nice to meet you.
Where are we catching you? Where are you? I'm in
(01:07):
my home in Los Angeles, California. Yeah. So, yeah, you
have that beautiful light. Yeah, we do, we do. Where
you are? Where are you right now? In New York?
In New Jersey, New Jersey? Yeah? Anyway, So where are
you from originally? Um, I'm originally born and raised in Austin, Texas. Yeah. Uh,
(01:29):
for some reason, a lot of people I know from
California have moved to Austin. It's crazy, it is crazy.
It's um it's amazing how many people I didn't know
knew each other know each other between this like triangle
of New York in Austin and Los Angeles. Um. But
you know, there's a lot going on in that city,
(01:50):
and I think it is a city that really fosters
new ideas and entrepreneurship. And so you know a lot
of people are moving there. There's a lot of opportunity
and a lot of exciting stuff happening. Well, I have
to tell you, congratulations on your brand. It's really cool.
Thank you. I remember you followed us like years ago,
(02:12):
and we like literally all like just fell out of
our chairs when it happened, just like it was. It
was a huge validating moment for us in our in
our brand trajectory. We were like, we've made it by
follows us. Do you remember a fragrance called child years ago?
(02:33):
I think it was like Fred Siegel or some like
some indie perfumer before there was even such a thing
as indie beauty companies, And it just smelled like a
fresh baby out of the bath, and I thought that
was so cool when I thought Voye smells. That must
smell when I first saw it and saw the logo
and the colors, and like, yeah, that should probably smell
(02:56):
something like my husband when he gets out of the shower.
Like I had no idea. Uh, it's funny. I used
to work in the fashion industry as a designer, and
you know, right before we go into some big meeting
to like present in front of the CEO or the
president or you know, something like that, I was in
the designer design side. You know, I'd be spraying on
(03:18):
some feminine fragrance, you know, like I don't know, like
too Leap by Barrado or you know, uh, portrait of
a lady, you know, or something like that. Uh. And
I look across and my girlfriends, who are design directors
for other categories, they're putting on Tuscan leather by tom
Ford or Santall from La Labo. These like much like
(03:38):
woody or more masculine sense. So you know, when we
talk about boy smells but coming in the pink box,
it's kind of just poking fun at you know, certain
cent notes being assigned to any gender and kind of
this permission to cross the binary when it comes to center,
because I could see in that moment, you know, we're
(03:58):
all creatives. Were all you know, modern people with you know,
kind of identifying in non traditional ways, you know, all
fashioned designers. Um, we know what was up and what
was cool. And you know, here I am spraying myself
with flowers and my girlfriends are all splaying spraying themselves
with woods and leathers. So you know that boy smells
(04:19):
I think is really attractive to both men and women,
just because it does give that kind of sense of permission. Yeah,
I love it. So you began working in the fashion industry.
Did you move to New York right after college? So? Um?
Two years into college, I was going to Washington University
in St. Louis, and I decided that my heart was
(04:41):
really set on being a fashion designer. I got into
n y U tube, but my parents were like, no,
you You're you be too distracted living in New York
right out of high school. Um, they're probably right. So um,
but by the time it came to declare my major,
my mind hadn't changed. You know, Like I bill wanted
to be a fashion designer. So I knew that all
(05:03):
of my idols had gone to a school in London
called Central St. Martin's, and I decided I wanted to
be a fashion designer that you know, had the kind
of career that my idols had, So I moved to London.
