Brooklyn-based perfumer Christopher Brosius has no patience for conventional perfume. In fact, he hates it. “Perfume is too often an ethereal corset trapping everyone in the same unnatural shape,” says the nose behind the original Demeter fragrance library. “People who smell like everyone else disgust me.” There’s no chance of that with one of his unique, hand-blended CB I Hate Perfume fragrances, which elicit olfactory doubletakes for their ability to replicate scent memories ranging from Brosius’s childhood backyard to Coppertone sunscreen circa 1966.

One of his secrets to scent-based storytelling is keeping all CB I Hate Perfume formulas free of alcohol. “Oil and water are what the skin naturally needs to hold fragrance the longest—I use those as the bases for all my perfumes instead,” explains Brosius. “From an aesthetic view, alcohol always interferes with the true nature of the scent and you need to wait for it to ‘burn off’ before you can truly appreciate perfume. Without alcohol, my scents are presented immediately, exactly as I designed them.”