The DedCool Story

And the decade-long journey that turned Carina Chaz's college hobby into a beloved brand

I’ve long been a fan of DedCool. I love how accessible the line feels. It’s the kind of brand I recommend to people who are just getting into perfume or who simply want a solid musky skin scent. Xtra Milk will always have a place in my collection. Yes, I go deep into indie fragrance and niche perfumes make up the bulk of what I own. But my taste isn’t defined by niche alone, and it is absolutely OK to wear everything from designer to indie to more mainstream. Being a fragrance fan doesn’t require allegiance to a category. It requires curiosity, an open mind, and trusting your own taste.

I’d caught bits and pieces of founder Carina Chaz’s story on a few podcasts over the years and was intrigued. She made her first fragrance as a kid, maybe inevitable given she was raised by parents who had been producing beauty products since the 1980s. While most of us were collecting lip glosses (ok fine, me), she was experimenting in an actual lab. It’s an origin story that makes clear this has always been her passion, not something she picked up once fragrance became trendy.

Carina did eventually take outside funding for DedCool, but that came well after the brand was already established and successful. She ran the business on customer revenue for the first seven years, relying on small shops that took a chance on her and sold the line on consignment in the early days, and quite literally selling it out of her trunk.

The conversation around funding is a tricky one. Venture capital can absolutely ruin a perfume brand and damage the industry at large (and is, in real ways), but it can also give founders the resources they need to continue building and living their dream. It’s a nuanced topic that too often gets flattened into broad strokes.

DedCool has been labeled for everyone since its inception, which is another reason I like the brand. We need more brands pushing the narrative forward that scent is not gendered. I think it’s interesting that they have expanded well past perfume, into laundry, home, hand and body, and even incense. That was another bet Carina made on the brand long before anyone invested in her. I want all my home products to smell good and yes, I often use their Xtra Milk detergent (although I’m also a loyalist to Laundry Sauce).

When I spoke with Carina, she was exactly what I hoped she’d be. Easy to talk to, deeply passionate about fragrance, and still genuinely in awe of what she’s built. For a brand that’s grown as big as DedCool has, she retains this delightful sense of curiosity and appreciation. She’s charming, with an effortless California energy that feels comforting and easy to be around.

This conversation has been in the works since last year, so it’s a total coincidence that the week I’m publishing it DedCool also has a new fragrance out. I was sent a bottle of Mineral Milk and I like it. Mochi Milk was a little too sweet for me, but I’m into the salty, beachy vibe of this one. It screams summer and it’s a nice, fresh scent.

I hope you enjoy our conversation. It’s a long one. I hadn’t heard much of what Carina shares here before, and I think you’ll enjoy learning more about her and the impressive business she’s built.

Christina: Can you walk me through how old you were when you began and what sparked that initial interest?

Carina: Thanks for having me! It’s definitely been a journey. I always joke that DedCool is the happiest accident to ever happen to me. The brand really comes from my soul and my passion, and that’s because I come from a world of beauty where personal care and fragrance were conceived very differently.

Both of my parents immigrated to the U.S. They met on a Los Angeles street. My mom was born on a farm and used the earth very holistically, which she brought into my upbringing. When you’re young, you’re resistant to that, but it shaped me. They started in their kitchen making bath products for hotels, so it was really more of a B2B business.

Being an only child with immigrant parents, I was under my mom’s desk at three months old. That shaped my experience as a human, seeing two hard-working people and being submerged in a very technical world. My mom is a formulator and my dad’s an architect. Their small business was the two of them and three people in a tiny facility. Every after-school activity was at the facility. Every summer break was at the facility. Kids I grew up with will tell you we had field trips there and made candles.

This is year ten for DedCool. I’ve always been obsessed with scent profiles. At the end of the day, DedCool was built around my love of scent. It was built around being a young person who didn’t identify with the fragrances on the market. And being a young person who couldn’t afford the beautiful perfumes on department store counters.

Carina in her parents lab when she was younger.

And it was kind of up to me to create this version of what I needed as a young consumer, something that was androgynous, something that was a little more edgy, something that was a little more fun and very much reflective of who I was at the time.