I lived in London for about six years and worked
for a designer they're called Giles a little bit after
I graduated, and then moved back to New York. And
(05:27):
I had previously interned at Princess Schuler, and I kind
of picked up there a little bit. And then I
worked for Zach Posen for many, many years, and then
ended up moving out to Los Angeles to work for
the fashion startup kind of darling at that time, Nasty Gal,
which was founded by Sophia Emma Rosso, whom I'm sure
you know wrote the book hashtag girl Boss, which is
(05:49):
kind of become a slogan for a generation, I think. Um,
but it was a very cool place to work, um
and kind of you know readdressing fast fashion for a
new identity, which I thought was really cool. Wow. Well,
first of all, I hope you thank your parents. That
was really nice to them, you know, way back way
(06:10):
back then. But but have you always been into fragrance,
like even as a kid. Yeah, I mean I remember
like even when like Gap came out with like Grass
and Earth, they remember those and and I was like,
oh my god, this is such like a like a
different way to approach it. And I think even Um
(06:30):
Demeter that that company that just did like dirt and
like tomato and like they had that big shop in
New York for a while. But like those kind of
like non traditional fragrances like really like intrigued me, Um
when I was you know, younger, and I was kind
of like captured by you know, that that fantasy. And
(06:52):
then of course, you know, being a fashion designer, like
the designers that always inspired me were like McQueen and
you know, Vivian Westwood and Galliano and like these people
who like really created these like really over the top
kind of environment and worlds and kind of created these
own narrative for which their customers can kind of live in.
(07:14):
So I've always loved the idea of like creating a
world in a culture and sent has always been really
interesting to me. Um, and dualities are like always what's
really interested me. I think what I loved about those
fashion des iers work is that like McQueen would always
combine like tailoring with draper and drapery, which is like
something very masculine with something very feminine. And I've always
(07:36):
loved like, you know, neo classical or the way product
does something that feels like very vintage with something like
hyper modern and sporting. So I see a lot of
what I've done in the past, and like what my
interests have always been kind of like rolling into this
kind of perfect combination with boy Smells that really centers
(07:57):
around combining masculine and minute together and creating sin and
creating this. You know, it's been it's really fun to
be I mean as sure you know, um, you know,
it's really after working for other people your entire life,
it's just really fun to kind of take the things
that you're passionate about and take everything that you've learned
from your past experiences and and and work for yourself
(08:20):
and create your own culture for your company. It's, uh,
it's really exciting, and it's something that I've always wanted
to do and and and Boye Smells, if you'd asked
me ten years ago, do you think you'll like own
a candle in fragrance company. I would have said, no way, um,
but I'm so excited that this is where my my
life is kind of turned and endured towards. Yeah. So
(08:59):
you started this company at home with your boyfriend? Correct,
I did while you both had other jobs. Yeah, yeah,
we were you know, I had read Girl Boss and
you know, drank the kool aid over at Nasty Gal
and they really encouraged everyone to have a side hustle,
which was so weird. Like at my interview and like
my onboarding, they were like, we really encourage everybody to
(09:21):
have a side hustle. And I was like, okay, okay, um,
I guess I gotta get on that. And so um
that was super cool. And David was in between jobs
at the moment. At the moment that we decided to
start working on this, we had talked about wanting to
have a store really kind of centered on home and
maybe some fashion basics that just didn't feel like overly
(09:45):
gendered to like one side or the other. And also
as gay men like and queer men, we didn't feel
like there was a lot of like queer or gay
products or stores that really like represented had the taste
level that we liked. You know, we live in we're
like Silver Lake and Echo Park adjacent in Los Angeles.
(10:07):
You know, we like a pretty like you know, casual,
like you know, laid back, kind of elevated California lifestyle.
And you know, we didn't see you know, ourselves necessarily
represented and some of the stores that you might find
and West Hollywood or Chelsea. We actually felt like very
estranged by those aesthetics, you know. Um, and so a
(10:31):
combination of those things. We started just playing with candles. Um.
He comes from a fashion production background, so he was
great to figure out, how do you make this? What
kind of wax? What are the wigs? You know, like,
what do you have to do with the glass, Like,
what's the flashpoint, what's the how do you get the
tempered glass? Like, what's the difference getting braided wick and uh,
you know not braided wick. Like. So he was great
(10:53):
at figuring that out. He was not great at making sense. Um.
I really kind of came in and I was like,
let me tinker with this, let me play with this.
