Blending Design, Storytelling, and Scent with The Maker Fragrances

0:02Hey guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy. This is the Fragrance Friday special and we have such an amazing brand with us today. I am such a huge fan of their work and all of their creations. Many of you might have heard of them, and they've really kind of, I think, in my opinion, taken over the niche fragrance space in such a beautiful way, because every single fragrance in the collection hits home. It's just something that you want to keep forever in your collection. So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to Lev Glasman and Alina Reutberg, who are the founders of The Maker. Welcome, guys.

0:34I'm so excited to host both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Akta. having us. Yeah, great, great to be to be here. Thank you again, inviting us. Yeah, no, it's an honor to host you both. And I am such a fan of what you've created and the whole idea right behind the hotel and then the fragrances and the inspiration. I can't wait to dive into all of that. And I want to actually get started with kind of maybe one of you could walk us down memory lane and tell us about where did this inspiration really originally stem from, you know, for the maker overall? Well, I mean, it's been, it's been years in the making, you know, from Alina and my experience of traveling one experience in and passion towards design as, as we sort of like, as fresh became a little bit more mature brand.

1:30And we started thinking about like how we can take a next step and bring something to the forefront where we can create a place that could bring people in and they can really be in our environment. Now, hotels was always something that we loved in our traveling, but we always were very picky where we would stay and which property we would pick up. So we always look for something that off the beaten path, something that's very special, that's highly curated. And we felt also that in the world of hospitality, something that was more difficult to find is property that's very unique. And they don't follow sort of like the standard way of how the hotel needs to be.

2:25like the rooms have to be the same, every single room, you know, things are getting more standardized. Don't understand me. Some hotels are very beautiful, but we felt like, especially when you're traveling and you want to experience something that will be very, very special. And Alina and I started talking about it many years ago and said, what if we would open the hotel? How would it look like? And for Alina and I, it's always the dynamic is that when we start talking about something, it's almost the seed is planted and the conversation is keep on going and going and going until it gets to the point where you're actually asking yourself, can you actually do it?

3:12and then when you start crossing this line and thinking, oh, maybe I can and then you start galvanizing the idea and the concept in your head, what that could be and we started thinking about, okay, well, we can open a hotel but we also can, it could be an amazing platform for us to be able to create a great sort of like, it could be like a lifestyle brand But also to create fragrances and have this amazing platform for that. And so we started sort of like dreaming in that direction. And all of a sudden things started making sense because everything that we like and passionate about. And it felt like it was starting falling into place and start making a lot of sense.

4:00Yeah, like puzzle pieces start coming together. Yeah, that's right. But, you know, it's also it's interesting because when we started fresh with the shop, we opened the store. And it was like this kind of a dream to create a certain world that we were dreaming about creating. And I think that the experience of retail is that people open the doors and they come into your world and you share with them what you're excited about and what you have. And I think as the time progresses and got a lot more into design, designing different stores and having this experience and really understanding what true hospitality for people coming into retail could be.

4:33and I think that ambition grows because eventually you feel like what is the ultimate you know world to build it is a hotel because people not only come in not only they eat and drink and they sleep so you really take an incredibly active audience into the world that you want to build right right no that's such a fascinating actually the whole concept to me when I first learned about the hotel itself, I was incredibly mesmerized because very rarely do you get to see concepts that really bring home the idea of like true hospitality. I mean, if you look at anyone's home, right, no room is the same.

5:10No part of that entire building is the same. There's an experience that you have everywhere that you go in that space. And I've always wondered that actually myself with a lot of the hotels I've stayed at is like, I shouldn't, why is everything exactly the same you know what I mean it doesn't feel right and so I think the entire idea when as a consumer when you're looking at it and what you guys have built it actually resonates much more than just a place you're going to stay on your travel it becomes this idea of like it's a whole experience that you're having you know and and you're building memories so that's very very beautiful to me as a consumer just looking at it so I can't imagine how beautiful it was to build that concept and really bring it out it's wonderful I want to talk about the fragrances because I know that you guys truly have such a wonderful cult following.

