The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
In 2022, Brent Leonesio built Fae around a simple question: what if every candy you ever loved could live in one bottle? The answer wasn't chocolate. It was banana Runts, cotton candy, and tropical fruit floating on coconut cream toward a shore of vanilla. The official description calls it Tinkerbell and Genie sharing a cocktail on Mt. Olympus. That tells you everything about the intent. This isn't a fragrance that asks permission. It arrives as a small, sweet conflagration and trusts you to figure out where it fits in your life.
The note structure tells the rest. Banana, marshmallow, and pear open the composition with an immediate confectionery burst. Coconut and sugar carry the heart, keeping things tropical and creamy without tipping into sunscreen territory. Vanilla and tonka bean anchor the base, softening the sweetness just enough to make this wearable rather than overwhelming. The banana note is the tell. Leonesio treats it realistically, not as a synthetic novelty, which means Fae avoids the trap most banana fragrances fall into. It smells like banana Runts, not banana-flavored anything.
The evolution
The opening hits fast. Banana and marshmallow arrive together, powdery and sweet, with pear adding a little fruity snap underneath. Within the first thirty minutes, the banana reveals itself three ways: realistic, then marshmallow-soft, then warm banana bread. The coconut moves in next, keeping the tropical angle alive while the sugar sweetens everything further. By hour two, the base takes over. Vanilla and tonka bean create a warm, gourmand finish that stays close to the skin rather than filling the room. The drydown is the payoff. Six to eight hours later, you're catching faint vanilla and the ghost of coconut. Not a sillage monster. But it lingers.
Cultural impact
Fae arrived during a cultural shift toward playful, confectionery-forward perfumery. Where once sweet fragrances were dismissed as simplistic, Scent Trunk's release validated a growing appetite for nostalgic, childlike joy in adult fragrance. The fragrance tapped into a post-pandemic desire for comfort and whimsy, and in doing so it became a symbol of scented self-expression for a generation that refused to outgrow their love of cotton candy and fruit snacks. Fae's success proved there was a substantial audience willing to buy niche-adjacent fragrances without traditional heritage, simply because the story and smell resonated emotionally.
