According to Heretic founder Douglas Little, the indie-perfume brand’s approach to collaborations is rooted in its name.
A heretic, he explained, is “a person with an opinion that is different than others.” Since launching the brand in 2015, “it’s been my mission to be able to not only create a space where we celebrate beauty in all of its many shapes, forms and denominations, but even more than that, where we can [spotlight] people and artists who are marching to the beat of their own drum.”
The brand’s first major product collaboration came in 2017, when Little partnered with longtime friend Dita Von Teese on a fragrance called Scandalwood, which remains among Heretic’s top five bestsellers. And if consumers weren’t already familiar with Heretic, many were introduced to the brand in 2020 through its collaboration with Gwyneth Paltrow on the now-infamous “This Smells Like My Vagina” candle.
Since then, Heretic has expanded its collaboration strategy to include horror films like “Nosferatu” and “The Bride,” and creators such as Mars Chasolen, known as @yung.planet, who partnered on the brand’s Rhubarb Thief perfume. It has also teamed with authors, with an Edward Gorey-inspired home collection, and musicians. Its first artist collaboration is set to launch next week.
The common thread, according to Jillian Ouellette, Heretic’s director of global brand management, is a collaborator from pop culture’s less obvious corners, which she calls the “B-Sisdes” of pop culture. In other words, while other brands are approaching pop culture through a Dua Lipa lens — see: Augustinus Bader, which tapped the pop star for a diffusion line of skin care — Heretic has intentionally gravitated toward more niche cultural categories.
“We’re a team of B-side pop culture enthusiasts,” Ouellette said.
The strategy has proven effective. “[They] have helped Heretic reach cultural relevance and scale in [the same way] other brands would leverage more mainstream consumable moments in pop culture,” Ouellette said.
Arguably, none exemplifies that better than the brand’s collaboration with the film “Nosferatu” and its production company, Focus Features.
The collection, which launched alongside Robert Eggers’s film in December 2024, drove Heretic’s biggest sales day ever. It includes an eau de parfum in three sizes, a body wash, a body lotion and two candles. On its website, Heretic describes the fragrance as “a chilling scent of wilting lilacs, velvety vegan ambergris and strikes of lightning that fill the air with petrichor and electricity — It’s both delicate and hedonistic.”
The fragrance sold out within two weeks and generated an 80,000-person waitlist over the following eight weeks. When it came back in stock in January 2025, sales surpassed the brand’s previous records, including its 2024 Black Friday performance. Since launch, Heretic has sold a product from the collection every four minutes, and it plans to expand the line later this year.
For Little, the collaboration’s significance extended beyond just sales. “We were asked by Robert Eggers to create a fragrance for his film ‘Nosferatu,’ and that was such a pivotal moment for me, because, as a perfumer, it felt like this was a big career moment to create a fragrance about a property that was so meaningful to me. Growing up as a gothic teenager, the original ‘Nosferatu’ silent film was a pivotal and very inspirational movie,” he said.
Little also suspected that the audiences drawn to “Nosferatu” overlapped with consumers who would appreciate Heretic’s approach to fragrance and its broader portfolio.
“I just had a funny feeling that that person [who went to see ‘Nosferatu’] may or may not know that they really love fragrance. But, in the worlds of horror and psychological thrillers, whether it be a book or a movie or a podcast, the one thing that’s present in all of [them] is atmosphere. Atmosphere is probably the most important piece of horror and thrillers, and that’s the one thing that fragrance can do; fragrance creates this kind of sixth sense in film or literature that can help immerse a person deeper into what they’re seeing or reading or listening to. … So, I had a feeling there may be a person out there [for whom], if I could do the fragrance correctly, they would come to us and then be really excited about some of the other things we have.”
The theory proved correct. After discovering the “Nosferatu” fragrance, customers went on to purchase other scents in Heretic’s portfolio, including Poltergeist, Blood Cedar and Scandalwood. According to a brand spokesperson, 72.8% of people who purchased the Nosferatu eau de parfum over the last two years were new customers, and 23.8% made another purchase in 2025.