I was the one really kind of experimenting, and I
guess being more the designer in that regard, and then
I really loved the idea of like the Pink Box
and Boy Smells. David has a real aptitude for typography
(11:14):
and laying those kinds of things out. So it's really
just like brand is really kind of a combination of
our skill sets and our aesthetics and it really just
complemented each other and making a successful product. But you
guys must fight over something. Oh we we fight tooth
and nail over some all the time. And it's like
(11:34):
it's it's not even the big stuff. It's like the
little details that we fight over, which seems so silly
because those are kind of like not the most important things.
But it'll be just like the size of our logo
on a new piece of packaging, or like like whether
(11:55):
the text is left justified versus right justified on something
like little stuff. But it's, um, you know, I'm a
lot more comfortable with confrontation and and friction, just because
I've worked in a lot of design studios, you know,
in fashion, and there's a lot of that. There's a
lot of cooks in the kitchen and the design team,
(12:17):
and there's a lot of passionate points of view on stuff. Um,
David is less comfortable with those situations but I do
think that it is the friction of our two points
of view that really create what is beautiful about our brand.
So while it's not fun to go through, I think
(12:38):
that it is important to disagree and to push things
forward and and to make better product basically because because
of it. And when do you do you have rules
like when not to talk business or does that not exist?
I mean I wish we could say that it does.
But you know, Voice Smells is bootstrapped. We own the
(13:02):
entire company ourselves, Like we side hustle this for two years.
We've ran it out of our house for three years. Um,
we're unfortunately, are in the habit of it. This is
really kind of our lives, you know. And there's no
fallback you know, investor if things don't work out, you know,
(13:24):
and we're really proud of, you know, having built this
from scratch um all, you know, with a little bit
of our own money and just kind of reinvesting everything
we make. So there's really not a lot of boundaries.
But I hope that as we become a bigger company,
as we build out of our build out our teams,
that will be able to start to draw more lines,
(13:45):
you know, between what we can and can't do. And
you also have a line of underwear which I can't
say that I have seen and I need to go
check them out. Tell me about the underwear. Yeah, so
it's called boy Smells Unmentionables. We made these underwear men's,
well what we would traditionally be called men's and women's,
(14:06):
same colors, similar cuts. You can mix and match, but
there's no difference in colors or materials between what is
traditionally the men's and women's. The women's are called flat front,
so you have a flat front brief and a flat
front trunk. What's traditionally called men's is called a pouch
front brief and a pouch front uh trunk, and then
(14:27):
we have the brawlett so um. You know, we really
want to make gender diversity, gender multidimensionality, gender expression to
be really up to the person, um, and so taking
out those gender pronouns from in front of our underwear, UM,
we thought was the smart choice and really allows more
(14:49):
representation uh in in that line. But it's kind of
cool to see the pouch front briefs and the pouch
front trunks. You know, they're in these beautiful like pink
and lushed and lilac tones. And it's really cool, especially
on Instagram, to see a lot of men wearing these
much more feminine colors. It's really really fun to see
(15:13):
kind of a more feminine expression for men and underwear
on the Graham and New Identities, kind of embracing a
different version of men's underwear than you usually see. And
you're in three hundred retail locations. We are, Yes, wholesale
is over three hundred locations. Um, I'm really excited to
(15:36):
announce that we have We've been tested at Nordstrom in
their Space section for the past year and a half
or two. We're now rolling out into all into one
hundred doors in Nordstrom this year. So that's four doors, right,
that'll be another hundred yet. Wow. And and do you
have you're not out of your home? You have an office?
(16:00):
Just check in. No, I mean it was crazy to
three years ago when we moved out of this space.
I can't even imagine what it would be like now. No,
we're Um, we've got a nice three thousand in square
foot office. Now that's really cool. Now you also have
wearable fragrance. Yeah, now what does that mean? Yeah, it's
(16:21):
called cologne depart fone kind of poking fun even further
at you know what's traditionally men's and what's traditionally women's.
