Obsessed with the power of fragrance? Us too. That’s why we launched Scents of Self, a digital column dedicated to exploring the unique relationship between perfume, people, and personal style.
You don’t need me to tell you that Blake Lively has had an intense year. Her legal drama is everywhere. But while we’ve all been sitting on our phones watching her name dominate celebrity news cycles, Blake has been busy dreaming up Blake Brown’s next act: fragrance.
For the uninitiated, Blake Brown is Blake’s Target-exclusive brand, which launched last summer with a range of hair products, including shampoos, masks, treatments, and stylers.
Say what you will about celebrity beauty brands, Blake Brown is actually good—especially for the price point. The formulas are affordable (all around $20), made largely with clean ingredients, and shockingly effective at smoothing and softening my frizzy, color-treated hair without weighing it down. They also smell incredible, and the fragrance really lingers on my hair throughout the day. Given this, it only makes sense that Blake and her team took the brand’s three signature scents—Sandalwood Vanille, Wild Nectar Santal, and Bergamot Woods—and bottled them up into three hair and body mists.
I got an early preview of the new mists plus the chance to catch up with Blake on Zoom and hear all about the launch and her thoughts on all things fragrance. Keep reading for my full convo with Blake, including why she prefers mists to perfumes, the memories she associates with specific scents, and why music and fragrance have more in common than you may think.
Shop the new hair and body mists here:
Blake Brown Sandalwood Vanille Hair and Body Refresh Mist
Fragrance is having a moment. I’ve read that it’s projected to have more growth than any other beauty category this year. I’m curious—what do you think is fueling our collective obsession with scent?
I wonder how much of that growth is mists versus perfumes. When I was a teenager, we had body mists. I always had them in my purse or backpack.
Ah, yes the Bath & Body Works era.
Yes! Bath & Body Works Cucumber Melon, Victoria’s Secret Love Spell. Mists were just the thing. It feels like they went away for almost 20 years, but now I use our hair and body mists all the time. Sometimes it feels like an aggressive move to refresh your perfume depending on where you’re going during the day. Like, if you’re going into a restaurant or are in an elevator, perfume is just too potent for that. But there’s something about body mists that’s an endorphin hit. You feel refreshed. You feel a little sparkly. It gives you a little energy and a little pep in your step. I feel like teenagers are responsible for body mists being so popular. We’re millennials, but when we were teens, we were responsible for it. Well, I don’t know that you are…
Yes, I’m a millennial, haha.
We were real drivers of business when we were teenagers. And now we’re looking at the younger generation and thinking, Yeah, I missed these mists. I’m glad they’re back.
Okay, so let’s talk about the specific hair and body mist scents. They are the same as the hair products. Did you know when you started developing these scents for the hair products that they would eventually turn into mists? Or was it just like, “Oh, these scents are really beautiful, and this feels like the right next step”?
So we never intended to turn the scents into the hair and body mists. When we were developing the hair products, it was really important to me for them to have notes I would want to wear if I were buying a perfume. Even though all of the hair products I was using previously smelled lovely, I couldn’t understand why they smelled nothing like the notes that I would choose if I were going to buy a perfume. Whatever is in my hair, that’s what I end up smelling the most during the day. It’s like Herbal Essences or Aqua Net. When I think of my teenage years, I can’t even remember what they felt like on my hair, but I will never forget what they smelled like.
Then our community was like, “Can you please, please make a fragrance?” And we thought, Well, we did. It’s in the products. But people just kept requesting it. And so we explored it, and we were able to make the mists in a way that we felt very proud of. The bottles are beautiful. They feel like a retro, classic perfume bottle.
Have you heard of scent-maxxing? It’s when people layer and mix and match a bunch of different perfumes and scented products. Is this something you’d subscribe to, or do you think it’s overkill?
