Kitten Fur, High School Summer, and Snow on Concrete—Meet Nostos, My New Favorite Fragrance Brand
Have you ever fallen for a brand before it even launched? That’s exactly what happened with Nostos, a new niche fragrance line that became an instant favorite of mine before its first bottles even existed.
Started by Jackie Mayol from her New York City apartment, I first discovered Nostos while deep in a perfume TikTok rabbit hole. In the months that followed, it felt funny to realize how invested I was in a product that technically didn’t exist yet, so much so that it quickly became one of my most anticipated releases of the year.
What sold me immediately was the distinctness of each scent. If you’re looking for something cozy and comforting, Calico is for you, which has kitten fur as a note. Teen captures the fleeting feeling of high school summers spent at the mall, with a nostalgic reference to Victoria’s Secret body sprays, which is easily the flirtiest and most playful of the three. Meanwhile, Shiver is the most vivid winter smell: snow on concrete, the embodiment of cold.
As I did more research, I learned that all of them were developed in collaboration with perfumer Marissa Zappas, with design by Special Offer, Inc., the creative agency behind Charli XCX’s Brat and Rosalía’s Lux.
Month after month, I found myself checking to see if the launch had finally happened, and after nearly a year of anticipation, Nostos finally debuted this December.
Below, I spoke with Mayol about launching Nostos and her first fragrances: Calico, Teen, and Shiver.
What was your experience with fragrance before starting this brand?
I loved fragrance as a teen and how it gave me such a confidence boost every time I drowned myself in my body sprays, but I started getting more into the niche fragrance world during the pandemic. I lived with my parents for a few months and started ordering discovery sets online. My mom and I would try a different sample every day and I’d take notes on how they’d change throughout the day and how they differed on each of our skins. It became this activity to look forward to every day and it was a source of escapism. I also started digging into fragrance forums and YouTube channels, which gave me this sense of comfort and connection during that time. After things started opening up again, I went to Scent Bar in L.A. for the first time and the rest is history. I was hooked.
Do you have early scent memories or nostalgic perfumes that influenced you—fragrances that instantly take you back to a specific moment or era in your life?
A major scent memory for me is the smell of my hometown in Central California. It’s a huge agricultural community, so the smell of hay, dust, and farm animals is burned into my brain. I love hay notes in perfumes now, but when creating scents for Nostos I leaned more into nostalgic scents from my middle school and high school years. My first bottle of Viva La Juicy by Juicy Couture changed my life. That scent and bottle will forever be iconic to me. I was also addicted to Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body Works body mists and those have unabashedly influenced my taste today. When I remember Sweet Pea, Pure Seduction, and Vanilla Lace, I’m instantly transported to my middle school locker room—changing out of my baggy PE uniform and dousing myself with the juice inside those plastic bottles. When we created Teen for Nostos, I wanted it to be a love letter to those formative fragrance years, but with a bit of a more grown-up nuanced scent profile.
Professionally and personally, can you share how you decided to start Nostos? I’d love to hear the beginnings and how you first came up with the idea.
My prior career path had been pretty all over the place. I went from working in music PR to working as an assistant to a major music video director to working in advertising to working in tech at a digital fashion and avatar company. I was always doing something creative within each role, but I knew that someday I wanted to create something on my own without an approval process, and I knew I wanted to learn the process of physical product creation. I felt ready to prove to myself that I could bring something to life on my own terms, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted the product to be.
I worked backward a bit and ultimately I think I let the product find me. I started mood-boarding and refined what I wanted the overall creative to look like and it was clear that it needed to be something with a lot of visual potential. At the same time, I randomly started a perfume bottle Pinterest board just because I loved looking at the shapes and designs for fun. Then it sort of just clicked that fragrance could be a really amazing vessel to bring this world to life, and I already had this preexisting love for it. A friend of mine told me to check out Marissa Zappas’s perfumes and I saw on her website that she was taking on freelance projects. I emailed her to set up a coffee date and pitched her some of my ideas and she seemed really excited about it. Then it was like, whoa, I guess I have a perfumer now. I guess I can’t back out, so it’s time to lock in and see this through.
You quit your job to start this. What made you decide to take that chance?
I had a lot of great experience from hopping around different industries and knew that I had learned so much that could be applied to building a brand. I was also so excited about the potential for being able to cherry-pick creatives and collaborate with people I’ve worked with previously or had been admiring from afar. I was ready for something completely unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and I knew I had a great support system around me from previous coworkers to friends to family that would encourage me to see it through. There’s this idea that creative ideas will find their way into the world one way or another, whether it’s through you or someone else, and the thought of Nostos coming to life through anyone other than myself felt like a crime.
I’ve been following Nostos on TikTok for almost a year, and it’s funny how invested I became in a line that wasn’t even out yet. It’s clearly developed a niche following within the fragrance community, and people have been really excited for this release. Why do you think it had that effect on people before even launching?
I’m so glad you’ve stuck around because sometimes it felt like I’d never see the finish line! I say finish line, but I guess the launch could also be seen as the starting line because there’s so much more work to do and so much still to share.
I think people subscribed early on and were excited to see the entirety of the process because the fragrance industry does feel a bit mysterious and secretive from the outside. I also think in the past fragrance has sometimes felt a bit pretentious and serious and my approach is more playful from the scents to the visuals. I also work with amazing artists and creatives like my perfumer Marissa Zappas and my creative agency, Special Offer, Inc. Marissa has her own perfume line with such a well-deserved devout following. It’s been so fun creating together because the fragrances she crafted for Nostos are so different from her own brand and showcase a separate side of her skillset that I’m so excited for people to explore. I was also lucky enough to weasel my way into Special Offer’s client base before their amazing work on Charli XCX’s Brat and Rosalia’s Lux came out. Being able to build out my perfect team for Nostos that I admire and deeply respect I think sets us apart and makes it fun for an audience to see unfold.