We have five new cents there priced at nine eight
dollars um. You know our candles are. We call this
like an inclusive price point. Um. We think that this
(16:41):
idea of luxury should be able to be tapped in
from for everyone. They're cleanly formulated, you know. Um. Each
of them combines what I think of as traditionally feminine
and traditionally masculine sent notes. So my favorite end of
wearing lately is called Violet Ends, and it had as
beautiful growing violet, this very like bountiful rue barb in there.
(17:07):
But then it mixes it with black tea and um,
tobacco leaves and smoke papyrus. So you have this kind
of like push pull of that more traditionally feminine with
the more traditionally masculine. We don't like the word unisex,
so we use a word called gender full, where it's
more about there's this full power of I think we
(17:32):
all have masculine and feminine power within us, you know,
like we all are kind of defying the expectations of
outdated gender norms, you know. So that's what gender full is.
It's really about just, you know, kind of disregarding the
rules of your gender and like plowing for it and
and blazing your own trail for whatever you want to
(17:54):
do with your life and however you want to be seen,
and and making sure that you're seeing in the way
that you want to be seen. So I have a question,
(18:15):
because there's so many people listening to this that wish
they had their own company. They want to be entrepreneurs,
they want to do something. So what have you learned?
You know that you just had no idea until you
started a company. Is there any surprises? Oh my god,
I mean they're surprises every single day. I mean I
think that's what you have to learn more than anything,
(18:38):
is to be able to think on your feet and
react and adjust course correct. And I know that this
is kind of cheesy because I feel like every founder
says it, but it's so true. I just don't view
anything we've ever done as a failure, even even if
maybe to some people it is. I just I genuinely
(19:03):
believe every single thing that we've done, if it wasn't
as successful as we hoped it to be. It was
awesome because we have that knowledge now of how to
do the next thing in a smarter way. So I
think we were getting smarter each step of the way.
But it's really important that you view this if you're
(19:23):
going to start your own company, that you view it
as an adventure and whether and that you view it
as a win for yourself, whether it closes in six
months or it lasts for twenty years, or you sell
it or you don't. You know, as long as you
are enjoying that process and love what you do and
like the value that you're getting out of the experience
(19:45):
is adding to your life. I think that that's the wind.
But then what's the hardest part? What keeps you up?
Like obsessed at night? Uh? Bandwidth? You know? Uh. Not
having taken on external finance, our funding, we are on
a very very very lean team. We are a total
(20:06):
of twelve people at the company and that four or
five of those were only added this past year. So
we are trying to tackle and do so much. We
were planning new categories. I think we launched ten new
candles last year or something. You know. We had this
collaboration with Casey Musgraves that just took off like a
(20:27):
wildfire last year during the pandemic. You know, when you know,
our glasswork comes from China, the paper comes from Northern Italy,
and it's all made of Los Angeles and it was
just like one rolling supply chain blackout after another in
those different areas. And you know it is those things
keep me up. Money keeps me up. As every single
(20:51):
year when we roll into August or September, we start
having to pay for all of our queue for production,
so all of our you know, we're candles. People love
to give candles as gifts. We do twice as much
business in October, November, December as we do in every
other quarter. So in each year as a business grows,
(21:12):
that amount of inventory doubles or triples or quadruples, depending
on how you know successful the year before was. And
that is always super super stressful. I think I used
to feel like I had to control every aspect to
know every single thing that was going on in the business.
In this past year, it's just gotten too big for
(21:35):
me to be able to do that. So at this point,
you know, really trusting and your team and um delegating
have thoes, have been um skills that I continue to
try to work on. And how did your relationship with
Casey start? She just DMed us on Instagram. I mean,
(21:57):
don't you love Instagram? I mean it just it's just
I love like being able to take off these kind
of like obstacles to communicating. You know, it's just crazy.
