Fascent: Wear Your Many Facets in Fragrance with a Rising Parisian Niche Brand

“FASCENT was born out of weariness with a traditional perfume industry that was exclusive, formulaic, overly polished, opaque, and resistant to change.”
— Fanny Fortin Descamps, Fascent co-founder

Essential Information
The Founders and the Origins of the Brand
What Defines the Brand
The Fragrance Lineup
By the Way…

Essential Information

Founded: 2023

Founders: Fanny Fortin Descamps and Edwina Réthoré

Official website: https://fascent.com

The Founders and the Origins of the Brand

Two Women Meet, Sharing a Sense That Something Is Amiss

Fascent’s story begins with two women, each with a long career in the perfume industry, sharing one question: “Why is niche fragrance so distant, so difficult, and so selective about whom it welcomes?”

Co-founder Fanny Fortin Descamps entered the world of perfume after graduating from business school. She then honed her career at leading names in the industry, including global fragrance-materials company Firmenich, CPL Aromas, Parfums de la Bastide, and luxury perfume house Guerlain. Now the brand’s creative director, she says in an interview:

“After working in this industry for years, I realized that it was out of step with the expectations of new consumers. More and more people are looking to enjoy perfume differently and placing importance on the connection between ‘smell’ and ‘emotion.’”

The other co-founder, Edwina Réthoré, is a specialist in business development and brand strategy. Her career includes LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), Diptyque, and Merci Handy, followed by a role as Head of Revenue at Nuud. This “hybrid perspective,” spanning the world of perfume and the forefront of digital beauty, led her to Fascent.

Breaking the Spell of “One Perfume for Life”

The two challenged the “signature-scent myth” long rooted in perfume culture: the idea of “finding your one fragrance and wearing it for the rest of your life.” Beautiful though that philosophy may be, modern consumers, especially Generation Z, could also see it as a rigid norm. According to market-research company Circana’s 2023 study, 83% of Gen Z in the United States used fragrance, and the proportion of heavy users, those wearing it at least three times a week, was higher than in other generations. This is a generation that changes fragrances with its mood and the occasion and enjoys layering them.

Fanny continues in the interview:

“I want to bring perfume back to the center of life. Not an expensive luxury displayed on a shelf gathering dust, but a tool we enjoy using every day because it lifts us up. Fascent’s wish is for everyone to use scent more spontaneously, lightly, and freely. ‘One perfume for life’: that era is over.”

“Cool Luxury,” Born in Paris in 2023

The two therefore left their respective positions and launched Fascent in Paris in 2023. According to an October 2025 article in Beauty Independent, the launch followed 18 months of preparation and investment of approximately USD 230,000 at the time, assembled from grants, bank financing, and low-interest loans for entrepreneurs. Around a year later, they raised approximately USD 115,000 in additional bank financing.

Their goal was “Cool Luxury,” a seemingly paradoxical position offering the same quality as high-end perfume houses at a price accessible to everyone. Descamps explains:

“What we want to embody is freedom. The freedom to play, to collect, to combine, to wear on Monday the perfume you had saved for Saturday night. In our view, everyone has one personality but many facets. We felt it was important to bring all those facets forward and enhance them.”

The vision quickly resonated with the market. The same article reports an extraordinary 435% year-on-year increase in direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales over the year from September 2024 to September 2025. In 2025, the brand also expanded into major US retailers Arielle Shoshana, Revolve, Luckyscent, and Credo Beauty. It made its Japanese debut on June 13 that year, with sales beginning through NOSE SHOP. The article put projected 2026 sales at approximately USD 2.3 million.

What Defines the Brand

The Philosophy of Scent: Dialogue with Perfumers and Mapping Emotions

Fascent does not have an exclusive in-house “nose,” or perfumer. As Descamps herself says, “I’m not a perfumer. The perfumers I work with are the real creators, blending Fascent’s juices, the essences of its perfumes.”

Her role is to create “inspiration mood boards.” Natural ingredients, colors, textures, clothing, music, and moments from everyday life provide starting points. Working with the creative teams at fragrance houses CPL Aromas and Firmenich, she translates emotions into scent.

The philosophy within the fragrances is distilled into “three pillars”: “Smell good,” meaning high olfactory quality; “Feel good,” feeling good through the power of natural ingredients; and “Feel like yourself.” Through this threefold experience, the brand aims to make perfume not merely an adornment, but a mirror of everyday emotions.

Réthoré puts it this way:

“We see perfume as a lifestyle tool that enhances individuality. Not a rigid ritual, but a gesture of personal style.”

All Fascent fragrances are also genderless and designed both to be worn alone and to be layered.

The Philosophy of Bottles and Packaging: Giving Form to Movement and Freedom

The first thing that catches the eye on a Fascent bottle is its organic, asymmetric cap. Descamps designed it under the inspiration of “movement, freedom, and things that change,” shaping the curves herself in modeling clay before turning them into a 3D model.

