What's In A Name?

What does Maison des Animaux mean?

When we got serious about launching our brand we had to make some big decisions about how to present our vision and voice. With the wealth of independent perfume houses emerging all the time, we wanted to be able to signal who we are and what we bring to the ever-filling table. Something that hits at our core brand vision, as well as our personality. This meant setting aside any quick marketing wins to look at our fragrances, our materials, our packaging, and our personality and ask: what is this? When you pull together the common thread of how we formulate, compound, create, how we curate materials and engage with customers–what is the story there?

The name, Maison des Animaux, is a shorthand way of telling that story. 

Untranslated, The Animal House, is not an inaccurate way of describing two sisters with bawdy senses of humor in a small lab for hours and hours each day, dogs occasionally running through, and an obsessive focus on things we crave. We also have pretty blue-collar bona fides, and entering into a very refined space, we knew if we didn’t embrace our outsider DNA, we would struggle constantly with imposter syndrome. So The Animal House pulls all of our loose threads together. 

It is bold, playful, instinctual, carnal, and a bit loud. It is also the idea of warmth, wildness, appetite, and uninhibited self-expression. Our fragrances are built from these same desires and ideas. We overdose rich materials, and we ask, how does it make you feel before asking how do you think it smells.

But why French?

As much as we wanted to convey playfulness and authenticity, we are very serious about the fragrances we design. Adopting the French translation (which we had to be taught to pronounce), is our nod to the rich history and traditions of French perfumery. Keeping one foot in each world felt fitting and the decisive way of saying We are here to delight, and we are serious about it.

As a self-taught perfumer, there is no better way to learn than to study the classical French formulae and French masters. I'm not confident Roudnitska or Ellena would be flattered to have this homage, but it is an homage none the less.