I think we dem with you when you first followed us,
and like it just that's just wild to me to
like to be able to have somebody like Casey muskrat
Is just like, you know, take a picture of herself
(22:20):
with your candle on their tour bus and be like,
I love cush. It's like my favorite said, I've burned
all the time on my tour of us, and I'm like,
that's so cool, Like, we love you quite a ride,
you guys are on. Yeah, it's it is. It's really
cool and I love hearing about it. But I want
to ask you a couple of fast questions, because I
ask everyone these questions. First of all, what does beauty
(22:43):
mean to you? Beauty means looking in the mirror and
thinking that this is like the crim of the cram.
You know, I really believe and hope that we can
migrate towards like the uty standard you have for yourself
is what is in the mirror. Like I think that
(23:04):
there's so much representation and cool stuff happening and in
fashion and beauty, and I just I'm obsessed with it
and I love it, and I think it just provides
so much more room for people to feel good about themselves.
And what's your daily skincare ritual? So I washed my
face with a tauta Harper face wash um. Then I
(23:26):
get out of the shower and I mix um a
couple of drops of a vitamin c acity kind of
thing with my toner, and I rub it together and
put it on my face, and then after that I moisturize.
But that depends, Like I mean, as I'm sure you know,
(23:49):
we get gifted a lot of other brands that like,
we collaborate with or do giveaways with, so we kind
of always have this never ending supply of like really
cool new stuff to you try out. Um. But I
recently did an Instagraham Live in a giveaway with Shado,
and I'm actually wearing their Vital perfection Um moisturizer today
(24:14):
with a little bit of face oil that my friend
who owns a company called mullan and sparrow with one
of her um clarifying face oils. Yeah, okay, Well what
do you do for fun? I like to go out.
I like to travel with my friends when I can. UM.
I live in l A now, but as I might
(24:34):
have mentioned, I've lived in New York and I've lived
in UM. I lived in London and I have I
sall have a lot of close friends in Austin, but
I'm from So. I love to go on trips and
travel with my friends. And my parents actually live in
Mexico half the year, UM, and so I love to
go and when they're down there, I love to go
(24:55):
and visit them and really relax. UM. So traveling with
my favorite And how about your cocktail of choice? I've
really been into the grownies lately. UM. I like bitter things,
but I also drink like a lot of natural red wine.
The natural red wine. The natural wine scene in l
(25:17):
A is very vibrant and and I've totally drank the
koolaid there. And one last question about your business? Where
do you want it to go? So? This is like
means a lot to me. So I want to make
sure I land I land it right. I think what
(25:38):
boy smail stands for, and like how I feel about beauty,
how I feel about gender, and and even Casey Musgraves,
you know, like her being a really cool liberal female
in this like hyper uh conservative male dominated industry. Like
everything that I do, I want to be about challenging
(26:00):
the status quo or challenging what is just inherited to
be true in the social fabric. I really believe that
there's a lot more space for different identities in the world.
So everything that we do, I really want to be
about creating products for modern identity. And I think that
(26:24):
we happen to make candles underwear and find fragrance now,
but I think that the sky is the limit for
what we can do with the brand, because it's really
about being an opportunity for authenticity, you know, and if
we can bring that to all the touch points in
your day that are often throw away, just like brushing
(26:45):
your teeth or putting on your fieldorant like or slipping
on your underwear, like those are often people don't think
about those moments they're throwaway, but if they're there's an
opportunity for that to be and identity the authenticating experience
for you UM, I think that that's incredibly powerful and
(27:07):
super cool. Well, I can't wait to see where you're going,
and I think it's really cool. I think you've a
great brand, and I see a lot of opportunity, and
I'm really happy that I had this opportunity to talk
to you. Oh my god, I this is so exciting
for me, and getting to talk to you is a
highlight of the boy Smells experience so far. And I
(27:28):
really really deeply and genuinely appreciate your interest in our
brand and your support of it. Um. It really means
a lot of good luck with everything. Thank you, Bobby,
I really appreciate it. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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