5:57And, you know, I'm definitely one of the biggest fans. Thank you. You describe your fragrances as rooted in fantasies, like liberation, confidence, sensuality. What made you want to tell the emotional stories through scent rather than through traditional olfactory pyramids? Well, scent was always a huge part of my life. You know, ever since I was a little kid, you know, growing up in Russia. and at the time when I was growing up in Russia, I mean, I left Russia when I was 10 years old, but at the time it was an iron curtain. So there's not a lot of fragrances available on the market. So you had one fragrance that's available on the market was made by one of the Russian factories.

6:39It was one for men, one for women called Red Moscow. And it was pretty horrible. The problem is that I always refer to this fragrance is that if you take Chanel No. 5, which is very well respected fragrance and but you add Lysol into it this is literally the way it smelled and and and the problem was is that because it was the only fragrances available everybody smelled like that and and I was always sensitive to the smells and particularly you know being surrounded by sort of like I felt like this is basically how the world smelled this is this is what it is until one day my mom took me to the black market to buy a fragrance that was smuggled to the country from France by a smuggler.

7:28And these black markets would be popping up and a lot of young ladies and other people, men, would be going there and buying things that were brought from overseas because Russia didn't have much to offer in that way. And so I remember when my mom took me, you know, those sort of like black markets, they're popping up and they go. It's like you have half an hour to run in because they close very quickly because it's a criminal offense at the time to do it in Russia. And I remember when we're standing in line to this person that smuggled the fragrance and my mom was very concerned that she might be running out of the fragrances and she wanted it so badly.

8:17So when we finally got closer to this box that he was selling it out of, she grabbed the box, she paid him 120 rubles and 120 rubles were equivalent to one month's salary. And we used to pay in our communal apartment that we shared with other families, 22 rubles a month in rent. So she paid a phenomenal amount of money to buy that very little fragrance. And I remember when she took me aside and she sort of like opened the box and pulled the fragrance out and put it on, you know, start applying it on herself. I was, at the moment, we were both transformed. I mean, my mom, I was looking at my mom and I could see sort of like that sparkle, that joy that like on her face.

9:13And I myself felt transported because I never smelled something beautiful like that. And for me, this was when the seed was planted and fragrance became my way of dreaming, my way of memorizing things, my way of experiencing certain moments. I started truly, clearly understanding that fragrance is very transformative and it could take you places. It could take you to places that you've been to and you sometimes capture it in your memory through a scent. And I was fascinated with the fact that I would be coming home and my mom would not be there, but I could smell her fragrance. Her spirit would be there.

10:00I was so fascinated with that. And that, you know, it gets my endorphins going. I mean, it's like you really have, you know, sort of like emotional and physical and sensorial reaction all at the same time. And remembering people, you know, somebody who you intimately involved and you're falling in love with, you start remembering it by their scent and becoming very arousing. And so fragrance became a huge part of me growing up and exploring that world. And that's why, you know, when Maker came into the picture, you know, Zalina and I would discuss that it could be just as I said it early on. It could be an amazing, amazing platform to sort of like express it.

10:49And then I'm going back to fantasy to your question is that it's, is the, the fantasies in particularly when, when you go to places, when you travel and you're outside of your home and you go away and you're in a very neutral zone, you put everything behind and you walk into a place that is extremely inspiring. It's so true. It has so many textures and it affects your visuals. And it's just a beautiful world. And I started imagining what could happen inside this world and what kind of, I started fantasizing myself, what kind of interactions people will have with others, between each other and what can actually happen in some of these spaces.

11:32and particularly as the hotel being very sort of like sensual and sultry, it's sort of like it leads you to this place of like some fantasies and moments that you can experience in this place. And the fragrance helps me a lot to take some of those stories, some of this experience that happened or could happen, some of my personal experiences, and start imagining some of those stories that could be associated with these moments while you're there. Absolutely. No, I think your brand is one of the few brands for me specifically as a consumer that I, I mean, I fell in love with it as soon as I smelled your first fragrance, because I know exactly what you're talking about.