DedCool came to life when I was 21 and still in college. I had zero skill set in design and branding. I would draw on a piece of paper with a Sharpie and tape it to a sample bottle I got for free from a supplier. It all came very organically and took a long time.

Every opportunity I had, I kept going. Every dollar I brought into the business was reinvested into more inventory. DedCool was a one-woman show until 2022 when we brought on our first team members, some of whom are still with us, which is super exciting.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined being in this position. I’m so grateful for the experience, the journey, everything that comes with being a founder, building a business, touching people, allowing them into your world. To know people are using the product in their everyday lives is just wild to me. I’m very thankful and humble beyond words.

Christina: You started in college when you were 21, is that when you did your 1st formulation? What inspired that?

Carina: The first scent I ever made was Taunt, actually, and I created that when I was 13. I made it as a party favor gift, and that’s really where this kind of love of creating my own scent began, the understanding that I could make a scent, which is a very unusual hobby for a young person.

But I’m coming from a world of having a mother as a formulator, and she was like, why don’t we try something? Let’s just make this thing. I remember I was 13 and she came into my room and was like, everyone loved this fragrance. Maybe you’re onto something. Maybe this is what you want to do when you’re older. It’s kind of crazy. Maybe she manifested that for me.

Christina: So when you were in college, how did this turn into something bigger?

Carina: So what had happened was I went to school out of state and realized this was not for me. This was not the college experience I was looking for. I came back to Los Angeles and spent a lot of time in the facility. I was going to a new university, but living at home. And because all of my friends were out of town at their schools, and I had nothing to do. I just spent a lot of time focusing on this hobby, this passion project, where I’m like, I’m going to do this for myself and for myself only and share it with maybe some friends. So it was very much this organic project that came to life.

Christina: That’s so cool. How did it grow from fragrances into all the other products?

Carina: Yeah. So the product range, you know, we always had more than fragrance, but again, the brand was so small that no one really knew what that was. And when I say the brand was small, it was me going to trunk shows. It was me popping up at Valentine’s Day events at hotels. So again, very much out-of-the-trunk-of-my-car style.

Bringing this world of fragrance to life in a more expansive way was always the goal because, again, as a young consumer, this was something I wanted to see. For me, there was so much of the same. It was truly the conversation of how to build this into something a little more immersive, because fragrance doesn’t have to be binary. It can be experienced in so many different ways. For so long, I felt there were only very few ways to have more of a fragrance experience.

In the very early stages, it wasn’t until 2023 that we started working with a perfume house. And with that comes many noses. I learned a lot, but I was very resistant in the beginning because for so long it was kind of like, this is my project and this is what I need to focus on. I’m not an expert. I am not trained. It took a lot of time and a lot of trial and error.

At that point, the brand had been scaling and I needed to focus more on building the business, building new product development, building the campaigns around these scents. At the scale we were at, we needed a proper fragrance house to support the growth of the brand.

So I went to New York, interviewed many different people, worked with many different people, and now we’re exclusive to one house. I absolutely love the experience. The team loves it. It’s such a fun way to experience a more dynamic approach to scent. As opposed to working on one scent for a year, I now have 15 different concepts I can build with each specific perfumer, and they’re always going to smell good. There’s still a development time of minimum a year, but it’s amazing to have the support of a fragrance house. There’s trend forecasting. They have amazing technology. They have resourcing to bring in all different kinds of notes that aren’t accessible to the general public. It makes it more expansive.

I was resistant toward it. Now I absolutely love it. Our partners are fantastic. It’s very collaborative. There’s no world where I say, give me a gourmand, and they say, here are three, pick one. It’s very much, let’s concept this out. Let’s build it together. We like X, Y, and Z. How do we bridge this gap? How do we make it more X?

Christina: How many employees do you have now?

Carina: We have about 20. And we have an office in New York and we have an office in LA. And we have an open head count of 10 people this year.

Christina: Oh wow. That’s amazing.