“Fascent is a universe where nothing is fixed and nothing is settled. I’m strongly drawn to things that move, that are free and changeable. Fascent’s cap embodies this vision: an organic, asymmetric shape formed by movement.”

The cap is manufactured by 3D-printing a bioplastic derived from cornstarch. While its design minimizes environmental impact, it is also decorative enough to make you want to display it on a sideboard.

A Commitment to Sustainability

Fascent’s commitment to environmental responsibility extends beyond the packaging. Its bottles use PCR (post-consumer recycled) glass, while the outer boxes use FSC-certified paper and water-based inks.

One of its most innovative initiatives is its “refill system.” The 30 ml spray bottles have removable pumps and can be refilled by breaking open a small glass ampoule and pouring the contents directly into the bottle. By eliminating the need to buy a new bottle each time the perfume runs out, the system allows a significant reduction in waste.

For its formulas, the brand states a policy of avoiding synthetic CMR ingredients of concern, meaning carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic-to-reproduction substances, and known endocrine disruptors, as well as excluding colorants, UV filters, and additives. All formulas are designed to be vegan.

The Fragrance Lineup

This article introduces seven eaux de parfum from the lineup as of March 2026. Each is offered in 30 ml, and all are genderless and designed with layering in mind.

The brand provides a ten-question quiz on its website using the “OSTMR” method, short for Olfactory Stimulation Therapy and Memory Reconstruction, to help first-time visitors intuitively find a fragrance that suits them. Descamps describes the quiz as “a starting point, not a rule.”

The Five Founding Fragrances: Launched in 2023

The brand launched five fragrances at once in 2023.

Milky No Way
A fragrance themed around “celebration, innocence, and mystery.” This warm, woody, milky creation unfolds from top notes of black pepper and hazelnut milk through a heart of whipped-cream accord and tonka bean to a base of sandalwood, amber, and cashmere wood. Descamps herself describes it as “a festive fragrance full of carefree mystery, dressed in sandalwood, hazelnut milk, and black pepper.”

Radical Softness
With the scent of skin itself, carnal and intimate, as its theme. The “ambivalent softness” composed of pink pepper, white musk, cyclamen, frangipani flower, and Ambrox creates a feeling of being wrapped in a soft bubble when sprayed as the finishing touch to skincare.

I Fig You
A fragrance expressing “sophisticated, chic & chill nature.” It unfolds from green tea, sage, and citrus top notes through a heart of fig leaf and carrot seed to a base of vetiver and cedarwood, conveying freedom while remaining rooted in the earth.

Sel à Vie
Fanny, who describes herself as a “summer lover,” presents a summer fragrance that foregrounds saltiness rather than sweetness. Citrus top notes, a sunny floral heart, and a vanilla-driftwood base envelop the wearer in “feel-good” summer air.

L’Eau d’Or Dort
The image is of light dancing on still water at dawn. Top notes of bergamot, citron, and lemon lead to a heart of orange blossom, petitgrain, and clean-linen accord, then a base of aldehydes and white musk. A luminous fragrance conveying timeless nostalgia and tranquility.

Two Later Creations

Crème Brûlante (added in 2025)
From top notes of almond balm, cake-batter juice, and rum to a rich base of frankincense, amberwood, benzoin, and vanilla. The brand introduces it poetically: “Nothing has been served yet, but the temperature is rising and the cake batter is swelling. Crème Brûlante is the moment just before.”

Red Flag (a later release)
Created by perfumer Marine Mercé, this is one of the signature fragrances expressing the personality of an external perfumer. Themed around “the magnetic tension between reason and instinct,” it is a woody-spicy composition moving from top notes of cardamom, ginger, and beetroot accord through an iris-and-incense heart to a base of tonka bean, palo santo, vetiver, and patchouli.

The Discovery Set

At its Japanese debut, a perfume kit containing 2 ml each of five fragrances selected from the lineup was also made available, allowing customers to try each scent before purchasing. At the June 2025 Japanese launch, the 30 ml eau de parfum was priced at JPY 14,300 including tax, and the perfume kit at JPY 7,700 including tax.

By the Way…

Descamps says the name “Fascent” carries several layers of wordplay. It is, of course, a combination of the French “FACETTES,” meaning facets or many-sidedness, and the English “SCENT,” but she adds the metaphor of “the many facets of a diamond.”

“Just like a diamond, it is those many facets that make a perfume, and a person, so complex and unique.”

Fascent is also sold in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States. The October 2025 Beauty Independent article reported that its online community was growing by around 800 followers a month. Such rapid growth just a few years after launch may suggest that the founders’ ambition to “democratize niche fragrance” is beginning to find an answer.

Specific published anecdotes about the founders’ childhoods or student years, and information about the brand’s awards, were not found in the primary and secondary sources that could be checked for this article.

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