Meet Strangelove, the Cult-Favorite Fragrance House Powered by Oud

Most people who have smelled, well, they’re not really smelling. Instead, what they encounter is something closer to animal mode. Real Audi behaves differently. It still projects, but the components have more movement and depth. It’s not screaming across the room like an imitation. It also changes throughout the day. Like any high-quality fragrance, a great oud is alive.

Helena Christensen got a big deal in 2010. She was in Elizabeth Gaines’ Manhattan apartment. Their sons were in school together, and Christensen came to pick them up one afternoon. Odor envelops him as soon as he enters – and Christensen notes that his sense of smell is acutely distinct. The impression was gobs-making.

“It was almost like a little explosion in my brain that I could physically feel,” Christensen told me. “Like when you watch a movie and it does a fast-paced montage of all of life before you. To the beginning of time, where there were only amoebas and then dinosaurs. It was so intense and powerful, like a beautiful dream scent before you wake up.”

That oud was not part of any ready-made fragrance. Gaines brought her back from Borneo, where she was working with agarwood distillers and agricultural partners. The material was still raw, resinous and dense with its signature volatility. Guinness was also brainstorming ideas on what to do with it and turning it into something amazing and wearable.

Christensen’s creative instincts kicked in: She wanted what Guinness would do with things. This led to a long-term collaboration, characterized by Strangelove, a New York-based brand whose limited selection of beautiful fragrances all feature. Each fragrance is more alive than the last, each one like a beautiful dream.

Gaines’ background in sourcing came to the fore. She was working in agricultural sustainability (mainly in Borneo), working directly with distillers and growers who were cultivating agarwood and patchouli through a long-term, land stewardship farming model.

His understanding of oud came from the material itself, seeing how the resin builds up within the wood over time, how each infusion varies with climate and season, and how scents are deeply connected.

Guinness has also been involved in restructuring how patchouli is consumed. “All the little fields growing patchouli, they’d set it up in their backyards, then they’d all come to the village and they’d put everything in a pot,” she says. “There was really no transparency. They didn’t really know what was in it and they didn’t have a price for it either.”

Working with Gavadon, Gaines helped establish a 600-acre patchouli farm that moved production to a farm-to-factory model, where the material could be tracked, evaluated and purchased directly from growers.

This early work shaped Strangelove’s sourcing philosophy. The brand’s Oud is now produced in India, sourced from smallholder farms and independent distillers Guinness knows personally. Consistency, for him, comes from sourcing relationships that are slowly built and directly maintained. That philosophy also extends its ethos of sustainability to the brand’s longevity.

“This was before sustainability was a buzzword,” Gaines says. “But it’s the root of everything I do.”

When Gaines and Christensen decided to create a fragrance brand (originally called ERH1012), Gaines did not produce the entire line. He released a single perfume oil in 2014: Dead of the Night, built around natural oud. Guinness’ colleagues thought it would end up adding the word ‘dead’ to something—again—but the name is an allusion to the Beatles’ Blackbird lyrics, a quiet, calm melody that suits the fragrance in question.

“If it says ‘dead of night,’ at least it’s going to catch their eye and make them stop and smell it,” Gaines said with a laugh.

Christensen’s role as creative director also helped open up key meetings for the brand. Yes, we’re talking about Helena Christensen this time around. Christensen exemplifies the exact “authentic luxury” the brand is built on, says Guinness.

As founder and CEO, Install recalls early meetings with figureheads at Guinness, Estee Lauder, Harrods and more, where people recognized that he was ahead of a big odd curve. And so, he launched Strangelove at Herod’s Salon de Parfums, along with a perfume oil in heritage houses and long-established lines of prestige. It was also a star-studded affair, with some of the top fragrance names in attendance: Faith was there, as well as the Chanel and Guerlain teams, as well as Roja Do, Sergio Momo of Xerojeff, and Killian Hennessy.

“After that incident, we had other luxury fragrance boutiques reach out to us to reach out to us. Customers would come in with just a picture of the bottle on their phone because we were pretty unknown at the time,” recalls Gaines. “I knew we had to create our collection, but at the same time I didn’t want to rush our creations.”

Since the beginning, Gaines and Christensen have worked with acclaimed indie perfumer Christophe Ludemiel to round out the Strangelove roster. (Also a scent by perfumer Hameed Merati-Kashani.) The lineup now has six core oud-based atomizer perfumes, each with a 25 percent oud economy. In addition, they have pure fragrance oils in each name, as well as two body oils in their first Dead of Night fragrance at Dinner.

Christensen recalls of Strangelove’s initial trial phase, which mirrors the revision cycles required on each new fragrance, “that there’s little space on my body where I had 96a, 96b, whatever labels we gave each version,” she says. “All day I’d wear them, and at the end of the day I’d take little notes, or see which people got the most reactions and questions.”

Each new fragrance goes through hundreds of iterations before it hits shelves, and each one has hundreds of ingredients, Gaines says. “What is published on our site is only the key notes in each. The actual list is so long and detailed.” Such calculations require real-world market research to try things out in the wild. To see how each version behaves over hours, environments and constants.

This strategy has meant that, since its launch, Strangelove has brought only six fragrances to market. Aside from Dead of Night (the most beautiful scent I’ve ever smelled in my life,” says Christensen, with just a hint of bias), they have sparkling, peppery stars. Lessons from dark chocolate and ginger melt into my heart. A well-crafted Campside Blaze, with its smoky limbs in mind, serves as the official fragrance partner of the 2026 Grand Masque Ball at Versailles, despite the limited selection. has been selected for

Living for a stay, speculation because of a stay means that everything takes more time. Formulas take time to build, especially when built around natural oud. Batches vary, even when completely changed from season to season based on that year’s crop. (It’s like brewing varietals in very different oak expressions, or aging whiskey and cognac.) So evaluation requires patience, as does each new batch of base aromas.

“It really takes us two years to finish,” Gaines explained. “And if I was listening to what everybody was saying, I’d never do anything. And that wouldn’t be my vision.”

And now, the brand has a pivot to its roots. Before Strangelove had atomizers, it had oil, like the one launched at Harrods. So a new version of these fragrance oils is in store (along with future rollouts of fragrances that are currently in development). Also, Strangelove is staying the course.

Christensen reflects on how much she loves her role with Strangelove, and the ongoing development of new deals: “The brand’s core approach to sourcing and nature is the most important thing to me. Nature is the most important thing in my life. The fact that one of the things I do in life with a piece of nature makes me really grateful and happy.”

As for Gaines, it’s the more extreme, less-trodden path that also serves purpose: “We could be on every corner, faster and with less maintenance, if I wanted to go that route. But I don’t,” she says. “I’m not in it for the quick bucks. I’m in it to grow the business the right way without compromising the brand. I love what I do. How can you not be proud when people love one of your fragrances that you worked so hard and carefully on?”