Carina: Thank you. It takes a village. The team is the heart of the business. We build because of the people who come into our world — our thought partners, our leaders. It’s an amazing place to be, and I learn from the people around me. It’s all about empowering each other. I always say one team, one dream, and ensuring that we’re all doing this and having fun along the way.

Christina: Can you tell me about the fragrances you feel most connected to right now? Do you wear your own scents regularly?

Carina: I mean, all of the scents in the early days were made for my personal liking. At this point, I’m still very strong-armed in that we’re not just going to go based off trend or what’s more commercial. We’re still going to work within a general construct.

It’s interesting now because there are times when I bring samples to the team and I have a favorite. I don’t tell them which one, and then they say they like X, Y, and Z, and it’s not my favorite. We still probably go with my favorite. There’s that piece too.

I love other brands. I collect other brands. I’m not wearing other brands daily. Xtra Milk is my signature scent. I wear that basically every day as a layer or as a standalone. My husband wears it. Everyone in my life wears it. Everyone has their own version of their DedCool self, which is always so fun. My best friend wears Xtra Milk and Fragrance 02. My mother-in-law wears Xtra Milk and it smells so different on her than it does on anyone else. My mom wears Mochi Milk in her hair and Xtra Milk is her base. She smells so unique and so beautiful. It’s very much about your own personal chemistry.

For me, I’m always changing up the scent based on what I’m wearing or what mood I’m in. I’m definitely sampling probably 80 percent of the time. Today I’m wearing a sample I just worked on that I’m head over heels for, and it makes me sad because it doesn’t launch until 15 months from now. I want it to happen now.

It’s fun to feel like I’m having my own secret experience that I get to bring to life with a group of consumers, our community, my team. It’s really special when the people around me are wearing their own version of DedCool and getting compliments. My mother-in-law calls me and says, I have a DedCool story. People were following me. They loved DedCool. I told them you’re my daughter-in-law. It’s just a fun, really beautiful thing.

Fragrance is so emotional. You can’t see it. You feel it. To have the opportunity to touch people’s lives with scent and something I created is so fulfilling. I’m just excited and full of warm, fuzzy feelings. I’m very thankful that I get to create and that people love it, that it makes them feel good and happy. We’re living in such a crazy world. All we can do is find these little things that elevate and create a nice kind of experience.

Another shot of little Carina in her parents’ workshop.

Christina: Which one feels the most personal? Is it Taunt still?

Carina: It’s very nostalgic. In the early days, because I was working on a scent, literally a base, for a year, they were all very much coming-of-age fragrances. Taunt was my first fragrance ever. Then it was Milk, having this moment of whoa, this is such a unique profile, but it’s so personal. Then Fragrance 02, which is the official DedCool scent that launched, I was 21 at the time, finding myself in this early adult era.

Fragrance is so powerful because it really takes you back. When I smell it, I can literally tell you, I’m wearing leather, eating at this restaurant with my friends, doing the whole thing. It’s so cool to have something that instantly connects you to a specific place and time in your life. What else can you do that with?

Christina: What other scents are strong memory triggers for you that aren’t part of your products, maybe something that reminds you of growing up?

Carina: My mom wore Mimosa Pour Moi by L'Artisan Parfumeur. I don’t even think it exists anymore. And it’s so crazy because anytime I smell mimosa, which is such a specific note, I’m five years old with my mom.

And there’s a baby perfume, Musti Eau De Soin Parfumee. I don’t think people should be spraying fragrance on their babies but it’s very French and it comes in this frosted bottle with a blue cap. It’s such a funny thing that probably shouldn’t exist.

I smelled the cap a million times over. I don’t think I wore it — it was just in the house. My mom collected all of those mini fragrances from the 80s. We probably had hundreds of them. She had them on display in one of our bathrooms. I would leave them open, so they would all evaporate, but they were literally tiny, tiny.

Christina: What other brands have influenced you? Do you remember what you were wearing in high school?

Carina: Yeah, all of my friends were wearing Pink Sugar. I can literally smell that scent from a mile away. And Daisy. I never wore them, but they’re so nostalgic and I can smell them instantly. My favorite thing to do, actually, is walk by people and guess the fragrance they’re wearing. It’s kind of my party trick.

