Octavia Terry
Octavia Terry founded Octavia Morgan Los Angeles in 2022, stepping into perfumery with a clear point of view: clean ingredients, sophisticated compositions, and a body-positive spirit that had been missing from the category. A skincare veteran through her work at Start With Skin Care, she brought a formulation-first sensibility to fragrance, building four original scents at launch that read polished and considered rather than derivative. Her arrival at Ulta marked a first: she became the first Black and plus-size woman with a fragrance on the chain's shelves, a quiet barrier broken alongside her bottles. Based in Los Angeles, she treats perfumery as an extension of self-care, designing scents meant to live on real skin across real days. The brand keeps its roster tight and intentional, prioritizing wearability and ingredient transparency over volume.
The hits
Notable creations
The signature
How Octavia composes
Terry's signature sits in the space where crisp green and soft skin-warm florals meet. Her work leans on raw materials handled with restraint: bergamot and citrus zest for lift, musks and ambers for skin-like close wear, and light touches of florals that read modern rather than old-fashioned. The compositions feel aerated and sheer, built for layering and reapplication rather than heavy sillage. She prefers ingredients that earn their place through transparency and traceability, and her formulas tend toward the understated end of the spectrum, confident enough to whisper. The result is a quartet of scents that feel personal, polished, and remarkably easy to live in.
Philosophy
What drives Octavia
Terry builds fragrance the way she builds skincare: with an obsessive respect for raw materials and the people who wear them. Her approach centers on clean, considered compositions that never sacrifice complexity for simplicity, or vice versa. She believes sophistication and accessibility belong in the same bottle, and that a scent should feel like an extension of personal ritual rather than a performance. Inclusion runs through every decision, from the bodies represented in her campaigns to the price of admission at the shelf. She sees fragrance as a form of care, a quiet daily luxury available to anyone who reaches for it.
The houses
Maisons Octavia composes for
In the same league