We're Two Years Old!

Maison des Animaux is two years old.

Which feels both impossible and approximately correct, considering we seem to have packed about seven years of events into the last 24 months.

Being two puts us firmly in the toddler years: a little chaotic, occasionally unreasonable, prone to outbursts, completely delighted by the world, and constantly demanding to be fed.

 

Rather than write a heartfelt retrospective about the journey, we decided to do what we do daily: take inventory.

So, in honor of our second birthday, Maison des Animaux by the numbers:

21 unique fragrances released, including a handful of very limited runs that briefly appeared, caused a commotion, and vanished.

7,700+ orders filled, packed, taped, labeled, hauled around, and sent off into the world.

6 incredible independent retailers who took a chance on us and put MDA on their shelves.

873 new perfume materials acquired, because apparently there is no point at which a perfumer looks at a wall of bottles and thinks, yes, surely this is enough.

2½ drums of alcohol used.

1 entire kilo of perfume concentrate destroyed because Crystal failed to check the dilution of the birch tar before adding it. An extremely effective way to learn that particular lesson.

3 Major Manufacturing Mishaps™ resulting in significant delays, frantic problem-solving, and the acquisition of several skills we would have preferred to learn recreationally.

1 bout of tariff whiplash while our packaging was, quite literally, already arriving at the port.

4 different colors of Cloudbreath, despite being the same formula, because naturally derived pigments are hilariously impertinent and refuse to respect brand guidelines.

1 ongoing, mad and passionate love affair with thicc-bottomed bottles. This relationship is serious. Please respect our privacy at this time.

Countless remarkable connections with people we would never have known existed if we hadn't started making perfume in the first place.

No fewer than 15 occasions on which a review, recommendation, community post, or completely unsolicited act of generosity made one or both of us cry.

At least 4 fragrances in our own line that we have loved, then hated, then loved again. Some of them know what they did.

0% measurable improvement in our ability to look comfortable while presenting anything on social media live. #stayawkward

We have also, through necessity and occasionally brute force, learned an astonishing number of things we had absolutely no intention of becoming competent at: supply-chain management, freight logistics, packaging engineering, inventory forecasting, regulatory compliance, wholesale operations, production planning, remedial graphic design, and the surprisingly complex physics of getting 7,000+ boxes from our hands to your front doors.

But the number that matters most isn't really a number.

It’s you.

We are talking about countless conversations, friendships, introductions, recommendations, encouragement, rallying behind us during challenges, bits of advice, acts of patience, and moments of genuine human connection that we could never possibly tally.

In short (hah! Too late!) give a toddler a perfume company and eventually she makes friends and learns logistics.

But for all the chaos, attitude, messes, sudden changes of heart, expensive lessons, and relentless need to be fed, the other thing about being two is that everything still feels astonishing.

Someone orders a perfume we made.

A store puts our bottles on its shelves.

A stranger writes something beautiful about a fragrance and understands exactly what we were trying to do.

Someone comes back for their second bottle. Or their fifth. Or their 11th!

Someone tells a friend about us when there is absolutely nothing in it for them except wanting a small independent brand to succeed.

Two years in, none of that feels normal.

We hope it never does.

Maison des Animaux began with some perfume materials, our own emerging voice, and the conviction that there was room to make beautiful things without taking luxury—or ourselves—quite so seriously.

And it is only getting started.

We are still learning.

Still changing our minds.

Still making messes.

Still occasionally discovering that something we declared FINISHED is, in fact, not finished.

Still hungry.

Still completely, stupidly in love with doing this.

And still absolutely delighted to be here.

Thank you for sharing two extraordinary years.

Here’s to Year Three.