When it comes to influence, there’s no DedCool without Byredo. That was the start of niche modern perfumery that took a new approach. I also really like more traditional houses. I like L’Artisan. I like Annick Goutal. These aren’t brands you’re seeing in the cool hip stores. They lived at Barneys, which doesn’t exist anymore. Barneys was the hub of all niche perfumery.

I definitely appreciate Le Labo. The Nue Co by my friend Jules. Forest Lungs, I love. I don’t wear it, but I love it and I have it.

Christina: Was Barneys the first store to pick up DedCool?

Carina: No, not the first. The brand launched in 2016, and we entered Barneys in 2019, the year right before the pandemic started. We were on consignment for two weeks, and that was my north star. I was like, I know I’ve made it if I’m in Barneys.

I flew to New York and sat at the counter for six months. I just uprooted everything. I was like, I live here now. I’m going to make this happen. And it did well. This was on Madison, where the clientele is tough. The people on the floor were tough. They were like, who is this person who has zero experience? Fragrance, even in 2019, was still very traditional and beautiful and rooted in luxury. And then you have a 25-year-old girl from LA running around with all these crazy ideas, saying, this could work.

At the end of the day, we all became friends, but it was definitely tough. My mom was like, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. I was like, okay. I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to throw in the towel. I’m going to give this everything I’ve got.

Christina: How do you want people to feel when they wear DedCool?

Carina: You know, at DedCool, it’s really about choose your own adventure. We never want people to be pigeonholed into how we think they should experience it. For us, it’s about giving people the tools to create their own experience. It’s a great feeling for me to hear I got a million compliments. I want our community to feel good about the choice they made, about the fragrance they sprayed, and to have it be a part of their identity and their ritual.

Christina: How have things changed over the decade you have been building DedCool?

Carina: For a long time, even when DedCool was early on the scene, people didn’t experience fragrance the way they do now. Now it’s very much about mood, identity, and feeling. For so long, and this was very industry standard, fragrance was a luxury. It was something you wore only on special occasions.

At this point, people can use scent every day because of more accessible price points and more visibility and awareness around scent wardrobing. I think it’s great that people can truly immerse themselves in something that feels like a part of them. It’s the way you express yourself. It’s the way you feel about yourself. It can be personal or it can project outward.

I’m really about this new evolution of fragrance, and I’m excited and happy to have been an early adopter of that. I’m also really excited about innovation. For me, it’s about how we can continuously have conversations around fragrance and what it means to people without it being so black and white.

Christina: You’ve done some really cool partnerships. How do you decide which collaborations make sense for DedCool?

Carina: Yeah, collaborations are the best. For us, we’re genuinely great friends with a lot of these founders and their teams, and that makes it easy. It’s just fun to infuse that energy into something. Why not? Beauty should be fun. It doesn’t always have to be so serious.

The Soft Services one was so well received. People absolutely love their Theraplush. It’s fantastic. And to have it in the Xtra Milk scent was like, yeah, everybody wants that.

It was one of those collaborations where we said, let’s give it a try, and it just keeps blowing it out of the water. We’re thankful and we love their team. It’s an awesome collaboration.

Christina: What are you excited about that you have coming?

Carina: You know, there’s so much. This is the first year we’re going to have two fragrance drops, and they’re both very unique. From the first feedback we’ve gotten, people are obsessed. Every year, every launch, every product just gets bigger and bigger, and it’s really cool to see that evolution happening in real time.

I’m also really excited about the team. We just hired some leadership people for the first time, and I can’t wait to have more thought partners and people who make me better. We’ve had a fairly nimble team up until now, so bringing on people who elevate the work feels huge.

There are lots of really exciting things ahead. I definitely felt a little discouraged at one point because hiring is hard. But when you find the right people, it’s all worth it.

Christina: Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me! Loved hearing more about the brand straight from you.

Carina: Thanks for having me. This was really exciting. Thanks Christina.