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Funmi Monet, then a Nigerian-American grad student studying to become a licensed therapist, cultivated her love of fragrance while working at the perfume counter at Dillard’s. Content creation soon became her creative outlet, with her growing following (now more than 500,000 strong on TikTok) seeking out her fragrance advice. Then the opportunities began rolling in: Monet collaborated on her own limited-edition scent called Exalté and joined the Sephora Squad in 2022 as its “go-to fragrance girl” before Sephora approached her with the idea of creating her own brand.
“I have always dreamed of launching my own fragrance brand, but truthfully speaking, I’m not a business person,” Monet tells Fashionista. “I worked in mental health, I’m a creator, but … launching a business is so different.”
However, Sephora’s pitch was the push she needed to dive headfirst into beauty entrepreneurship. Monet was accepted into Sephora Accelerate — the beauty retailer’s incubator dedicated to leveling up emerging businesses — and began building her fragrance label Influxious in 2024. Last summer, Monet also attended a program at ISIPCA (a French fragrance, cosmetics and flavors school in Versailles) and received a certificate as a perfumery expert. “I knew three words of French, but it got me through two weeks of school,” she says.
Photo: Courtesy of Influxious
Now, after two years of development, Influxious will exclusively debut at Sephora on July 27 with its four distinct fragrances: Well Loved, Magic Hour, High Life and Gold Standard. Each scent is available in a 50mL and 10mL bottle, priced at $150 and $35, respectively. Rather than launching with a single hero fragrance, Influxious is signaling that it’s here to stay with its four-scent line-up. As Monet says: “Why not start with a bang?”
Influxious’ scent wardrobe opens with Well Loved, a creamy skin scent blending notes of cardamom, apricot, shea butter and vanilla. Though many modern skin scents embrace fresh linens and soap-adjacent notes, Monet dove into a warmer interpretation. “Whenever I think about a clean skin scent, I think about how I grew up,” she explains. “My mother would rub shea butter and cocoa butter on my skin after a bath and that is what I associated with clean, fresh skin.”
Magic Hour is the brand’s “vacation fragrance,” which aims to transport the senses to a tropical getaway via watermelon, golden mango and dragon fruit with a grounding base of sandalwood, salty skin musk and sunlit amber. Thanks to an expertly placed chili pepper note, “it almost feels like a cocktail with a Tajin rim,” Monet adds. Magic Hour is also “ankle-approved,” which is Monet’s own distinction for sensual, fruity juices worth spritzing down to your ankles.
Photo: Courtesy of Influxious
Inspired by Detty December (Nigeria’s festive season), High Life “captures the essence of Lagos at night,” Monet says. It’s the bold fragrance you apply before a night out dancing with friends, with notes of Turkish rose, West African frankincense, pink pepper and raspberry shining through. According to Monet, this sensorial fusion was intentional: High Life also references Nigerian musician Fela Kuti’s creation of Afrobeat, or a blend of West African music, jazz and funk. “It’s a fragrance that feels very dynamic, it feels very sexy, it feels very rhythmic,” she adds.
Gold Standard, a luxuriously molten gourmand, closes out Influxious’ debut offering. It opens with fruit-forward top notes of blood orange and golden mango, then drifts into a heart of saffron and Moroccan neroli. As its opulent name would suggest, Gold Standard then settles into a rich base of caramel, vanilla, rum, tonka, musk and golden amber. “This smells like someone with an 800 credit score and the rich laugh,” Monet says.
To honor Monet’s heritage, a Nigerian ginger note acts as a throughline within all four fragrances. Nigerian ginger is inherently vibrant, offering a burst of freshness and spice to each fragrance (albeit in varying levels of intensity).
“Some of the fragrances are a little bit more gingery and others have just a little sprinkle of ginger, not super noticeable, but just enough to have this golden thread that ties all four fragrances together and makes them layerable,” Monet says.
Photo: Courtesy of Influxious
Beyond Sephora serving as a guiding partner since Influxious’ ideation phase, it also made sense for the fragrance brand to launch at the retailer given its status on the global beauty stage. Although high-end niche perfumery largely lives atop the beauty counters of specialty retailers and luxury department stores (think Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman), Monet wants to help forge a space for luxury niche fragrance into a widely accessible retailer like Sephora.
“For me, I’ve always seen Influxious as a global brand because I truly see fragrance as a global language,” Monet explains. “When I thought about how I want the brand to grow, I think it makes sense to grow with someone who has a global footprint already because I also want this to be very accessible.”
Looking ahead, the limit does not exist for the Influxious universe, Monet says. Fine fragrance is up first, but scent explorations in all forms — such as body oils and butters — could be on the brand’s horizon.
“You don’t see a ton of African-based niche perfume brands that are on a global scale,” Monet says. “A lot of times the brands are limited to their countries due to distribution, or for a lot of Black-owned brands, they’re just in the U.S., but I’m really hoping to crush that ceiling and show that Nigerian beauty, African perfumery, African ingredients and botanicals belong in perfumery and that French perfumery does not have to be the standard.”
Influxious Gold Standard Eau de Parfum, $150, available here
Influxious High Life Eau de Parfum, $150, available here
Influxious Magic Hour Eau de Parfum, $150, available here
Influxious Well Loved Eau de Parfum, $150, available here
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