12:20You know, when you say it brings you into a place of not only like, you know, you remembering something, you know, because a lot, most of the fragrances in the collection for me, I can say only speak for myself, but they do bring me back to some sort of a memory, whether it's like my childhood or something that I experienced, you know, in my own life. But then they also do bring me into a place of what I would imagine something to be like, you know, if I was there. Like I was I think, you know, when I first tried them, Libertine became my favorite, like immediately, because I love how it brings you to a place of just, you know, it's fresh.

12:52but it's also very I think it's like being doused in the in the freshness of it you know and so it makes you want to actually be in a in a location that's going to remind you of like you know fruits and and beautiful things like you know summertime and springtime and it just I don't know it really does bring you there very quickly whereas a lot of times with fragrances I think it takes time for them to dry down and then you start really experiencing them that's not what I had with with the maker it was like immediately when i spray the fragrance i'm there you know i'm captivated my senses are involved so i want to ask what was a moment maybe that was inspired like in a moment at the maker hotel that led to the creation of one of your fragrances if you can give us like an example of one of them i'll give you an example the first fragrance it's it's interesting because the ideas were coming to me as the spaces were completed the hotel was opened in different stages.

13:49So as I was working to complete one space, I was starting to imagine to myself the space, popular it with people. And I had to start activating it because to me, as building the hotel, we're building it and designing it together with the fragrance in mind and what each one of the spaces that could trigger that inspiration in me. So as we're completing our lounge, which was the first one that opened, let's say it's a beautiful bar. When we're completing almost towards the end, I started thinking I could see this couple sitting in front of this beautiful fireplace. And they're having this intimate moment when they're having a great drink together.

14:40There's this music of Billie Holiday plays in the background. there's a clinking of glasses I actually started imagining even smack smoke of tobacco and because it's you know from the fireplace I started to imagine how do I make it not to smell like just like burned wood but also like something that has like an even more sensual appeal to it and how and these two people they sort of like the world is there and they in the public space, but they're yet so intimately connected in the moment to each other. They smell each other because their closeness, they could smell each other, and they're interacting in a very intimate way when they're sharing some things that they, their expressions towards each other and their moment of true happiness where your endorphins and dopamine shoots right in.

15:41And you feel like you separate from the world or you're still in a public space, but you're really in that incredible, beautiful bubble with that person that you're with. And that's the first fragrance I started imagining. And that's why you have the juniper berry and that, you know, which is coming from the gene. And you have sort of like some of the smokiness. You have the beautiful vanilla bourbon that is there. That is sort of like very rich vanilla. It's very, very addictive. So I started sort of like imagining all of these elements that will go into the fragrance to sort of like capture that moment between those two people.

16:29That's so lovely and so beautiful to hear that. I mean, I think that one of the things that stands out also for me is that all of the fragrances in the maker's collection are beautifully genderless and they're very immersive. So I want to ask, you know, do you approach each scent like a character or like a place or both? It's for me, when I think about the fragrance, it has to be a story. It has to be. I have to imagine the story. It's either the story that I, in some ways, experienced in this type of setting or whatever that memorable moment in my life, or I can fantasize about it. It always starts, to me, it always starts with a story.

17:12That's the only way I can imagine it. It's a place. It's whatever you were at the moment. It always starts with that. I don't wake up and say, oh, I could smell rose and I can smell jasmine. I can smell this. And this is what I want to do. No, there is always have to be a story. There has got to be in order to create an emotion and the fragrance, you literally have to have a story that also connected to some emotion. Right. No, that makes a lot of sense, actually. Always, always is. Yeah. No, you know, what's really fascinating to me, and I think this is such a beautiful part of your brand, is that you both have created something that everybody can enjoy, you know, and I think that's very unique.

