We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emelia O’Toole. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emelia below.
Emelia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
I scratched my plans to apply for a PhD program to become a full-time fragrance influencer instead.
When I was 10 years old, I decided my life’s plan was to become an English professor and a writer. I knew writing wouldn’t likely pay the bills, so I assumed I would follow in my mother’s footsteps and become a college professor as well. Teaching is an incredible career, I would have summers off to write and to travel, and I would get to live my years out by talking about my favorite writers. For the most part, this life plan stayed on track: I loved all my English classes throughout my school years, went on to study English in college, and even moved overseas to pursue a Master’s in Irish Literature.
Then, 2020 arrived. The year that flipped the world upside-down. I spent a lot of that year inside, and developed a new hobby: perfume. While I was in the throes of dissertation-writing at Trinity College, my favorite pastime was to order perfume samples or to go test a bunch of scents at the Brown Thomas fragrance counter. The world of fragrance very quickly enveloped me, to the point that I started a social media account to keep track of my samples and my thoughts. In December of 2020, two things happened: I accepted an online gig teaching a college writing course over Zoom…and quickly realized I didn’t have the spark for teaching that I expected to come naturally. At the same time, that social media account I started as a COVID hobby blew up–seemingly overnight.
Before I had a chance to process what was happening, I had over 10,000 followers online. Then 100,000. Then 150,000. By March of 2021, only about three months after I had started posting online, I was in the incredibly rare position to quit my teaching job and focus on social media.
So with about $30 to my name, 5 years-worth of student loans, and the weight of my once-clear-and-very-normal life path on my chest, I quit the teaching job I had dreamed about for so many years and dove head first into the world of content creation. I found my niche by matching my favorite literary characters to perfumes!
Since then, I’ve signed with an agency in LA, traveled all over the world, gotten to launch two of my own fragrances, and I’ve even gotten some of my writing published. When I think back to how this all started, I really couldn’t have done any of this without my passion for literature–I even go by the username Professor Perfume, so in a weird way, I think I’m still on that same life path I decided on when I was 10…even if my PhD is only an honorary one in “How to Smell Really Good”.
Emelia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Emelia O’Toole, and I’m a full-time fragrance content creator on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
My approach to content creation is to make the world of fragrance accessible, engaging, and entertaining. Since we don’t have Smell-o-Vision, I work to communicate with all of your other senses in order to convey the scents I talk about. I love to relate scents back to books, movies, songs, and moodboards, so if you’re an English major who loves Pinterest, I was made to be your comfort creator!
This will be my fifth year as a content creator, and it’s been a whirlwind of a time. When I started making videos about perfume, I started on TikTok. There wasn’t really a huge following for fragrance on TikTok back in 2020, so the timing was really everything for me. I started to match perfumes to fictional characters from books, movies, shows, etc., and that quickly turned into matching perfumes to Pinterest boards, vibes, musical albums, playlists, outfits, certain types of aesthetic, and more. Now, that’s pretty much the standard on “PerfumeTok”…but I’m very lucky I was one of the first to create the mold for how fragrance is marketed on TikTok today. I like to joke around and call myself a “founding father” of PerfumeTok, but I really was one of the first creators there!
Over the years, I’ve expanded my platforms to Instagram and YouTube! You can find me everywhere if you search for Professor Perfume.
Along with my Master’s in Irish Lit, I also have a Graduate Certification in Advanced Perfumery. I come from a background in academia, so I definitely took a scholar’s approach to my perfume hobby. I trained my nose with a couple raw material kits, endless perfume samples, and lots of books before going on to receive my certification. After years of studying fragrance as a consumer, I was able to step into a more professional role and play Creative Director in collaboration with Snif, who worked with me to launch my two fragrances: Vow Factor and Honey Suite. Vow Factor is the fragrance we made for my wedding day, and Honey Suite is our second scent inspired by the honeymoon phase. Both scents are available online at Snif and Ulta!
I’ve experienced the industry at every level, from perfumer to consumer, and feel confident that I bring a unique voice to the conversation online. If you want to learn about the world of perfume, I’m your gal!
How did you build your audience on social media?
