APFR (Apotheke Fragrance) | Japanese Fragrance-Making Inspired by Encounters with Other Cultures

I wanted to make things myself and sell them myself, after all.

Keita Sugasawa

APFR (Apotheke Fragrance) is a Japanese fragrance brand founded by Keita Sugasawa in 2011. It began with his fascination with fragrance shops he encountered overseas and his desire to create something with his own hands and bring it directly to customers.

Contents

Basic Information
The Founder and Origins of the Brand
The Brand's Approach to Fragrance
References

Basic Information

Brand: APFR (Apotheke Fragrance / APOTHEKE FRAGRANCE)
Founded: 2011
Founder: Keita Sugasawa
Origin: Chiba Prefecture, Japan
Official Website: APFR

The Founder and Origins of the Brand

Discovering Middle Eastern Fragrance Culture Through Fashion

Sugasawa's involvement in club DJing led him into sales for a fashion brand, a job that took him overseas. In Harlem, New York, and Singapore's Arab Street, he discovered fragrance shops where bottles of perfume oils lined the shelves and shopkeepers blended scents according to their customers' preferences.

What fascinated him was not simply the fragrances themselves, but the atmosphere of the shops and the interactions between the people inside them.

From a Resin Trading Company to Candle-Making Experiments

After leaving the fashion industry at 27, Sugasawa joined a trading company specializing in synthetic resin materials.

Although he gained experience in product planning, development, and sales, he felt frustrated by how difficult it was to see what the raw materials he handled would eventually become. He wanted to make something himself and deliver it to people whose faces he could see. This desire gradually merged with his interest in fragrance.

After work, he taught himself candle-making through trial and error. Simply adding fragrance oils to wax did not produce the desired results. Some experiments failed so badly that the entire candle caught fire. He realized he needed to understand both the properties of the materials and how candles burn.

Founding the Brand in 2011 While Working for a Fragrance Company

In 2010, Sugasawa joined a fragrance company that sourced natural aromatic materials from around the world. Working in manufacturing while studying organic chemistry, he developed a deeper understanding of raw materials and their processing.

In 2011, while still employed there, he founded APOTHEKE FRAGRANCE. He worked at the company during the day and made candles in his room after returning home, sometimes continuing until nearly 3 a.m.

He gradually expanded his collection of fragrance materials using his salary and income from candle sales. As a former DJ, he likened the pleasure of collecting aromatic ingredients to collecting records.

A Friend's Wedding and a Retail Partnership

Not long after founding the brand, Sugasawa made candles as wedding favors for a close friend's wedding.

Packaged in black, the candles caught the attention of someone connected with ACME, a furniture and interior furnishings retailer. An inquiry followed the wedding, leading to a retail partnership.

Because Sugasawa still worked at the fragrance company during the day, he had limited opportunities to approach retailers himself. Instead, candles created for someone close to him opened an unexpected sales channel.

The relationship with ACME later developed into a collaboration on original fragrances.

As the range of scents and product formats expanded, production outgrew Sugasawa's room and eventually required a dedicated factory. What began with candles developed into a broader fragrance brand encompassing incense and room sprays.

The Brand's Approach to Fragrance

In-House Blending and Repeated Testing

APFR began with the idea of handling everything from production to sales on a small scale.

Our approach was to make small quantities by hand.

Keita Sugasawa

This philosophy has continued as the brand's production system has evolved.

Fragrance development involves defining a theme, creating a formula, blending materials, and repeatedly testing prototypes. Research and development takes place in a laboratory separate from the mass-production factory. Candles undergo repeated lighting and extinguishing tests at consistent times to examine how their fragrance changes while burning.

APFR uses both natural and synthetic aromatic materials. Synthetic ingredients allow the brand to express scenes and sensations beyond the literal reproduction of botanical scents.

Today, APFR combines its own manufacturing expertise with collaboration with specialized partners.

The 2023 Rebranding and Traditional Japanese Colors

In March 2023, APOTHEKE FRAGRANCE underwent a visual rebranding as APFR.

Its packaging shifted from an emphasis on handmade aesthetics toward a simpler, more restrained design. Drawing on traditional Japanese colors, the new palette incorporates subtle distinctions between shades such as hainezumi (ash gray) and shironezumi (pale gray).

Sugasawa is interested in the Japanese aesthetic concept of sensai bimyō, or delicate subtlety. Rather than relying on bold colors, it creates depth through slight differences.

But fragrance itself remains the main focus.

Keita Sugasawa

Packaging and retail spaces serve to complement the scents. Glass domes created by glass artist Masao Kosumi for APFR's directly operated store likewise provide a way for visitors to engage more closely with fragrance.

White Tea and Blue Hour: Inspirations Behind the Scents

Travel is indispensable to my inspiration for fragrances.

Keita Sugasawa

APFR draws inspiration not only from plants, but also from travel and music.

White Tea was inspired by a resort spa in Southeast Asia and the aroma of white tea served during a journey. Its composition combines bergamot and mandarin with jasmine, ylang-ylang, thyme, and ginger.

The incense comes in bamboo-core stick form. Rather than reproducing the scent of a single tea leaf, White Tea brings together multiple ingredients to evoke a fragrance encountered while traveling.

Blue Hour, meanwhile, evokes the atmosphere between dusk and nightfall. It was also influenced by jazz saxophonist Stanley Turrentine's album Blue Hour.

For Sugasawa, a fragrance's name offers an entry point into its inspiration, not a complete narrative. By leaving part of the story untold, he allows room for the user's own memories and imagination.