The partnership catapulted Heretic’s business “by leaps and bounds, because we had all these customers coming to us that were really excited about what we were doing and also understood that it was authentic,” Little said.
For holiday 2025, Heretic partnered with the estate of writer and illustrator Edward Gorey on a collection of five room sprays, marking the brand’s first foray into home fragrance. The collaboration stemmed from a cold email Little sent to the Gorey estate.
“I randomly shot an email to the Edward Gorey estate, and I was like, ‘Hey, you don’t know me, but I’m a perfumer, and I love Edward Gorey. It would be such a dream to be able to collaborate with you in some capacity.’ And 24 hours later, I had an email back, and they said they would love to have a conversation. One thing led to another, and we came to an agreement on a licensing program, and they gave me full access to over 5,000 of Gorey’s illustrations and stories, and I was like a kid in a candy store. It was a full dream come true,” he said.
The resulting collection included scents such as Sumptuous Afternoon, described as capturing “the unsettling brightness of a garden party that has gone on far too long,” and The Haunted Tea Cosy, featuring notes of bergamot, tonka, black tea and spectral musk. Driven by these collaborations, company revenue grew 150% in 2025. The brand declined to comment on total revenue.
To support the collection’s launch, Heretic rolled out its “A Very Gorey Holiday” campaign featuring creators including Brittany Broski (7.5 million TikTok followers; 2.2 million Instagram followers), alongside Von Teese, makeup artist Jessica Haze and menswear personality Nick Wooster. The campaign generated more than 20 million views across social platforms.
The brand continued its collaboration strategy this March with Rhubarb Thief, its first influencer-led fragrance launch, created alongside Chasolen. To support the launch, Heretic produced a stop-motion film, a choice that reflected the brand’s ongoing emphasis on cinematic storytelling.
“It speaks to how important cinema is [to Heretic] whether it’s a collaboration with a franchise that exists or we do [our own] cinematic storytelling in-house,” Ouellette said. That commitment to artistry has become even more important as AI-generated imagery becomes increasingly prevalent across marketing, Ouellette said.
Heretic continues to “tap its creative network to foster collaboration and human touch,” she said. “Storytelling as a [primarily] DTC fragrance brand is imperative. While we love a good photoshoot, we think there are many ways to tell a fragrance’s narrative. … We always say that Heretic is a ‘creative-first’ brand, and we want to tap into every form of that, whether it be photo, film, music or experiential.”
Week in review
- Women’s health brand Perelel partnered with fitness brand Bala on a bundle of Bala’s signature wearable hand/ankle weights and Perelel’s latest launch, a new watermelon mint flavor of its Cellular Hydration electrolyte, collagen and hyaluronic acid powder. Together, the two brands will host a series of walks for moms and kids in their joint communities.
- Thirdlove debuted its first nipple covers, alongside a campaign dubbed “Go Braless,” to mark the brand’s expansion as sheer and backless styles become ever more popular. In tandem, the brand is refreshing its presence on TikTok Shop, gifting more than 100 TikTok affiliates and hosting a creator event at TikTok’s HQ.
- In collaboration with New York City boutique Big Night, Parker Thatch launched a netted tote bag dubbed the “Everything Tote,” designed to go from the beach to the farmer’s market.
- Amid the hype of the playoffs and the World Cup, Kristin Juszczyk’s Offseason debuted its first collection unaffiliated with any sport or team, dubbed “Mainline.” The collection includes wide-leg sweats, track pants and jerseys.
- On the heels of its Audrey Hobert collab, Ilia is continuing to lean into musicians-as-collaborators, tapping Haim to promote its hero product, the Super Serum Skin Tint.
- Left on Friday debuted a collaboration with Clare V. comprised of 27 SKUS, including checkered and striped bikinis.
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