2 Tesla and Yeezy Veterans Are Creating the Next Big Cologne Brand

In some arenas — food, especially — all-natural is the ultimate adjective. It’s proof the product meets some arbitrary threshold we equate with quality, or even that it’s good for you. One would assume it’s the same in the world of luxury colognes, where scents are often graded by how much they smell like the real thing, no matter how abstract the real thing is. “Wet stone,” for example, is a favorite for brands. It’s something…but what is it, really?

Most luxury cologne listings mention several notes, often at the top, middle and base of the formula. These notes, especially if they’re the highlights of a higher-end cologne, often are derived from natural ingredients: extracts and essential oils. As nice as they smell, there’s a problem: These high-volume extractions aren’t good for the environment.

“We don’t condone natural extraction. We believe we’re better off preserving nature, as it’s our lifeline,” Rodrigo Caula, a Yeezy and Tesla alum and co-founder and CEO of Aeir, a sleek new luxury fragrance brand that eschews natural ingredients — like extracts and essential oils — in favor of synthetic, or, as Caula calls them, molecular ingredients. “It doesn’t make sense to chop down an 80-year-old Palo Santo tree to extract its oils for simple pleasures. The scale in which the luxury industry operates makes it unsustainable, and we think our approach can help inspire a new generation to consume differently.”

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When Aeir launches this week, and in Neiman Marcus in November, the Mini Discovery Set will foreshadow four fragrances that will be available in full-size refillable (and recyclable) bottles made from aerospace-grade aluminum later this fall: Wet Stone, Grand Rose, Suede and Virgin Olive. The pack will retail for a fair $69 for all four, but it’ll jump to $180 for the 15ml bottle. It’ll cost $120 to refill it once it’s empty.

“Synthetics get a bad rap,” Caula explains. “Everything is technically synthetic — [a] combination of different elements into a whole. We’re sourcing our raw ingredients without petroleum, making them biodegradable in nature. In the future we imagine bio-fabricating every element of our formulas and packaging, from fermented bacteria for our bioplastics to carbon captured ethanol… It’s like the Impossible Burger of fragrance.”

Caula makes this comparison because of Impossible’s ability to isolate their products from their origin — i.e. what they’re pretending to be. Aeir hopes to do the same for the most common fragrance notes. Their Extrait Molecular de Parfums use synthetic ingredients like bioengineered ambergris, rose, rhubarb, iris and olive oil.

“Currently we’re utilizing a blend of various molecules to create scent palettes that can be easily understood and very wearable,” Caula says. “The challenge is creating a range of perfumes that accurately represent the botanical ingredient. Rose, for instance, was quite difficult as the molecules are created to replicate specific rose notes, where we aimed to create a modern interpretation of the scent without being too typically sweet or perfectly floral.”

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By utilizing biodegradable synthetics instead of all-natural ingredients, Caula and his co-founder, Enrico Pietra, are also able alter the raw ingredient to better complement other ingredients. They then condense the cocktail down past an eau de Parfum, which means there’s no water in the formula — hence why there’s no “eau” in the name.

If done well, and these are, synthetic-based scents can be just as complex as all-natural ones, scent expert and creator of Arquiste, Carlos Huber, says. “There are more and more raw materials that are synthetic that are not toxic, are good for the environment and are fantastic and beautiful,” Huber explains.

“We wanted to challenge the industry by creating the world’s first fully biosynthetic perfume,” Caula says. “Previously working as luxury designers, we understood that we were participating in an industry heavily associated with opulence, that uses rare and scarce materials.”

As they say, acceptance is the first step, and Aeir is definitely a luxury brand. That’s why Caula and Pietra felt they had to do their part to change the perception — and expectations — of luxury brands.

They want to “reimagine the beauty industry,” Pietra says. “Our backgrounds in luxury and sustainable material development guided our vision to create the world’s first carbon negative luxury brand, beginning with fragrance.”

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