Breaking into the fragrance industry from the outside was basically impossible. No one’s looking to explain anything to you. It’s very European. It’s dominated by people who have trained in fragrance, so it’s hard to emulate another [brand]. A brand of our scale or our type didn’t exist that much [when we started]. I’m not saying it didn’t exist at all, but we were one of the first small-scale perfumers to do everything on our own. We knew [we had] something special there to start with. It wasn’t the most saturated market when we started nearly 14 years ago. It was different then. It’d be a lot harder today [to launch an indie fragrance brand]. Every facet of the beauty industry is more crowded today than it was 14 years ago.

— Kavi Moltz, quoted in D.S. & Durga founders on building their business: ‘There are no rules’ at Glossy.