Luxury perfume house Rosy & Earnest is quietly reshaping the future of fine fragrance. As one of the first luxury perfume houses to achieve the prestigious EWG Verified™ status, the brand is challenging long-standing norms in a category built on secrecy, proprietary formulas, and limited transparency. Co-founders Marilou Hamer and Caroline Gélineault have carved out a new lane where safety, science, and sensuality coexist, proving that clean fragrance doesn’t have to compromise on artistry or luxury.
In this exclusive Retailboss interview, they open up about what it really took to build an EWG-certified collection, how a partnership with legendary Master Perfumer Nathalie Feisthauer elevated their vision, and why their recent Ulta Beauty Marketplace debut marks a defining moment for modern clean fragrance.
Rosy & Earnest has become one of the first luxury fragrance houses to achieve EWG Verification. What did it take to meet those clean beauty standards in a category that’s often guarded by secrecy?
It took real determination and a willingness to push against industry norms. One of the biggest challenges was finding partners willing to disclose every ingredient and work within EWG’s Verified™ guidelines. In fragrance, formulas are treated as trade secrets, therefore full transparency is rare. We were surprised to learn that many brands don’t even know what’s in their own perfumes because fragrance houses own the formulas and rarely share complete compositions. Several labs told us that full ingredient disclosure and EWG-compliant formulations were simply too complicated.
But we believe consumers deserve to know what they’re putting on their skin. Our journey started with our own frustration at finding perfumes that offered transparent ingredients and third-party certification. That became our motivation, and we kept going until we found a lab and perfumer willing to take that leap with us.
Meeting these standards meant working with a smaller palette and finding creative ways to build depth. The EWG process is highly rigorous, with every ingredient reviewed for compliance. Along the way, we learned that “natural” doesn’t always mean safer, which shaped our balanced approach using both safe botanicals and safe synthetics. The result is fine fragrance that feels luxurious, expressive, and built with integrity from the inside out.
Your partnership with Nathalie Feisthauer, one of the industry’s most decorated perfumers, adds high perfume credibility to a clean beauty ethos. What drew her to collaborate with Rosy & Earnest, and how does her creative process align with your brand values?
Nathalie told us she was inspired by our vision and our commitment to doing things differently. Her team had never worked within EWG Verified™ standards and couldn’t promise we’d pass on the first try, but she believed in what we were building and chose to take a chance. That blend of curiosity, courage, and generosity is something we admire deeply.
We’re incredibly proud to collaborate with her. Nathalie has created iconic scents for Hermès, Yves Saint Laurent, Cartier, and Comme des Garçons, and spent more than 30 years shaping the industry at Givaudan and Symrise before founding her own studio, LABScent, in Paris. Having someone of her calibre believe in our vision gave us the confidence that this project could stand alongside the world’s finest fragrances.
The Ulta Marketplace launch marks a major U.S. milestone. What does this retail expansion signify for Rosy & Earnest’s next growth chapter?
Launching on Ulta Beauty’s Marketplace is a dream milestone for us. As an independent, women founded brand that launched just over two years ago, seeing our fragrances on Ulta’s platform feels incredibly meaningful. It represents our first major U.S. retail partnership and validates everything we’ve worked so hard to build. It’s proof that clean, transparent fine fragrance belongs in mainstream beauty.
Ulta has built an incredible community around discovery and trust as the nation’s leading beauty retailer, and we’re honored to be part of it. For Rosy & Earnest, this partnership represents growth with intention. We’re proud to bring our EWG Verified™ and Leaping Bunny Certified fragrances to a retailer that champions innovation and integrity, values that align strongly with our own.
This moment marks the beginning of our next chapter in the U.S., expanding awareness, deepening connections, and showing that clean and luxury can coexist beautifully in modern fine fragrance.
Many brands use “clean” as marketing language, but Rosy & Earnest treats it as a scientific standard backed by third party certification and full transparency. How do you ensure authenticity in an era of greenwashing?
From day one, we wanted to build a brand people could trust — not because we said the right things, but because we could prove them. The word ‘clean’ isn’t regulated, and we saw how confusing it can be for consumers. Words like ‘natural’ or ‘non-toxic’ sound comforting, but they’re also unregulated — and as consumers ourselves, we struggled to tell which brands were genuinely clean and which were just following a trend.
That’s why we committed to earning the most stringent, science-backed certification available: EWG Verified™. We wanted to hold ourselves accountable to an external standard — one that reviews every ingredient against the latest health and safety data.
Today’s consumers are more informed than ever. They want transparency, but they also want proof. Certifications like EWG Verified™ and Leaping Bunny provide exactly that: independent validation that makes it easier for people to shop with confidence — and peace of mind.
Clean beauty is often associated with minimalism, yet Rosy & Earnest’s scents are richly layered and sensual. How do you achieve that complexity while staying true to your clean formulation promise?
From the beginning, our mission was to create fragrances that were as safe and transparent as they were beautiful, scents you can wear with confidence and emotion. Clean formulation wasn’t a detail for us; it was the foundation. But we also wanted each perfume to feel luxurious, nuanced, and deeply personal, not just pleasantly scented.
That balance is a testament to our Master Perfumer, Nathalie Feisthauer. With a curated palette of EWG-approved ingredients, she builds depth and contrast without ever compromising safety.
For us, clean beauty isn’t about minimalism. It’s about intention — creating something beautiful with purpose and care. Each scent is layered, expressive, and sensual, crafted with integrity and soul.
Rosy & Earnest is proving that transparency is no longer a niche idea, rather, a new frontier of luxury. At a time when “clean” claims are often diluted by marketing language, the brand has committed to something far more demanding: scientific rigor, full formulation disclosure, and third-party validation at every step.
As they enter their next chapter with Ulta Beauty and expand their presence across the U.S., their message remains clear: modern fragrance can be safe, sensual, and held to a higher standard. Rosy & Earnest is defining its future, one meticulously crafted scent at a time.