17:59Because in the world of fragrance right now, what I see as a consumer is a lot of fragrances that are just either their price point is just too high, you know, and normal people can't experience them. Or they're just outside of the scope of like, you know, understanding or connecting with people, right? There's just too much going on, it seems sometimes. So where was that balance for you with your creations where it was like, you know what, we want this to evoke this kind of response. We want people to like with lover, for example, you when you beautifully describe the experience of two people connecting, you want people to feel that.

18:36But then you don't want it to be something that is only very niche to a few people. Right. It's universal. It's something everybody can get behind. What was that balance like? I mean, what does it take to really strike that balance when you're creating? I mean, I wouldn't talk about the creating the juice, but I just want to say conceptually. yeah you know I think the part is that you know and this is what's kind of getting incredible is that you know generally you come up with something in your head and you don't necessarily have a real destination I think the fact that there is a living breathing source of inspiration is like a great beginning and then it allows you to fly right because you know when you think about people experiencing things when we travel in hotels and you know whether you take on your own identity or where you do a hidden part of yourself but you know when you kind of have a possibility of a challenge or a new experience you know that is an incredible endorphin you know you get excited you know your heart rate fastens you know you're ready to accept and experience new things and whether that was something that will change you eventually or whether it's something that you know in some way turn maybe the flow of your life or your mood, et cetera.

19:52And I think having that as like a base, you know, line of idea, like the place, whether it's real or imagined, you know, yes, there's a real maker hotel, but it will be very easy to imagine how you feel or felt in a place that you had an incredible memory of. Yeah. I think this is like, when you think about that, your palette is already painted with that, when you have already a built-in interest to explore certain things that you can, not just when you like, you know, went out to walk your dog, right? Right. You take away the prosaic. I think this is a very universal idea. I think all of people can really come to connect.

20:30It doesn't matter what type of hotel, for example, somebody traveled with, you know, but if they had experienced an amazing room service or a certain like touch of service that just made it remember, or maybe it was just a memory of being somewhere with somebody special, even when you were there by yourself and just you thinking about the experiences you had all of these are really emotional aspects of what makes us human and i think with the olfactory nerve being such an important sense of our like living it's not as complex to tune into it or to tap into it when you can activate something that really turns somebody's brain on right yeah yeah exactly paint a beautiful picture that is offset by like very unexpected sensorial experience I think you are creating a very particular home a very specific niche how you would really express and carry and wear that fragrance yeah absolutely no I think that's beautifully said and it's very fascinating to me because I think we're living in a world right now where everything's so fast you know it's so fast-paced it's everybody's running around and rushing around and I think when I look at your the brand you're creating and the space you're creating I see it as you're giving people the time and it's like allowing people to take a minute and experience everything and so I think that's where like the concept of having the hotel and having the fragrances with it and this whole package deal I mean it really evokes this idea of like you need to pause in life you know and like take a minute to experience whatever it is that you're in.

22:06And so I want you to speak, Alina, a little bit to that concept, if you don't mind, about this idea. Can I add just one more thing? Of course. I want to give an example. So we have, you know, fragrance, for example, like Naked, right? Yeah. And it was very much inspired by, as I started by telling you about the first fragrance called Fire and the couple in the fireplace and they having this amazing time with each other. And then it could be them who the night proceeded and it'd be, you know, the magic continued and they interacted intimately with each other and continued this incredible sort of like a moment that they shared together and, and, and took it further.

22:49And, and, and, and it started something that I think a lot of people could relate to when you, when you, with somebody and you embracing somebody and how your sensor start getting to being intertwined, how the sheets that you're wrapping both of yourself into sort of absorbs your smell. And sort of like the exchange of this pheromones that's happening with two individuals, it creates its own concoction. And that was in The Fragrance Light Naked. This is exactly the moment that has inspired me. And it's particularly, and if you read the story, it's called, even the story that's associated with that is really such is that the cool light of dawn melts past the edge of the edge of the curtain and will come alive together only here right now between these sheets like velvet in this magical moment in my memories forever so this is where i refer to so even even if somebody who is not there or never and ever will be in the hotel.

