Jun Lim, founder of Borntostandout, which launched out of Seoul in 2022, has no aspirations of becoming Sephora’s best-selling fragrance brand. “I want to be the craziest brand in Sephora,” he told Glossy. The brand will hit Sephora’s virtual shelves on February 24 and enter brick-and-mortar doors on March 13.
Borntostandout stems from Lim’s lifelong fascination with fragrance. He estimated that his personal collection contains roughly 2,000 bottles, having purchased about one a week with his allowance starting more than two decades ago. “I’ve always been hooked on the beautiful power of perfume and how it transforms a person,” Lim said.
When Borntostandout launched, it simultaneously opened its first flagship in Seoul’s Hannam neighborhood — a move almost unheard of for most brands, which either do not operate physical retail locations or wait years to open stores after establishing themselves and building revenue.
“It was all self-funded,” Lim said. “Thankfully, I worked in investment banking, which paid me well back in the day. … [I used my] life-long savings, and my [previous] job, thankfully, fired me and paid me a good severance.”
Today, Borntostandout has a presence around the world at retailers including Selfridges, Galeries Lafayette and Mecca. In the U.S., it launched on Revolve last year and is also sold on Luckyscent. While Sephora is not the brand’s first exposure to the U.S. market, it serves as a “platform for discovery,” Lim said.
Sephora will debut eleven of the brand’s scents: six eau de parfums, which will be sold in two sizes, and five of its “Eau Intimité” fragrances, which are similar to eau de toilettes due to their lighter concentrations. Prices range from $85-$290 for the three eau de parfum sizes and $110-$210 for the two sizes of the Intimité scents.
Lim said Sephora’s original feedback was that some of the brand’s extrait fragrances and even certain EDPs were “too artistic.” So, in developing the Intimité scents for Sephora, Lim said, “I [did] a bit of a study on the Sephora customer [to see what we could create] that would be more suitable for the Sephora crowd: easy to understand and easier to use, while retaining the DNA of the brand.” Outside of Sephora, the five Intimité scents are available exclusively at Harrods.
As for the overall product assortment selected by the retailer, Lim said, “Some of the [scents] happen to be best-sellers, and some of them are actually our worst-sellers.”
When Lim talks about Borntostandout’s potential to become one of Sephora’s craziest fragrance brands, he points to scents like Nanatopia and Drunk Maple. Nanatopia counts banana bread as a key note, alongside rum, nutmeg and cinnamon, while Drunk Maple pairs maple syrup with pink pepper and sandalwood. “Both have a very strong animalic, boozy base, which makes them very difficult for most people,” Lim said. Drunk Lovers, also entering Sephora, however, is the brand’s hero fragrance — it’s a woody, spicy scent with top notes of cognac and red berries.
As the brand prepares for its Sephora debut, it is planning a significant marketing push. “We are planning a large-scale seeding effort and strategic paid media, plus hosting events, and [participating at] Sephoria in March,” said Devie Park, Borntostandout’s marketing manager. “All of this is designed to build strong awareness, credibility and cultural relevance around the Sephora debut.”
Sephora’s recent fragrance arrivals include launches from Prada, Miu Miu, Phlur and Henry Rose — the last of which is smaller, yet celebrity-founded. Lim’s goal is to introduce Sephora’s customer to niche perfumery. “We built a fandom around niche fragrance, and our universe has always been different,” he said. “I want to get more people hooked into niche perfumery, because what’s available in Sephora so far is [scents that are] very similar to one another. … If one fragrance is successful, five other brands launch something similar within months. … We want to be [the] fresh blood that brings something new to the table.”
Fragrance’s boom in the beauty industry hasn’t ended. According to Circana, the category generated close to $6 billion in sales year-to-date through September 2025. According to industry sources, Borntostandout will reach approximately $10 million in revenue in 2026. Lim wants to grow, he said, but slowly. “I want to build a universe,” he said, “I want to educate more people about the beauty of artistic perfumery. … There’s more than just these caramel latte fragrances, vanilla latte fragrances…”
