When Heretic Parfum throws an event, you know it won’t smell like everyone else’s. Hosted by founder Douglas Little, last night’s Scent & Spirit was proof of what we’ve always suspected: Heretic perfumes aren’t simply created, they’re conjured.
Douglas shared that he named the brand after being told that natural perfumers were “for housewives and heretics.” Instead of taking offense, he took ownership. “Heretic means someone with an opinion that’s different from everyone else’s,” he explained. And that’s exactly what defines his work, a refusal to blend in, a heresy that blends goth romanticism with smoke, spice, and spirit. Lots of it.
Thanks to our Director of Integrated Marketing, Brittney Jackson Moseley, we had a front-row seat (and camera roll) full of exclusive footage, including a few minutes with the main perfumery heretic himself.
What Comes First—the Story or the Scent?
When asked what sparks his creative process, Douglas’s answer was immediate: the ingredient.
“It’s being driven by an ingredient. When I get new materials from suppliers, I’ll open a bottle and it immediately inspires a direction I didn’t even know I needed to go,” he said.
“It rarely stems from the story first. It usually starts with an ingredient—the feeling it gives me leads me to the story.”
His approach turns the traditional perfumer’s process on its head: rather than forcing a narrative, he lets each raw material tell its own story.
The Truth About ‘Clean Fragrance’
In a world obsessed with “clean beauty,” Douglas doesn’t see “clean fragrance” as a marketing claim, he sees it as a duty.
He believes brands have a responsibility to create fragrances that are safe for people and the planet. When Heretic launched, he worked exclusively with naturals, but over time, he’s embraced safe synthetics that enhance longevity without compromising ethics. His partners are carefully chosen for sustainability and transparency.
“Clean shouldn’t be a buzzword—it should be a baseline.”
Can we have that on t-shirts, please?
The Most Heretical Thing He’s Done Lately
When asked about his most heretical act in perfumery, Douglas didn’t hesitate.
“Working with fossilized amber,” he said. “It made absolutely no sense — it’s insanely expensive and hard to come by. But as a perfumer and an artist, it was intoxicating. It was the most punk rock thing I could do.”
Do Our Scents Reveal Who We Are?
Mrs. Moseley asked him: Do you think a person’s choice of perfume reveals who they are—or who they want to be?
“I don’t think most people know who they are,” he said. “A lot of people pick fragrance based on how their partner will interpret it, which is the wrong way to wear scent.
If you wear a fragrance you love and it makes you feel something, you’ll be more attractive to everyone around you. F*** what anyone else thinks—that’s the bottom line.”
Fragrance as Folklore, Alchemy, and Heresy
Douglas’s creative universe is where gothic romanticism meets botanical science. His work often channels ghosts, witches, and forgotten myths, exploring scent as a language of transformation.
He recently brought Poltergeist into Ghosts, an exhibition at Basel’s Kunstmuseum, creating olfactory interpretations of spirits. From there came The Ghosts Discovery Set, proof that Halloween isn’t just a holiday for Heretic. It’s a mood. No, better yet, it’s a mindset.
His October 1 launch, Häxan (Swedish for “witch”), digs even deeper. Inspired by the 1922 film of the same name, banned across most of Europe for being “too salacious,” the fragrance reclaims the witch archetype as a symbol of free thought and fearless femininity. Douglas, if you ever read this, research the myth of witches in Balkan folklore. Usually, witches are women who have knowledge beyond the “veil”; they’re feared, fearless, and totally badass. l
“The words witch and heretic are so closely intertwined,” he shared. “Witches are feared because they can’t be controlled.”
Häxan is built around osmanthus, that quiet, leathery-apricot bloom, grounded with amber and paper notes that hint at knowledge and ink. It’s a fragrance of metamorphosis: smoky, cerebral, and beautifully strange.
Other Heretic Highlights
The brand’s upcoming Edward Gorey Collection celebrates the macabre illustrator with hauntingly elegant room sprays. And yes, Midnight Toker and Black Salt are as darkly delicious as they sound.
Midnight Toker is Douglas’s ode to his teenage goth years in The Valley: clove cigarettes, black eyeliner, and late-night Helter Skelter memories.
Black Salt reimagines summer through a nocturnal lens, where incense smoke drifting over seaweed at a midnight beach paints the most gothic picture.
“It’s about being at the beach at night, hanging out with a bunch of weirdos,” he said with a grin.
The Making of a Heretic
Douglas’s fascination with scent began early, straining his mother’s perfumes at six, buying essential oils with lunch money at eleven. His parents, both photographers, surrounded him with the smell of developer fluid, which became his first scent memory.
Trained by Mandy Aftel, he learned to treat naturals like living materials—evolving, maturing, and changing over time, much like fine wine. That philosophy infuses everything he makes: perfumery as alchemy, as storytelling, as heresy, because “F*** what anyone else thinks”. Everyone can break rules, but burn them for warmth; only the genius ones do.
