About Us

Hello, we're [9.28]: The underground perfumers

 

In The Beginning:

We started this underground perfumery with $80 and a bad attitude. 

Back then, we were just two best friends who couldn't stop complaining mostly about how stinky people were. We'd joke that some folk thought perfume was witchcraft, or worse: that their natural sweat smelled better than soap. And honestly? Maybe they weren't wrong.

But we decided to prove them wrong anyway.

 

 It was the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world felt shut down and silent. With $80 in our bank account and nowhere to go, we ordered 10 raw materials and dedicated ourselves to the strange, emotional world of perfume and soap making. 


No formal training. No business plan. Just intuition, obsession, and long nights learning how scent works and how scent feels.

Learning In Silence:

 

We learned whenever we could. 

Through TikTok videos, YouTube tutorials, and library books. We watched, read, practiced, failed, and kept going. Eventually, we found a mentor... an experienced ex-perfumer in Berkeley, who saw our passion. He believed in us, taught us how to refine our craft, and today, he's our trusted supplier for the natural ingredients we use in many of our perfumes.

We also studied by walking into Sephora, Ulta, and niche fragrance boutiques- not to buy, but to sniff and learn. But instead of being welcomed, we were often judged by how we looked, ignored, or even booted out.

Still, we kept going.

 

From A Flea Market Table

 

 

When the world finally reopened, we didn't launch online or in a chic store. We went to the flea market, a place people often overlook or judge as "cheap," "poor," or "irrelevant."

That's where we found our first real audience. We started with just two local-inspired scents, and slowly, people started to come back, especially at Laney College Flea Market in the Bay Area. That's where we built our community.

 

Of course, it wasn't always romantic and fun.

We got judged, laughed at, told to copy Dior Sauvage or Baccarat Rouge. We tried to please everyone and in doing so, we started to lose ourselves.

There were days we felt invisible. Like no one cared about what we were trying to say through scent.

But we kept going. And slowly, word started spreading. People remembered us. They returned. They smelled our story, and they stayed.

 

Who We Are Today?

 

This brand isn't about trends.

Not through trend, through being different. 

We're still here. Still underground. Still emotional. Still just two friends chasing the OG dream: To create perfume that makes people say,

" Yo, That's sick!!!"

 

Our perfumes are made to help people to feel good, nostalgic, romantic, and real. Crafted with honest stories, and all the mistakes that come from starting from nothing but never giving up.


Meet The Gang:

 

"Yo, These smelly people make me do it." ----Nigi

 Nigi Choi ( The perfumer/ founder/full-time overthinker)

Once broke, jobless, and mentally spiraling, she had one overwhelming fear in life: smelly people. So instead of running from the stink, she ran toward it, by tossing herself into the chaotic obsessive world of perfumery. 

Armed with anxiety, trauma, and absolutely no formal training, Nigi set out to conquer scent by turning her fear into obsession.

After hundreds of failed formulas, she stopped trying to impress and started making scents that reflected how she felt: Nostalgic, sad, chaotic, and real. 

She now bottles all these stories instead of emotions, crafting perfumes for the misunderstood, the romantic, the burnout, also the dreamer.

In her free time, she likes to talk to a tree and a cat.

 

 Ludwig/ Eggie ( Co-creator, Soap Alchemist)

Tired. Always tired. 

He hated 9-5 jobs, slept nonstop, and never had spare time for hobbies. The bank account? Always low. The support system? Nonexistent. He was left to rot.

Until one day, his friend dragged him into the world of handmade soap, because she knew he secretly loved Korean skincare and believed that soap could heal, not just cleanse.

And so began the chaos.

He went BOOM BOOM with lye solution more times than anyone should, melted containers, burned a few gloves, and filled the room with caustic clouds, all in the name of making something gentle.

Despite the burns and the burnout, somehow he created a soap that soothed eczema, healed dry skin using ancient Chinese apothecary techniques with herbs, and made people feel great again. Locals still ask for his soap by the name " EY YO SOAP BOYZ."

 

 

" Why is it always me..." ---Ludwig
" Yo, is RATTON!!!"---Moku

 Joseph/ Moku ( Website Warden & Digital Hermit)

Couldn't go out. Didn't want to.

He lives in Massachusetts for no reason, rarely leaves the house, and exists mostly on a diet of cup noodles, a piece of cheese, and Elden Ring.

With his sleep schedule wrecked and no clear purpose of life, he somehow became the digital brain of the brand, managing orders, tweaking the website, fixing tech issues, and holding the entire online operation together from his tiny computer cave. 

Before this, he was just our emotional support unit, a cheerleader with no title.

Now? He's the reason your perfume shows up in your cart, your email, and your mailbox.

His biggest contribution: Breathing, coding, and fighting rats at night.