A new perfumer-centered fragrance brand is debuting at Sephora.
Called Anecdotes by Artists, the brand is the latest project to come out of Maesa, the incubator behind Ashley Tisdale’s Being Frenshe and mass-market fragrance breakout Fine’ry and will launch online and in select Sephora doors on Sept. 14.
The inaugural collection features a trio of $140 fragrances developed and inspired by the life of Patricia Choux, a perfumer at Mane.
“What made this collection so special was the opportunity to step forward not just as a perfumer, but as an artist. In most projects, you’re solving for a specific objective; here, I was invited to explore without boundaries,” said Choux, whose past creations include Nest Lychee Rose, Roberto Cavalli Serpentine 2025 and Henry Rose Ripe.
Patricia Choux
Courtesy
Choux’s three fragrances for Anecdotes by Artists include Wild Cousin, which reimagines a French baba au rhum cake from the perfumer’s childhood, combining rum-soaked cake and crème Chantilly accords with davana flower and oakwood. Then there’s The Villanelle, a warm vanilla that opens with an icy juniper note, aiming to encapsulate the feeling of being misjudged, and Painted Petals, a fruity-floral juice with notes of strawberry, rhubarb, tuberose and jasmine absolute, inspired by one of Choux’s own paintings and infused with the produce that grew in her childhood backyard.
“The ask from Maesa was to give us fragrances that you always wanted to create, and tell us why,” said Dana Steinfeld, who is chief innovation and Blue Sky officer at Maesa and is stepping into the founder role for the first time with Anecdotes by Artists. “Culturally, people are in a different place in terms of how they’re thinking about products and brands. A big consumer change has been that people want to know the story behind things, to go behind the scenes, to understand the creator…it created a perfect environment for a brand like Anecdotes by Artists.”
Dana Steinfeld
Courtesy
In Sephora stores, the brand’s display will prominently feature Choux’s portrait, and marketing efforts across platforms will similarly seek to introduce consumers to the perfumer as part of their discovery of the brand at large.
“This exciting brand fills a white space in our assortment by putting perfumers at the center of each scent, allowing artists an opportunity to channel their personal stories and unique point of view through fragrance,” said Carye Campbell, senior vice president of fragrance merchandising at Sephora, in a statement.
Added Steinfeld: “Sephora is a destination for beauty, fragrance and artistry of all forms — you have makeup artist brands; you have hairstylist brands and dermatologist brands…but having that perfumer creator as someone that the [Sephora] client knows and sees and meets and understands as part of the fragrance is something very new.”
For Maesa, whose 2025 net sales reached an estimated $380 million globally, Anecdotes by Artists marks a first prestige fragrance play and the first time a Maesa brand has been sold at Sephora.
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The group’s other portfolio brands, which in addition to Being Frenshe and Fine’ry include Hairitage and Kristin Ess in hair care; Mix:Bar and Koze Place in fragrance, and ITK, Ontu and Niches and Nooks in skin care and wellness, commonly sell in Target, Walmart and Ulta Beauty.
“At Maesa, our vision is to be the next-gen beauty company,” said chief executive officer Piyush Jain, adding that while hair care is Maesa’s biggest category, fragrance ranks number-two. “We’ve had many successful fragrance brands in the last few years and have been thinking about launching a brand in the prestige segment, and Sephora is the best partner to launch a brand within the prestige segment.”
The brand’s next collection is being developed with a different perfumer, who also hails from Mane.
“For now, we have been [working with Mane] — we wanted to make sure as we started this project that we had a fragrance house that was open to how we wanted to work and to really kind of open up the books for us,” said Steinfeld, adding that in terms of priorities for Anecdotes by Artists’ first year on the market, “[it’s] helping to share more about this beautiful but sometimes secretive world of fragrance, and bring people into the creative process.”