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Last week, we taught you how to maneuver your way through your local mall’s fragrance counter to buy the right cologne. But if you’re instead craving some anti-bling, small-scale scents this fall, we think you’ll find these new releases—with real botanicals, minimalist packaging, and interesting backstories—a nice alternative.
The Motley’s Atlas Cologne
The Story: 24-year-old Matthew Ruggieri and his sister Madison started online grooming retailer The Motley three years ago out of a spare bedroom in their San Fernando Valley home. They now sell more than 200 products from niche brands like Ursa Major and Urth. Atlas is their first fragrance.
The Scent: A clean musk scent with notes of oak moss, cedar, cloves, leather and green mandarin. (Bonus: The tin packaging can be customized with your name.)
HYLNDS by D.S. & Durga’s Spirit of the Glen
The Story: Musician David Seth Moltz (DS) and his wife, architect Kavi Ahuja (nicknamed "Durga"), started brewing small-batch scents out of their Brooklyn studio. They’ve since expanded, and most recently teamed up with The Glenlivet (yes, the single malt whisky) to create a new cologne.
The Scent: A masculine blend of pear, barley malt, sherry cask, and limousin oak.
Juniper Ridge’s Backpacker’s Colognes
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The Story: A group of 15 or so backpackers head up the mountains to collect plants and diffuse them in an Oakland workshop, bottling scents like the California coast’s Big Sur and Sierra Nevada’s Yuba River.
The Scent: With Big Sur, you’ll get a whiff of sage, redwood, and bay laurel.
Odin’s 11 Semma
The Story: Founders Eddy Chai and Paul Birardi expanded their popular NYC boutique to include fragrance in 2009. Their scent library now features ten travel-inspired colognes, including GQ’s 2012 cologne of the year 07 Tanoke.
The Scent: 11 Semma is the unisex brand’s first tobacco scent and has hints of fresh chili pepper, cinnamon bark, sandalwood and herbaceous clove.
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