By Martine Thompson ·Updated March 12, 2026 Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

Alloy Studio, available on our weloveus.shop site, creates experimental fragrances where scent becomes everyday armor and immersive art. “Luster” evokes the starchy sweetness of sweet potato pie, honoring the richness of Black American culture. “Kinesis” remixes the spiritual aura of Florida Water with notes of lavender and cinnamon.

Some fragrances plunge you straight into memory. “Silver Haze” evokes a hotbox session in the car with your boo—strawberry perfume sprayed to mask the smoke. “Faux” gives an air kiss to vintage glamour and the legacy of Donyale Luna. Think: beauty powders strewn across the vanity, and a nasty (in the best way!) faux mink coat draped over bare shoulders before a night out.

Each scent channels the punk spirit and expansive vision of its founders: perfumer Bryson Ammons and creative director Eddie Hodges, partners in both life and business.

Ammons crafts every formula himself. He didn’t refine his skills at a pricey perfume school in the South of France or another European city, as many aspiring perfumers are nudged to do. Instead, he taught himself—through tedious research, trial and error, cosmetic science coursework, community support, and countless hours sifting through fragrance forums.

Hodges, as creative director, translates Alloy Studio’s essence into a distinct visual voice, from artwork to the various elements of a photoshoot. 

“I think it’s best when people can really understand the brand’s roots,” says Ammons. “Me and Eddie, we’re the only two people behind the brand, it’s very indie, everything is made literally in our studio in our home, as of right now. I love when people know that and can appreciate it.”

The name Alloy is autobiographical: two metals fused together. One gold. One silver. Two viewpoints in constant conversation. The eye-catching molten chrome fragrance containers—available in silver and gold, in 50ml full and sleek 10ml travel sizes—reflect that duality. Each collection is built around a central theme and released as a pair: one silver fragrance representing Hodges’ perspective, and one gold fragrance embodying Ammons’.

The latest collection, Afrodisiac, exemplifies their approach. “Faux,” the silver scent, channels vintage Black glamour through notes of peach, (faux) mink fur, incense, suede coat lining, and orris powder puff. “Luster,” the gold fragrance, brings sweet potato pie to life as a gourmand blend of burnt sugar, garnet sweet potato, pie crust, condensed milk, and whipped cream.

“We’re always going to do what we find interesting,” adds Ammons. “Always expect that from us.”

Below, Ammons discusses creating a gourmand rooted in Black American tradition, and why pleasure is essential to the creative process.

ESSENCE: How do you approach creating a satisfying sensory experience across the board?

Bryan Ammons: We’re hugely concerned with it. I used to work at Aesop and they are so locked in on sensory pleasure as a whole. Being there really taught me that every single one of the senses matters when you’re presenting something to a customer for commerce. It just makes the whole experience more pleasurable.

We really look for strong reactions either way. We want you to love it or we want you to hate it. I feel like if you’re not getting a strong reaction then that means it just falls in the middle and it’s forgettable. 

How does pleasure connect to fragrance in the Alloy Studio world?

Glamour is pleasure for us and perfume is invisible glamour. With fragrance, you can’t just look at it the way you would a fashion brand. You have to interact with it differently. It’s not something people see about you, they sense it. When someone walks up to you, meets you, or passes you on the street and smells your scent, it creates a memory instantly.

When you and Eddie are having these conversations, how does that connect to you being a Black person in the world? 

In so many Black cultures across the diaspora, beauty is ingrained in different ways. I’m a Black American, and Eddie is Black Puerto Rican and Mexican. On my family’s side specifically, both of my parents were big on, “You’re a young Black man. You need to go out into the world and be presentable and be taken seriously.” 

Growing up as a kid, my mom would have me lay out my clothes the day before, and say, “Make sure they’re steamed and ironed. Make sure you take a shower before you get on the bus. Wear lotion.” It was basically a beauty routine, even though I didn’t think of it that way as a kid. It really built the foundation for my own beauty routines and incorporating beauty into my life. 

Now I feel like I just have a no-brainer understanding of how important it is to have beauty be a part of my life. On top of it all, it’s also liberating. It gives you permission to show up in the world in ways people might not expect, or might not think you should. 

What were the vibes when creating “Faux”?

For “Faux,” we knew we wanted a vintage glamour fragrance. The question was which elements we wanted to build that from. We had a few benchmarks—fragrances we love that we felt we could pick apart and remix and remaster into our own thing.

One was Frederic Malle by Acne Studios. It’s a peachy, rose-y sweet vanilla laundry scent. Love it, it’s so good. That’s actually the last perfume I bought a full bottle of, and that was two years ago. I don’t buy a lot of perfume because I’m usually wearing our own fragrances while I’m testing or developing something.

I’ve always known of Donyale Luna, but I think as we were mood boarding, we came across several images of her in her fur coats. I’ve just always loved her story and watched her documentary on HBO. I felt like she was the perfect muse for “Faux,” and for Alloy in general.

And how did “Luster,” the sweet potato gourmand scent, come to be?

I wanted “Luster” to be a little more remedial and a little less brainy than “Faux.” Gourmand fragrances have blown up—scents that smell like food and that smell like dessert. Perfumers from other cultures have been able to chime in and incorporate the cuisines of their culture into perfume, but we very scarcely have gourmand fragrances that honor Black cuisine. 

For me, when I think of a dessert from our culture that I’d want in a perfume, sweet potato pie is the first thing that comes to mind. It also felt interesting because there aren’t a ton of sweet potato fragrances in general. So we just wanted to have fun with that and do it well, and create a simple ode to it.

How do you see your work with Alloy Studio contributing to the legacy of Black artistry expressed through fragrance?

For us, the whole reason we do Alloy Studio is to show that being Black-owned doesn’t mean our work has to look or be a certain way.

Different ideas and identities can be expressed. We’re queer, and being Black and being queer—those are things we can’t change, and they’re also things we would never want to remove or hide. So we choose to display them proudly and openly, and create a platform for them to be expressed through fragrance in a much more glamorous way.

One of the tenets of Afro-Surrealism, which at this point is the perfect descriptor and art movement to pair the Alloy Studio with, is that you kind of just can’t pin it down. You can’t say that it’s one thing. You can’t ever expect an Afro-Surrealist to do what you want them to do or be how you think they should be. And I think that’s really what we’re all about. Truly being ourselves and expressing the ideas that we have that are inspired by our culture as Black people, as queer people.

The post Inside Alloy Studio’s Afro-Surrealist Scent World appeared first on Essence.

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