The Maker Comes to Canada

The Maker lifestyle fragrance line has officially made its Canadian debut. All seven of The Maker’s eaux de parfum are now available exclusively at select Sephora Canada stores and online, along with four of the brand’s six candles. Quickly gaining widespread recognition for its beautifully balanced, gender-free scents packaged in elegant fluted bottles, The Maker produces fragrances that each embrace a unique aspect of sensuality.

The Maker, whose lifestyle line also includes cushions, wallpaper, and glassware, among other home goods, began as a boutique hotel in Hudson, New York, the latest venture of Lev Glazman and Alina Roytberg, the duo who rose to beauty stardom after founding Fresh Beauty in 1991. Meant to be like stepping into a creative’s home, the bohemian 11-room hotel opened in 2020, rapidly becoming a retreat from city life for tastemakers up and down the East Coast.

Meticulously decorated by Glazman himself with laboriously collected antiques, art, and over 1,000 lamps (a particular passion of the fragrance architect), the hotel rooms are designed around different creatives, like the architect, the writer, and the artist. Upstairs, a small alcove contains a cabinet full of fragrances, a small selection of Glazman’s larger library that he rotates through the hotel for guests to experience.

First introduced to the world of fragrance growing up in Russia when his mother bought a bottle of French perfume on the black market, Glazman was inspired by the hotel and the stories that unfolded within its walls for The Maker perfumes, capturing a different “travel fantasy” in each bottle.

“When we travel, we are fantasies. We imagine ourselves being a certain way somewhere, where no one knows you or maybe you just want to test this personality,” Roytberg explains, noting the power olfaction holds. “You become your own maker of that. Travel fantasies are powerful. Whether you live them or you long for them, it’s a powerful activity.”

The eaux de parfum are sultry, sensual, and complex, encased in recycled-glass bottles that contain 27 per cent less glass than typical fragrance containers. As with Fresh, The Maker emphasizes using clean, vegan, and cruelty-free formulas without parabens, formaldehydes, or synthetic dyes.

The top-selling and newest fragrance, Lover, woody and warm with notes of sandalwood, fig, and vetiver, is poised to become a hero product for the brand. The rest of the lineup includes the juniper berry and Tahitian vanilla of Fire (particularly popular during the winter), the bright and citrusy Libertine, the sensual white musk of Naked, the summery and fruity Paradiso, the velvet florals of Wild, and the leather and wood of Stag (which won the Fragrance Foundation’s indie fragrance of the year award in 2022). For those wanting to familiarize themselves with multiple fragrances, the Discovery Set contains a mini fragrance library.

The four candles—Artist, Gardener, Architect, Spiritus (the hotel’s scent)—made with pure soy wax and a cotton wick, are inspired by different rooms in The Maker Hotel. Unlike some fragrance producers, Glazman generally avoids turning the eau de parfum scents into candles because of how intimate one’s scent is. “I believe that fragrance is a huge expression of ourselves,” he says. “When we find something that really becomes part of us, you leave it behind—what else leaves traces of you but fragrance?”