Our Q&A with Douglas Little, Founder, Perfumer, and Creative Director of Heretic Parfum, traces his fragrance journey from early childhood memories and moody teen years to his distinct modern-day brand vision and the “hauntingly beautiful, strange, and unmistakably Heretic” scents on the horizon!
Douglas, I know your love for perfume started in childhood. What’s a vivid memory from those early years that made you fall in love with scent?
As a kid, my mom used to take me to garden centers, and we had this little game. She’d pinch the leaves of different plants and have me identify them by scent. If I guessed right, she’d give me a dollar. I became obsessed with the idea that every plant had its own invisible signature, its own secret identity. That was the beginning of it all, the moment scent became both magic and memory for me. I never looked back.
Your Gothic teen years clearly left a mark. How do those dark, dramatic vibes show up in your fragrances today?
Those years were steeped in Siouxsie and the Banshees, death rock nightclubs, and the swirling fog of clove cigarettes and black eyeliner. That world of beautiful decay still runs through everything I create. My fragrances carry that same pulse, a little danger, a little seduction, something sacred tangled with something sinful, like a Bauhaus bassline translated into scent, hypnotic, melancholic, and just slightly feral.
At your recent promotional event, the sultry, immersive atmosphere was unforgettable. How much do you think the environment shapes the way a perfume is experienced?
Completely. Scent doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s part of a world you create around it. The lighting, the sound, the texture of the air, all of it becomes part of the perfume’s language. At the event, I wanted people to feel as if they’d stepped into the perfume itself, to be seduced, unsettled, transported. Environment is alchemy; it amplifies the invisible and turns a fragrance into a full-body hallucination.
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Were there any scents from your youth that you deliberately avoided while creating Heretic Parfum to carve out your own unique path?
Absolutely. Growing up, I was surrounded by those glossy, overproduced fragrances of the ’90s, big, synthetic walls of scent that felt more like armor than intimacy. When I created Heretic, I wanted to do the opposite, to strip away the artifice and let raw, natural materials speak in their truest form. It was an act of rebellion, really. Using high concentrations of naturals was my way of challenging an industry obsessed with perfection and permanence. I wanted imperfection, something alive, wild, and defiantly human.
When you’re crafting a new fragrance, do you have a personal ritual or process that helps the scent come to life?
It always begins with the discovery of a new material. A leaf, a resin, a flower, something that captures my imagination. I become its voice, helping it tell its story in a way that’s provocative, unexpected, sometimes even subversive. Each plant has its own personality, its own secret life, and my role is to translate that into scent, to let nature speak in whispers and seductions.
You’ve said you don’t want to imitate anyone. Has there been a trend or scent you admired but decided to interpret entirely your own way?
Yes, musks. They’ve long been used to evoke sensuality and warmth, that intimate closeness of skin. But I wanted to take them somewhere else, into the realm of the unseen. I began exploring what I call ‘spectral musks’, ethereal, elusive notes that feel like the scent of an apparition passing through a room. Less about the body, more about the ghost it leaves behind. It’s sensual in a different way, haunting rather than human.
Which scent in your collection feels like the most personal reflection of your story or personality?
Coeur Noir and Poltergeist are probably the most personal to me. Cœur Noir feels like a portrait of my inner world: dark, romantic, a little dangerous —a heart that beats in the tension of light and shadow.
Poltergeist, on the other hand, embodies the spirit of transformation and presence, that invisible energy that lingers after something or someone has passed through. Together, they represent both the flesh and the phantom, the duality I’m always chasing in my work: beauty and decay, the sacred and the profane.
Do you have favorite creations or best sellers, and were there any scents whose popularity surprised even you?
Nosferatu was born from our collaboration with Robert Eggers’ reimagining of the classic film. I was captivated by its redacted, 19th-century color palette, those flashes of light against endless shadow. I wanted to translate that into scent. I imagined what a vampire might truly smell like: lilacs crushed beneath cold stone, iron, candle smoke, and something softly decayed. It’s both beautiful and unsettling, a perfume that breathes between life and afterlife.
Have you ever released a scent that sparked controversy or strong reactions, and how did that experience influence your approach to creating perfume?
My candle collaboration with Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop, ‘This Smells Like My Vagina’, certainly created a strong reaction. And honestly, that was the point. It challenged people to confront how scent, language, and sexuality intersect. For me, it reaffirmed that fragrance isn’t just about smelling pretty, it’s about provocation, emotion, and dialogue. I’ve always believed perfume should make you feel something, even if it makes you a little uncomfortable. That tension is where the magic lives.
Can you tease a future launch you’re most excited about? What inspired it, and what should fans be looking forward to?
I’m incredibly excited about our upcoming collaboration with the estate of Edward Gorey. His world has always felt scented to me, the damp velvet of Victorian drawing rooms, candle wax, dust, and a hint of melancholy mischief. To give fragrance to his universe is a dream; it’s about capturing that elegant gloom, that playful morbidity that lives between innocence and the absurd. Fans can expect something hauntingly beautiful, strange, and unmistakably Heretic.
For more information, check out HereticParfum.com.