I built my audience on a blend of dedication, delusion, and debt. Once I hit 100,000 followers on TikTok, then I actually started to take it seriously. Before that, I was convinced it wasn’t really happening and was somehow a dream. Why would so many people want to follow me online just to hear me talk about good smells? It didn’t make sense to me. Then, I realized what a rare blessing was sitting in my lap, so I decided to quit my job and ride the wave–I was posting 3-5x per day for about two years straight. I was in so much credit card debt from ordering perfumes to make videos that my boyfriend (Who is now my husband) and my parents had to help me pay my rent (If I didn’t have the massive privilege of a supportive family, I would not have made it through). And at the time, they were rightly annoyed with me for borrowing so much money and taking such a huge risk…but in my head, I was already massively successful. I gave myself permission to be delusional: to think “oh, I’ve got this. Yeah, obviously this is going to happen for me. It’s okay if I go into debt, I will get paid back so much more.” Looking back, do I think that would ever work again? Absolutely not. That was insane of me. I don’t recommend doing that. I can laugh about it now, but that was truly a crazy way to go about it.
If you want to get into social media, I think there are a few key pillars for success: consistency, individuality, and confidence. Even if you post for a year and average 500 views per video, all it takes is one video to hit the algorithm in the right place, and your life changes. But in order to get that one, you might have to post a hundred or a thousand videos that are on public display for the whole world to watch, share, and comment on. You have to be okay with being highly visible–to your friends, your family, your coworkers, people you went to high school with, all of your exes, perfect strangers..if you’re not okay with the visibility, it will take a serious toll on your mental health. But if you’re confident and consistent, and you know you’re bringing a new, creative, unique voice to the table, you will get your flowers. It might take longer than others, and it can get frustrating when you see other people get millions of followers and brand deals and fancy trips, but if you’re able to remain true to yourself and stay consistent with your audience, you will go far.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I constantly find inspiration and fuel from returning to my favorite classics–books, poetry, plays, movies, and music. I think that returning to the art you grew up loving will always foster a new thread for creativity. There are a few quotes that have definitely been formative for me and that I feel are true to my approach to creating content and to being a human who is in a very weird and very public position.
When I was in Barcelona back in my college years, we visited the Sagrada Familia and there’s a quote from Antoni Gaudí posted just outside that has stuck with me ever since: “Originality consists of returning to the origin.” He’s discussing this idea that art should come from nature or from within–never copied from another. As I’ve grown a following on social media and my thoughts on having a platform have evolved, I always come back to this quote when I’m struggling with my sense of self. It’s easy to get caught up in viral trends, huge brand opportunities, or new launches, but at the end of the day, I want to feel like I’m still in touch with myself and my creative and moral values. “The origin” for me will always be that nerdy 19 year old girl who loves poetry and wants to travel the world. When I’m struggling, I think about what I would say to that younger version of me, or what she would do if she knew I landed this dream job. It really helps me to stay grounded and grateful.
I also frequently think about a quote from Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway: “…she thought there were no Gods; no one was to blame; and so she evolved this atheist’s religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.” This is from a description about Clarissa Dalloway’s personality by Peter Walsh. She’s developed this way of approaching the world with a natural generosity and kindness about her, even though she believes there will be no salvation and the whole human race is on a doomed “sinking ship.” In the last couple of years this has become a particularly repetitive quote in my head, especially because social media can be a harsh and brutal place and I’ve had to adapt to roll with the punches (we don’t call it “doom-scrolling” for nothing). I’ve had to take several mental health breaks from the internet over the last five years–I think that if I didn’t have the personality and the moral compass that I do, the internet would have made me into a cold, mean person by now, and I don’t even consider myself to be an “influencer”. I really worry for young, impressionable people who have to deal with those mega audiences–there’s no reason that a teenager should have to deal with millions of people constantly watching them. But I will always place my human values above my business values, and my core value is to lead with kindness, empathy, and grace. Even when people are being unbelievably mean to me, even if I have business ideas get stolen, even if a video makes it to the “wrong side” of the For You Page–I’ve learned that it’s not worth it to respond to rudeness or cause a fuss. You just have to put on your blinders of “delete, block, move on”. If you take your time to respond to every negative comment or make a video about every negative interaction, you’ll freeze yourself in a cycle of negativity. You don’t win anything by constantly taking the high road, but I choose to focus on the good for the sake of my sanity.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/professor.perfume
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emelia-otoole-4ab85b259/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@professor.perfume
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@professorperfume
Vow Factor
https://snif.co/products/honey-suite
Image Credits
Photos with Honey Suite and Vow Factor – courtesy of Snif
Photo with makeup brush – Seyi Aleshe