What led you to approach the brand from a place of evoking nostalgia?
I’m a self-diagnosed nostalgia addict. The pain of not being able to relive memories makes me sick to my stomach, so being able to access even a slice of these memories through fragrance is fascinating to me. It’s funny because the fragrances themselves are playful and conceptual, but there’s this overlying bit of melancholy that comes along with them. The word Nostos comes from the root word of nostalgia, and it was previously used in the Greek language to describe the desire to return home. The overarching theme of the brand is the sweetness and sadness of memory dancing together through a homecoming provided by scent.
When creating these fragrances, did you begin with a memory, a feeling, or a specific scent note, or something else? I’d love you to walk me through your process of making these.
I typically begin with a brief narrative of a memory and the feelings associated. I also always attach visuals. Most of the time I can see what I want the fragrance to be before knowing exactly what I want it to smell like. I usually have a few notes in mind, but I love giving my perfumer creative freedom to interpret the brief. Sometimes I’ll include a playlist that we can listen to while bringing everything to life just to add another sensory layer to the process. I have no idea what the typical process is for briefing perfumers, but this works well for us and is so much fun. Once Marissa has played around a bit in her lab, she’ll have me smell her latest mods and I’ll give feedback. More of this, less of that, let’s try this, etc. We’ll continue modifying until we’re both happy and feel like it’s a good representation of the original brief.
How do you choose which ideas or memories are worth translating into their own fragrance? And why did you land on kitten fur, high school summer, and snow on concrete as your first three?
I like tapping into visceral personal memories typically, but I also like interpreting memories that might feel like they came from a dream. Teen and Calico both feel highly personal to me and are the more playful of the three, while Shiver feels more like this liminal dream state that I can picture perfectly. I’ve definitely experienced snow melting on concrete and cold metal in winter, but the landscape that I envision when I think of Shiver feels a bit more distant and abstract, but actualizing it through fragrance makes it feel so real.
I wanted the first three to all be super different but also feel like they live within the same world. I knew I wanted to hit on floral/musky, fruity/youthful, and earthy/metallic so that there was sort of something for everyone in this debut collection.
Are there any other outside influences that inspired you when creating the brand? For example, films, music, music videos, literature, art, or specific aesthetics.
Musically, I always listen to Vegyn when I’m working on Nostos. His music just always puts me in the right headspace and it complements the visuals I’m trying to create so well. Visually, I’m obsessed with the movie The Taste of Tea. I love the surrealism and coloring of it all, but I don’t love that it’s so hard to stream, so if you come across it, watch it ASAP before it disappears. I’m also just forever obsessed with Comme des Garcons’ approach with perfume visuals and packaging. I have their book of perfumes from 1994 to 2025, and it’s so inspiring and fun to flip through. I could talk about my influences forever, but those are the first that came to mind as of late.
Can you give us any teasers of other emotions or memories you hope to capture through future fragrances?
I’d love to collaborate with a fashion designer to create a scent that releases with a runway collection that taps into some sort of nostalgic theme that’s specific to the designer. Or working with a musician on a fragrance for their album cycle or a fragrance for a movie. I’m already working with Marissa on our next fragrance together. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m so excited about it.
Calico
Top Notes: Toasted Rice, Bergamot
Middle Notes: Kitten Fur, Jasmine Sambac, Honeysuckle, Warm Milk, Heliotrope, Orange Blossom
Base Notes: Pillowy Musk, Clean Vanilla
Description: A gentle ray of warmth slips through sun bleached curtains, spreading out onto freshly washed sheets. Your new kitten cozies up onto your pillow as you savor the stillness of morning while sipping a hot cup of tea. The morning silence interrupted only by your pet’s purrs.
“I wanted this fragrance to be more of an intimate musky skin scent to evoke the feeling of cuddling with your kitten in fresh sheets. If you’re a fellow cat lover, you know that there’s this strangely amazing smell that cat fur has. Maybe it’s the toxoplasmosis speaking, but it has this creamy, fresh-laundry, baked-good type of smell. If you know, you know.” — Mayol
Teen
Top Notes: Blood Orange, Bergamot
Middle Notes: Ripe Passionfruit, Rose, Fresh Cut Grass, Violet Leaf
Base Notes: Vanilla Bean, Tonka, Cashmere Musk
Description: Another weekend spent escaping the heat of summer by patrolling your local mall. With a $20 bill in your pocket, the possibilities are endless. A new fruity body spray that’ll trail you as you strut through the halls on your way to math class is calling your name.
“This was the fragrance concept that really sparked my inspiration for Nostos as a whole. I wanted to feel that teenage summer break excitement once again. It’s so fun to see people’s reaction to smelling this for the first time because it really does take you back in a crazy way.” — Mayol
Shiver
Top Notes: Eucalyptus, Bergamot, Ivy, White Pepper
Middle Notes: Wet Concrete, Vetiver, Cold Metal, Orris, Pear
Base Notes: Pure Amber, Cedar Wood, Oak Moss, Musk, Patchouli
Description: Snow melts slowly over your small town parking lot as the crisp air hits your nose. The earth is defrosting alongside you as the first signs of spring start to emerge.
“I’ve always loved the smell of cold metal and wet earth, but when creating this scent, it was tricky to make it make sense with the other two. I think the bit of subtle pear brought it there and rounded out this debut group of three beautifully. The concept of a cold smell is so interesting to me and something I want to explore more of in the future.” — Mayol