23:54But that story that sort of like triggered that for that moment happening there, I believe that it happened to a lot of people and they can somehow relate to it and start imagining it and said, okay, now I'm wondering what it smells like. Right, right. I love that. I really love that. And I think it's very, very rare to actually see someone being able to describe I mean, all of the fragrances are so beautifully, like, kind of, you know, the words really depict this beautiful scene in everyone's mind. I mean, when you read it, you can really understand, like, this is what I'm experiencing when you smell them.

24:29So the senses are tied very closely together, you know, with the description and then also the experience you have, like the olfactory experience you have. I know that recently you launched a new fragrance, right? The Revel is new. So can you talk to us a little bit about that? What inspired Revel? Revel is another, you know, so, so, cause I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking it, first of all, in, in, at the maker. Yeah. And because that's a big source of inspiration, people always celebrate things always. and the maker is becoming sort of like the hotel, the destination where people propose to each other, celebrates anniversaries.

25:13We had weddings in there, very beautiful, very, very special, very intimate weddings. Birthdays, every special occasion for people, we see it all in so many times. In every weekend, it would be with somebody proposing or it's a big anniversary or there's always that celebration that's happening there. And people always treat it as a very, very special place, as a destination to celebrate it. So that's one. But also, if somebody that was about to get married and that beautiful young lady, she wanted to have a special fragrance for her wedding. And for me, taking sort of like the cues of like what I see at the maker, and also what that I create something for the wedding with fragrance that start that feeling very uplifting and bring sort of like true joy.

26:14I made a fragrance for her and she absolutely loved it. And that started sort of like, for me, going into that story of like, yeah, I'm experiencing it here myself. So a lot of people actually can have a fragrance that can sort of like commemorate their moments of celebrations and bottle it, something that's so joyful. But it's very much was inspired by that celebratory moments that I see at the maker all the time. And for me, I started thinking, okay, well, how do I make that fragrance that's really going to come across as being joyful and happy and sunny? In the end, the fragrance that I created for this young woman, it's not the same fragrance.

27:07It had the inspiration, but it's not the same. It has similarity, but it took me way further after I've done it. and the inspiration was again, you know, the maker and what's happening inside. I love it. I love it so much. And I, you know, one, I have one last question and this is, I think very important to a lot of us, you know, consumers, because I love to layer fragrance. I think it's something that, you know, for me, when I grew up, I grew up in a household where fragrance was very central, you know, to how my mother did things and, you know, just the way my how it smelled and everything. And so layering comes very, I don't know, it's like second nature to me with everything, right?

27:47And so with right now, the way that fragrance world is, there's a lot of people who are coming out with all in one fragrances. I mean, I think when you think you can layer something, it just turns out to be not great. But I've noticed with your collection, the entire collection of perfumes, they're very layerable, and they work beautifully together. They work like almost synergistically, you know, when you layer them. Was that intentional or how did you, I mean, how was that aspect created? Yes. And it's a very, very good question. First of all, it's interesting, you know, we're calling it layering.

28:23I like to care of pairing. I have a very particular way how I always like to mix fragrances because very rarely I wear one. I wear more than one. but but the way i do it i never layer it one on top of another because that never works that never for my opinion would know what no perfectly works because you take two compositions and you're mixing them together and it could be very disproportionate and you never know where it's going to land in terms of the dry down so typically the way how i do it is that i spray one on one one side of my shoulder the other fragrance on the other side of the shoulder one on the back of my neck, one on my chest area.

29:06And I let those two fragrances to start communicating with each other, and it creates an aura. So to me, that is, I find it to be the best experience of mixing fragrances. So that's one. Second, it's when I designed the collection, I wanted to do it in such a way that each fragrance will have its own individual personality. but there's always a thing that's going to be weaved through the whole collection. And that is the sense, you know, the sensuality of the expressions of the note. They have to be very sensual. And it means is that they have to be anchored always with beautiful woods, some great spices, you know, pheromone, all of them have that.

