Why Octavia Morgan Los Angeles Deserves a Spot on Your Vanity
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There’s a phrase floating around on TikTok lately: “We made the wrong person famous,” It’s used to call out content creators and tastemakers who, maybe in hindsight, didn’t deserve the spotlight. But I’ve been thinking about it differently. It’s actually a reminder that the power lies with us—the viewers, the consumers. So, who are we choosing to make famous these days?
The phrase was especially top of mind when I opened a press release about Octavia Morgan Los Angeles. The email explained that the fragrance house would be Ulta Beauty’s first Black-owned prestige line, and my first thought was: this is the right person to make famous. I may be just an editor, but I do have influence over what readers discover, care about, and even purchase. So I thought: what better story to tell than this one?
Let’s start with the bottle. The four signature fragrances available at Ulta—Dark Rose, Midnight Orchard, Legendary, and L’Affaire—come packaged in sleek, fuss-free vessels. A minimalist round glass bottle, a bold black cap, and no-frills branding puts the spotlight on the goodness inside. “Our packaging is very scaled down, and that was purposeful,” Morgan tells StyleCaster. The power, she says, is in the spritz. “When you spritz it, you see, you feel. Whatever it is that you envision in your mind is in that bottle.” She also wanted the design to reflect the line’s gender inclusivity. “I want men to be able to have this on their dresser as well as women.”
The fragrances themselves are just as elegant and sensual as their packaging. Dark Rose, my current favorite, balances floral, fruity, and woody notes with a blend of plum, pink peppercorn, black rose, vanilla, and patchouli. Midnight Orchard leans spicy and sweet with peach, apricot, sandalwood, and musk. Then there’s Legendary, a fresh scent that is made of amber, coco, cedar, and cardamon. L’Affaire is soft and sweet, laced with saffron, jasmine, ambergris, and cedarwood. Each perfume feels like a mood or a story—an intentional sensory journey. “Our brand’s philosophy is to elevate your senses,” Morgan says.
The brand’s origin story is deeply personal. Morgan developed a fragrance sensitivity after years of wearing perfume with no issue. It was very interesting to me because I had never experienced those symptoms—nausea, headaches, red marks on my skin—before,” she shares. It was especially heartbreaking given how central fragrance had been to her identity. She calls herself a “fragrance girl” since the age of five, a love passed down from her grandmother, who always smelled of fresh roses. “I would watch the women in my family get dressed and the last thing they’d do was spray perfume. That absolutely stuck with me. That began my love affair with fragrance.”
Morgan’s reverence for scent, combined with her nursing background and a familial connection to phytotherapy—her grandmother was an herbalist—led her to start experimenting with cleaner, gentler ingredients. In 2022, she officially launched Octavia Morgan Los Angeles. The brand’s arrival at Ulta in February marks a major milestone. “At the top—the very tippity top—of their leadership is women making decisions. There’s diversity there. That really struck me and inspired me,” Morgan says. “They walk the walk and talk the talk.”
While Ulta currently carries four of the brand’s scents, nine are available on the Octavia Morgan Los Angeles website. “They’re all unique and very different,” she says. “I like to say they’re personalities.”
Of course, I couldn’t end our conversation without asking Morgan about her go-to pulse points. Her answer, like her scents, is alluring and intentional.
“Behind the knees, behind the ear. You know, if someone is rubbing your leg, they’ll get a sexy whiff.”
