About Us
OUR STORY
A FRAGRANCE CAN TAKE YOU SOMEWHERE.
Los Angeles native Jacob Gonzalez, now residing in Orange County, California, created Fondr from a memory.
Jacob’s first fragrance purchased on his own was Acqua di Giò Absolu—a fragrance that, unfortunately, has since been discontinued. But long after the bottle became difficult to find, its scent remained. Every time Jacob smelled it, he was transported back to a beautiful period of his life.
That experience stayed with him.
Because fragrance has a strange kind of power. It can take you somewhere without moving you at all. A single note can bring back a person, a place, a feeling, or an entire chapter of your life. It can make you feel something you haven’t felt in years.
Jacob wanted to create that feeling for other people.
FROM A HOBBY TO FONDR
Fondr wasn’t originally meant to be a brand.
It started as a personal hobby. Jacob began creating fragrances for himself, experimenting with different notes and combinations in search of scents that felt exciting, unexpected, and entirely his own.
Then people started noticing.
The compliments became frequent. People wanted to know what he was wearing. What started as something deeply personal began to feel like something worth sharing.
That was the moment Jacob decided to turn his hobby into something bigger: an independent fragrance house dedicated to curating beautiful, distinctive scents that could take people somewhere of their own.
And so, Fondr was born.
WHY “FONDR”?
The name was chosen to be simple, versatile, and meaningful.
To be fond of something is to have a lasting attachment to it—to something you love, something you remember, something you keep coming back to.
That’s what Jacob wants every Fondr fragrance to become.
Something you’re fond of.
Something that brings you back to a memory you never want to lose.
FRAGRANCE AS IDENTITY
To Jacob, fragrance is more than smelling good.
It’s identity.
It’s the scent people associate with you when you enter a room. It’s the trace you leave behind after you’ve gone. It’s the quiet invitation that makes a stranger wonder who you are.
Fragrance creates mystery. It creates familiarity. It gives people something to remember.
And most importantly, it gives you the freedom to be entirely yourself.
Jacob created Fondr with one purpose: to make people feel beautiful, one of a kind, and appreciated.
These fragrances aren’t made simply for Jacob. They’re his way of giving something to someone else—a scent that can become part of their story and carry with them through the memories they haven’t even made yet.
The good ones.
The difficult ones.
The unforgettable ones.
MADE BY HAND. MADE TO BE FOUND.
Fondr takes a different approach to fragrance.
Every scent is handcrafted by Jacob. Every batch is built in-house, with each fragrance carefully developed and curated rather than simply selected from a catalog of ready-made formulas.
That hands-on process is part of what makes Fondr what it is.
It isn’t designed to appeal to everyone.
And that’s intentional.
Jacob imagines Fondr as something closer to a hidden book club—a collection of scents that you discover, fall in love with, and feel lucky to have found. Then, somewhere along the way, you meet someone else who loves the same one.
Suddenly, you feel like you’re part of something.
A small, personal community built around the things that make us feel something.
FOR THOSE WHO FIND IT
Building something of your own isn’t always easy.
As a young queer man entering an industry with its own traditions, expectations, and established names, Jacob knows that Fondr won’t be for everyone.
And he’s okay with that.
Because art isn’t meant to be understood by everyone.
Some people won’t understand what he has created.
Others will absolutely love it.
Jacob believes that what you put into the world has a way of finding the people who are meant to receive it. So every fragrance is made with intention, curiosity, and the belief that somewhere out there is someone who will experience it exactly as it was meant to be experienced.
Fondr is for those people.
For the ones who notice.
For the ones who remember.
For the ones who find a scent and think,
“This feels like me.”
FONDR
Wear what lingers.
Because the best fragrances don’t just stay on your skin.
They stay with you.