29:52And that's why when you mix them, and this is exactly what it is, yes in some ways it was done on purpose because i wanted to make sure that the collection is very much interconnected although each one of the fragrances is very different but in our collection of fragrances it's very easy to mix them with other to layer them to to layer them with other because because of that because again there's a some common denominator particularly on the dry down that it works all the way across and and you can layer any fragrance within the collection whichever way you want and it's always going to end up working because uh because particularly the bottom part of the notes which is the dry down which has that I always spend a lot of time on that to make sure that it grounds it in a certain way one but it really keeps the sensuality of the fragrance alive.

30:51Absolutely. Yeah, no, I've definitely noticed that. I've definitely noticed that when I've tried them and I've played around a lot, you know, with all of them and they're so beautiful to layer and they come through in such a unique way. I think, you know, when you layer certain fragrances, sometimes it just doesn't, I don't know, it mixes in a way where if you are somebody who likes like a more fresh citrusy or, you know, kind of like the uplifting notes if you layer it with something else those kind of things go away in a lot of times but it doesn't happen with your collection it's very much cohesive and it works together beautifully so i i really appreciate that as somebody who is a consumer of the fragrances and i love them so much so thank you thank you you're very to have some of these you know picks and left suggestions on pairings through some of our you know digital communications just to kind to drive people towards like the the right idea of how to pair fragrances you know why you would you know add this one to this one in order to create the character that may take you further but I think it is it's it's really in that and you know the part it's obviously I've worked with Lev for over 30 years and you know the one thing that I discovered just when I met him personally in the beginning and then knowing and looking through this is that you know because he has a very very very unique sense of smell that actually he can visualize smells you know it's i think it's fascinating it's like really speaking the language of fragrance truly beyond the idea beyond the story but truly like where ingredient and like this sensorial experience is connected to that i asked and i know i'm talking about you love in front of you but thank you it's like i always wonder when he's working with you know he's working with different perfumers across industry I mean he's known for his sense of smell and his sense of direction and architectural fragrance and design of that but you know like it's like how do you know when you're going through so many you know work with how do you know when something finally is right for what you know you're creating and he said like he imagined this is in his head and he knows what you smell like and when it comes to his nose when he actually smells it that's when he knows and i think that is just such a crazy thing because it's so abstract you know yeah yeah a lot of times you know when a certain fragrance comes and the idea is it's not like okay you know this is this very different this isn't like you're creating a fragrance you know a lemon fragrance you know what i mean you create something that makes you feel free and libertine and doing whatever you can and something that's flighty and all of the ideas were like this story and the notes are so interconnected so even before we as a team start smelling what he's working on you know a lot of times like we're surprised because we don't know what to expect but then somehow it makes so much sense that that's the direction you know and it makes the maker fragrances so unique and have a very particular language it's a really particular style and i think the industry had noticed that too so it was really great and you know actor also that there is in in terms of the fragrance the way how it's funny the way it works in my head and maybe because I used to dream a lot about things and of course I dream about the when I dream about the fragrance I actually could dream it in color how I could measure the I could see the fragrance as a color and then I start seeing it as what notes could need to come to to the fragrance and it's in my head so when I brief it and I work with different perfumers we have a very unique way of working together because I actually bring to the table.

34:30A lot of the times I actually bring some suggestive compositions in the fragrance because I could smell it in my head. I know what the fragrance needs to smell like. And until I don't hit it right, I hit it like where it's in my head, the journey is going to continue. The development is going to continue until like, I remember The Lover, I worked on it for a year. I was obsessed with this fragrance. I wanted it to be very, very particular. I wanted it to be like all of our fragrances, you know, they gender inclusive, they for everybody. I wanted to make sure that it's in such a place. It really could be loved by people and people could really relate to it.