This is interesting. It reminds me of a great episode of the podcast This American Life from years ago on the sound of silence. You’re in your house, you close your eyes, and you think it’s silent. There’s no sound, but you’ll start to hear all these different sounds. You hear the hum of the TV, the sound of the air conditioning, outside sounds, and you realize that your silence is actually an entire chorus of sound. And sometimes sounds are happening in your life that are creating friction or tension and you don’t even realize it. It’s an electrical hum or buzz, and it creates stress and anxiety. And some choruses create calm. I think this also exists with fragrances. We think that there’s no fragrance around us, but there’s the hand soap that you’re using, the cleaning supplies that you’re using, your perfume, your shampoo, your toilet cleaner, a candle, something you’re cooking, your windows are open and you can smell what’s happening outside. Just like there’s a chorus of sound, there’s also a chorus of fragrance. I find myself most calm and most peaceful when there’s no tension in my fragrance chorus, so I tend to gravitate toward things that complement each other and layer well with each other. And that’s why, you know, our fragrances are buildable, and they have notes of different things that I like in my life. They have notes of things that I like in candles or things that I like in hand soap or things that I like in other aspects of my life. So there’s a sense of harmony, because whether we are calling it scent-maxxing or not, we’re interacting with scents all day every day.
I guess this is all really personal, right? Like, whether your fragrance chorus creates harmony or tension is going to be different depending on the person or the environment that you’re in?
Yes. An architect that I’m a big fan of once said to me, “You like what you like.” It was just such a simple thing. It didn’t feel that profound, but in the moment, you’re like, “Oh, that’s interesting!” Now I see it come up all the time in my life. You like what you like. You’re drawn to what you’re drawn to.
That’s an interesting point to make, especially because specific types of scents are so popular right now. Different notes, like vanilla or cherry, trend all the time. But who really cares if you don’t actually like how it smells?
Everybody’s calling everything out as a trend now. There’s such a wealth of information. Everybody is creating content all day every day. But really, for me, I’m always most drawn to the things that aren’t trendy but to the things that are timeless and the things that are lasting. So again, it’s about liking what you like. If you’re somebody who loves to follow trends and you’re someone who loves to try them, then that’s for you. And if you’re someone who is like, I’m gonna stick to what I know, I’m a loyalist or I’m gonna trust my friend’s opinion or loved one’s opinion over chasing a trend online, that’s good too. I think it’s all about whatever works for you.
Scent is so nostalgic. What are some of your earliest memories with perfume or even something as simple as the smell of a candle?
The smell of my mom’s perfume. Even her hairspray. Or just her skin. Living in California, there was a saltiness to her sweat—it never smelled bad to me. It just was like my mom’s skin—I know what it felt like, I know what it smelled like. You don’t forget the smell of your parents or your loved ones. My sister once got me a Gap candle called Autumn that was so special. I still have it. I can’t burn it. I’ve had it since I was 6 years old. She was doing a TV show in Georgia at the time. I’d go visit her and she would burn that candle and then she let me take it home. We would order snickerdoodles at night. And I took home that candle, and every time I smell it, I’m like, “Doesn’t it smell like snickerdoodles?” And people were like, “Where are you getting snickerdoodles?” It doesn’t actually smell like snickerdoodles, but to me, it’s the memory. Most of my most memorable fragrances are based on family members.
In the future, what do you think your kids will say or think that their mom smelled like? How will they describe your smell?
My 5-year-old is always smelling my pillow. She’ll be like, “I love this so much. It smells like you, Mama.” She never describes fragrances. She describes feelings or textures. She’ll be like, “It smells warm, and it smells soft, and it smells cozy.” It’s never, like, vanilla or coconut or wood.
Being a part of the beauty industry, we have a sort of advanced vocabulary for how we speak about scents. But really, it’s raw and it evokes feelings, like warm and comfortable.
Fragrance is a feeling. It’s an experience. It’s a memory, either one that you’ve had or that you’ve yet to have. To me, it’s also a time travel machine. When you smell something that smells like something from your childhood or from a decade ago or from a loved one, it brings you right back there in a way that’s so potent. Songs do the same thing. Songs and fragrance, yeah, they just time travel you. I know it seems a little bit eye-rolling, talking about fragrance as a feeling, but that’s why it is so important and shows up so many places in our lives. I’m really proud that you can layer and personalize the mists for yourself and whatever mood you’re in or what sort of character or persona you want to put forward.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Lauren Balsamo is the beauty director at Cosmopolitan where she writes, edits, and produces all types of beauty content—from product reviews to personal essays and trend reports. She has covered beauty for more than a decade at Cosmopolitan. Follow her on Instagram.
