How Heretic Perfume Built a Brand on Bold Collaborations and B-Side Culture

How Heretic Perfume Built a Brand on Bold Collaborations and B-Side Culture

In an industry dominated by celebrity-endorsed mainstream fragrance launches and billion-dollar conglomerate marketing budgets, one indie perfume brand has quietly built a loyal following by doing the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. Heretic, the Los Angeles-based niche fragrance house founded by Douglas Little in 2015, has made a name for itself by celebrating the unconventional, the unexpected, and the unapologetically different. And at the heart of its rising profile is a collaboration strategy unlike anything else in the beauty space.

What Does It Mean to Be a Heretic?

The brand's identity starts with its name. According to founder Douglas Little, a heretic is simply "a person with an opinion that is different than others." That definition isn't just a clever marketing angle — it's the philosophical backbone of everything the brand creates and everyone it chooses to partner with.

Since launching a decade ago, Little has been on a deliberate mission to carve out a space in the fragrance world that celebrates beauty in all its many forms. But more than aesthetics, Heretic has always been about people — specifically, those who march to the beat of their own drum. Artists, icons, and cultural figures who exist confidently on the fringes of mainstream taste are exactly the kind of collaborators the brand actively seeks out.

This philosophy has given birth to what Little describes as leaning into the "B-side" of pop culture. Much like the deep cuts on a vinyl record that only dedicated fans appreciate, Heretic's collaborations are designed to reward curiosity, reward individuality, and reward those willing to look beyond what's been handed to them by mass-market trends.

The Collaboration That Started It All: Dita Von Teese and Scandalwood

Heretic's first major product collaboration arrived in 2017, and it set the tone for everything that would follow. Partnering with longtime friend and burlesque icon Dita Von Teese, the brand created a fragrance called Scandalwood — a richly layered scent that proved immediately popular with both fragrance enthusiasts and fans of Von Teese's distinctly vintage, theatrical aesthetic.

The choice of Von Teese as a partner was no accident. She is someone who has spent her entire career existing outside the conventional beauty ideal, reclaiming and redefining glamour on her own terms. That alignment between subject and brand philosophy was seamless, and consumers responded. Scandalwood remains among Heretic's top five bestsellers to this day — a testament to how powerfully the right collaboration can anchor a product in the long term.

The success of Scandalwood demonstrated something critical: that niche fragrance buyers aren't just shopping for a scent. They're shopping for a story, a worldview, and a sense of belonging to something that feels genuine and curated rather than manufactured for mass appeal.

Going Viral the Heretic Way: The Gwyneth Paltrow Candle

If Scandalwood introduced the fragrance community to Heretic, it was a far more attention-grabbing collaboration in 2020 that brought the brand into mainstream consciousness. Partnering with Gwyneth Paltrow and her lifestyle brand Goop, Heretic helped create what became one of the most talked-about product launches of that year — the now-infamous "This Smells Like My Vagina" candle.

The product was polarizing by design. It was provocative, it was funny, and it was completely on-brand for both Goop's willingness to court controversy and Heretic's commitment to challenging norms. It generated enormous media coverage, became a cultural talking point, and sold out rapidly. For many consumers, it was their very first introduction to the Heretic name.

But rather than feeling like a cynical viral marketing stunt, the collaboration worked because it was consistent with the brand's DNA. Heretic had never been interested in playing it safe, and this partnership simply expressed that ethos on a much larger stage.

Why the B-Side Strategy Works in Fragrance Marketing

The concept of the "B-side" is particularly apt for the modern fragrance market. As consumers grow more sophisticated and more skeptical of traditional celebrity endorsements, they're increasingly drawn to brands that feel authentic, intentional, and rooted in a genuine point of view. Heretic's approach taps directly into that shift.

Rather than chasing the biggest names or the safest partnerships, the brand consistently gravitates toward collaborators who carry cultural weight within specific communities — people who are beloved, credible, and distinctive. This creates a series of collaborations that feel less like advertising and more like genuine creative expressions between like-minded individuals.

• Each collaboration tells a unique story that resonates with a specific audience
• The partnerships reinforce the brand's core identity rather than diluting it
• The "unexpected" nature of each collab generates organic conversation and media attention
• Products born from genuine creative alignment tend to have longer commercial lifespans

What Indie Beauty Brands Can Learn From Heretic

Heretic's approach offers a compelling blueprint for smaller beauty brands competing in a crowded, capital-intensive market. Without the advertising budgets of legacy fragrance houses, indie brands must find other ways to build awareness, trust, and cultural relevance. Strategic, values-aligned collaborations can serve all three purposes simultaneously.

The key, as Little's brand demonstrates, is that the collaboration must feel inevitable rather than transactional. When the partner's identity and the brand's identity genuinely overlap, the resulting product carries an authenticity that no amount of paid media can replicate. It becomes a cultural artifact rather than a promotional vehicle.

The Future of Heretic: More Unexpected, Always

As Heretic continues to grow its profile in both the niche fragrance community and the broader beauty market, the brand shows no signs of abandoning the philosophy that got it here. If anything, its track record suggests that the more unexpected the collaboration, the more resonant the result.

In a beauty landscape increasingly saturated with safe choices and algorithm-optimized campaigns, Heretic's commitment to the B-side feels not just refreshing but necessary. Douglas Little set out to build a brand for people who think differently — and a decade in, it's clear that those people are listening, shopping, and staying loyal.

For fragrance lovers, creative entrepreneurs, and beauty industry observers alike, Heretic is a reminder that in a world of greatest hits, there's enormous power — and profit — in celebrating the deep cuts.