About MAISON D'AUDE

Independence equals creativity

Corporate perfume brands have been churning out mediocre juice for years. These global brands spend millions of dollars on focus groups worldwide with an attempt to please everyone, but instead, they create middle of the road scents in search of profits leaving those who crave originality wanting something different.

 

It is our mission to create fragrances for those that want something more than your typical “safe” department store scent. Because we’re independent, our creativity is not constrained to the limits of focus groups or stuffy board members. Independent perfumery has risen in popularity over the last few years, there clearly is a demand for distinctive fragrances. MAISON D’AUDE fills that void with unique offerings that smell great.

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Our Beginnings

Although the brand MAISON D’AUDE is new, our journey started many years ago. MAISON D’AUDE is the brainchild of founder and in-house perfumer Lawrence Gallegos. Raised by his grandparents, Lawrence spent a lot of time with them, especially his grandmother Rose, who was a very refined woman. Little Lawrence loved spending time smelling her perfumes. The most memorable being Yves Saint Laurent's Oriental masterpiece “Opium” and Jean Patou’s legendary floral “JOY”. When smelling “Opium” he would visualize being in an exotic far off land filled with spices, balsams and musks. Rose would brag to him that “JOY” was the most expensive perfume in the world, which was true at the time of its release in 1930. 

 

Grandma Rose would often tell little Lawrence, “Mijito it’s important to always look and smell good”. At age 5 he got his first cologne, “Brut” aftershave. It was almost expected for him to receive cologne for his birthday and Christmas. From then on fragrance would always be part of his life, and fragrance, would always be associated with points in time. “Drakkar Nior” was the time of 5th grade, “Lapidus Pour Homme” (which he hilariously pronounced as La-poo-di-us), turning 18 and graduating from high school. Although grandma Rose was born in Mexico, she liked to remind Lawrence of their French heritage by telling him about the great French culture, especially about their food and art. She would say, “Mijito, my family immigrated from France to Mexico a long time ago. They came from a beautiful land; their family name was Aude.”(pronounced [od] (listen) ) Lawrence wasn’t sure if this was actually true or just grandma telling stories. Many years later, through DNA research, Lawrence would come to find out everything she said was true. Grandma’s family did immigrate from France to Mexico, their names was Aude and they did come from a beautiful land. They came from the area of Savoie located in the French Alpes near the borders of Italy and Switzerland.

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If you build it, they will come

Being a hyper sensitive person or HSP, Lawrence’s sense of smell has always been very keen. For years Lawrence contemplated becoming a perfumer to make use of this gift (and sometimes curse). It wasn’t until the great pandemic of 2020 that he would make this a reality. For years the idea would pop into his head, but a voice, the same voice that has prevented so many from following their true passion would talk him out of this crazy idea by saying things like, “There’s no way you can acquire the same ingredients the pros use. You don’t know where to find them, besides, they’re probably way too expensive and you can’t afford them.” Or “Who do you think you are? You’re not a Chemist and you don’t even have any formal training. Face it, this is a crazy idea don’t even bother trying.” Until one day the idea rose to consciousness just like the many times before but this time, he had a “If you build it, they will come” moment. Lawrence rejected the negative thoughts. He finally realized olfactory artistry was his true calling. Now that he was stuck at home due to lockdowns, and unable to work, this negative situation could be turned into something positive. Lawrence had always been a DIY type of personality. He taught himself many things like cooking, beer making, drums, guitar, even other languages. If he was interested in something, he would become obsessed and try to learn as much as he could about that subject. He knew going the traditional route of acquiring a chemistry degree and attending one of the perfume schools in Europe was out of the question. So instead, he invested in himself. He soon realized perfumery has traditionally been shrouded in mystery, but thanks to the Internet, many of its secrets could be learned. Lawrence spent the next 2 years intensely learning and training. He studied academic books, watched videos, read online articles. He also invested in the tools of the trade; scales, magnetic stirrers, beakers, refrigeration, pipettes, smelling strips, specialty software, and most importantly, professional raw materials to experiment with. He learned his materials; what they smell like at different dilutions, which ones paired well with others, memorized hundreds of different materials, learned which materials had restrictions and which ones could be used freely.  During that time of experimentation, Lawrence developed the Dank Series, the first release from MAISON D’AUDE. Lawrence found the “perfume” of Cannabis to be enjoyable, that its scent profile was something others would like too. From his research, Lawrence learned it is possible to reconstruct terpene profiles using non-Cannabis ingredients isolated from from natural sources like pine trees and citrus fruits. Just like he connected his previous fragrances to points in time, so were certain smells of Cannabis. That is how the Dank Collection came to be. Tr MAISON D’AUDE plans to release one more addition to the Dank Collection, and you can expect many more releases in the future. MAISON D’AUDE is a testament of what is possible when negativity is disregarded, allowing one to peruse their true calling in life.

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About our logo

Our logo is based on the Aude family’s coat of arms which features their traditional colors of blue and silver. Too better reflect our brand, we replaced the original 3 silver swords with 3 pipettes. It’s our way of paying homage to our French heritage while also displaying our American attitude.