On bottling lightning, and brand storytelling.
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One of my favorite things about covering the grooming industry for over a decade, is that I’ve seen so many brands start small and transform into something that affects so many others. It is always the founders whose vision and drive determines their success, and these makers come from many different backgrounds, too (barbers, talent managers, self-taught perfumers…).
Alex Brands is one of my favorite new founders. He’s a brand expert—and yes, his last name is actually Brands, though it may as well be his LLC name, too: The Brooklynite has a background in bringing brands to life in a large-scale way. And now, Alex is channeling his experience into Rite of Way, his self-funded fragrance venture; to date, both launches have paired him with indie perfumer Joey Rosin.
Still in their first year, Rite of Way has launched two scents, both with elementally-inspired approaches. He gets into that here, in a snippet from a recent chat I shared with Alex. You can pour over more of his POV in the Q&A below, or check out Rite of Way as they continue to build out the scent line.
Blue Print (Adam Hurly): You’re stepping into the fragrance space as a brand expert, not a scent expert. How has that been for you?
Alex Brands: I’ve been pleasantly surprised by fragrance as a space. It’s a consumable art form, and I put it in the same category as restaurant-level food, wine, and music. Of all the product types I could work on, fragrance feels the most special. Because I come from a brand-strategy background, there’s so much room for storytelling here.
The brand isn’t me; it sits adjacent to me, and I care for it. It’s like tending a small plant and hoping it becomes a tree. You nurture it, stay patient, and let it grow at its own pace.
Blue Print: What inspired your first two scents, Outer Realm and Rising Sun?
Brands: Each fragrance is built around an archetype from mythology. The first, Outer Realm, was designed around the idea of chaos. We wanted something with real attitude and energy, something polarizing. The brief was literally “chaos,” and the top note is a lightning accord. The idea was to capture the feeling of riding the lightning, of harnessing power. It’s the scent I wear when I have a big meeting or date; I call it an elegant smelling salt.
The second fragrance, Rising Sun, is built around the archetype of the king. There’s a great book called King, Warrior, Magician, Lover about the four masculine archetypes, and the king is the hardest to achieve because it represents the divine masculine in full maturity. We asked, “How do you bottle that feeling?” It’s big, warm, and round—like being in the room with someone charismatic who brings you in for a hug. The name is a homonym for “rising son,” as in the prince becoming king.
Blue Print: Both scents have elemental themes: lightning and the sun. How do you turn ideas like that into actual notes while keeping everything natural-smelling?
Brands: It takes a lot of experimentation. We work backwards from the feeling we want the wearer to have. Lightning, for instance, is a natural manifestation of power, and through history it’s carried incredible symbolism. The same goes for the sun: warmth, gravity, charisma. We build mood boards, pull songs and quotes, and create a sensory environment for our perfumer Joey [Rosin] to step into. From there, he interprets that feeling into scent. The guardrails we set were simple: nothing should smell synthetic, and everything should feel elemental.
Blue Print: How has that creative partnership evolved with Joey Rosin as perfumer?
Brands: Each round gets easier. The first brief was hard, intentionally so, but over time we’ve built a shared vocabulary; why I like certain things, why he likes others. Every process has improved our communication. I think the upcoming third scent really shows that growth, which we are finalizing. I’m excited for that third scent, because once you have three, you can build discovery kits and broader brand opportunities. People start to see the through line; a trilogy that shows what ties them together while revealing how each one stands apart.
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