The story of how Deuxmoi, Instagram’s favorite source for celebrity sightings and blind items, came to collaborate on a perfume and sell it at Violet Grey is one of taking risks in DMs and cold emails. After all, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” Deuxmoi told Glossy.
The Deuxmoi fragrance was created by the anonymous woman herself, who has 2 million Instagram followers, and Melanie Apple, founder of indie fragrance brand Voyage et Cie. “I had seen they collaborated with Kourtney Kardashian — they did a Poosh candle with her,” Deuxmoi said, regarding Voyage et Cie. “So I reached out on Instagram and said, ‘Would you want to collab on a fragrance?'”
Apple was game, and the next thing Deuxmoi (the person) knew, she was on a flight to L.A. to co-create the resulting scent, which is called “Plage.” “I brought [Apple] all of these old, discontinued fragrance oils that I’ve collected over the years that I couldn’t part with because I loved the way they smell,” Deuxmoi said of the formulation process. Her directive was, “‘I want it to smell luxury suntan lotion,’ [because] I love smelling like the beach 12 months out of the year,” she said.
Flash forward, and Deuxmoi launched the scent on her own e-commerce site, deuxmerch.com, at the top of this year. She eventually decided she wanted her followers to have the option to sniff it IRL before purchasing, so she emailed Violet Grey, asking if the L.A.-based beauty retailer would be interested in carrying Plage.
Deuxmoi had a pre-existing relationship with Violet Grey — her e-commerce site sells the retailer’s makeup bag as part of its curated product section.
Sarah Brown, Violet Grey’s chief brand officer and former beauty director at Vogue, said carrying the brand made sense. “When you think about it, Deuxmoi is everyone’s source for Hollywood news, and Violet Grey is where Hollywood shops. … And it’s all about the inside scoop: She’s got a celebrity scoop, we’ve got a beauty scoop — it’s about exclusives.”
Brown wanted Plage to be a summer launch, hence the June 20 launch date.
“It’s different than most everything else we sell. A lot of what we sell is $400 perfumes,” she said, pointing to Plage’s $75 price tag. “However, the quality of this is really nice. It’s a perfume oil, and it feels silky. We were very happy with the quality.”
The Violet Grey flagship store, at Melrose Place, will offer a number of bottles signed by Deuxmoi. “It’s like an instant collector’s edition,” Brown said. “For someone who is anonymous and sort of mysterious, I thought it would be so much fun to have something signed by her. You know she touched it.”
To hype up the Thursday launch, Deuxmoi and Violet Grey collaborated on a teaser Instagram post. Violet Grey will also be sharing content created in collaboration with Deuxmoi, such as her product picks for certain celebrities. Of Deuxmoi, Brown said, “She’s such a beauty girl. … When you get her talking about beauty, she knows a lot.”
