In 2005, Rosie Johnston blended a fragrance at her kitchen table with a girlfriend and a bottle of wine. She typed labels on a thrifted typewriter, tied swing tags, and hand-filled bottles for a friend’s boutique. Twenty years later, By Rosie Jane is forecast to hit $15 million in yearly sales, with retail partnerships at Sephora, Nordstrom, and Anthropologie—all while remaining a bootstrapped business. Rosie’s passion-turned-business quickly became profitable, thanks to her dedication to unmatched quality and keeping manufacturing under one roof.
There was no single breakthrough. No viral moment that changed everything overnight. Rather, it was a dedication to keep showing up, learning from every small retailer and every closed door, and building a brand one account at a time. Here, Rosie shares the stage-by-stage playbook behind two decades of slow, deliberate growth.
On blending her first fragrance with no training and no business plan:
I was sitting at a table with a girlfriend. We were sharing a bottle of wine and I was like, “How am I going to cut through and create my signature?” I wanted people to say, “Can you book me that makeup artist that smells so good?” That was the beginning goal. I didn’t think much further forward than that.
I’d been to farmers markets where they have the oil stands: Egyptian musk, strawberry, pear. I basically ordered a few different notes online of something that I thought might smell great. I already knew fragrances that I loved, so I used those as inspiration and started blending individual notes. Pear, jasmine, fresh cut grass, a little skin musk. I made this concoction that ended up becoming Leila Lou, which is still on the market today. That was my science class. I didn’t think about the ingredients at that point; it was just for personal use.
On the moment she realized she had no idea what was in her own product:
I was wearing it, people were asking me for it, my nearest and dearest people all wanted some—so I began handing out bottles of fragrance. A girlfriend of mine owned a store in LA, and she asked if I would hand-fill her some bottles for Christmas.
I hand-filled these bottles and typed a label on a typewriter I got from a garage sale. And at that moment, I had this light bulb where I was like: I have no idea what is in this bottle of beautiful fragrance. Probably because of my makeup artist background, you’re very aware of ingredients. You’re constantly thinking about what’s going on with people’s skin.
I started digging, doing research, and finding out what really goes into fragrance. That’s when I had that moment of: Could I create something that smells like this without all of this mystery, without certain ingredients that maybe don’t even need to be there?
On the five-year gap between first blend and official launch:
I was busy, I was working, and I didn’t have the means or probably the true education on what it meant to build a brand. This never felt like something where I was like, “I’m going to start a fragrance company.” It was so personal that I never had that real moment of—wow, I could actually sell this product and make it a reality. Not until my girlfriend asked me to put it into her store around 2008.
When we launched in 2010—and I say “launch” loosely—I didn’t have money for packaging. We were printing stickers at a local printing place. No boxing—just one little roll-on bottle. We were hand-tying the swing tag at my kitchen table with ingredients and a little description of what it was.
On what the boutique years taught her that big retail couldn’t:
From those early stores, we had been able to get our feet wet in little shops and define what we meant and how we talked about it. We used to make our own shelf talkers and send them to the store with the product. It would be like: “We’re By Rosie Jane. We’re the first clean fragrance brand. What does clean mean?” We would answer all these questions.
That was our version of university. It was really this incredible learning and education period for us. The old-school way of building a brand, building it really brick by brick, I think it’s starting to not be looked at in the same way. But for us, this was everything.
On why Sephora’s initial rejection was the best thing that happened:
I had emailed Sephora and pitched them prior, probably a few years before they reached out to us. Thankfully, they had said no to us. Really, when I look back, we weren’t ready for that kind of exposure. When you’re going into Sephora or Ulta, these really big, robust brick-and-mortars, you’ve got to stand out. It’s very competitive and you need to really know why you exist.
Then I remember pulling up to a makeup job at 5 in the morning doing a press junket, and I opened my email and saw: “Hey, we would love to offer you a position at Sephora. We love the brand.” And just being like—oh, s—, this is real.
On rebranding when your company name is also your product name:
We’d had this success with Leila Lou in little boutiques and expanded into maybe 50 stores. Things were starting to get a little momentum and I wanted to do another fragrance. But how could I bring another fragrance out when my entire brand name is the name of one fragrance? That’s when I decided to make the shift to By Rosie Jane. It was a practical problem, but solving it opened everything up.
On the Jennifer Aniston moment and the UPS bill that followed:
We got a write-up in People magazine as Jennifer Aniston’s favorite fragrance. I don’t even know if that was real, but it changed a lot for us.
I just remember this influx of orders and printing all of these UPS labels—I couldn’t even pay the UPS bill at the end of it. I was doing net 30 with them and we got this massive bill and I was like, I can’t pay it. It just showed that there was something real there, but also what growth without capital reserves actually looks like.
On why she says bootstrapped brands are “deep and narrow” instead of “thin and wide”:
We’re vertically integrated so everything we do, we own under one roof. That has helped us not have to raise cash. This forces us, from the beginning, to be profitable or we wouldn’t survive.
I think it’s an old-school way of building a brand. However, what this does is, it gives me power. I might not have the customer base of a massive brand, but I have the same strength. We are not thin and wide, we’re deep and narrow—which is wonderful because when tough times come, which, ultimately, they do, we really have nurtured and grown this community along with us.
I had this conversation yesterday with our finance team as we’re going through our profit and loss statement, I was like, “I only need to know cash flow. Tell me if I can afford to do all the things that I want to do right now: keep my doors open, pay my team—that’s it. That’s all I want to know.”
On why throwing money at a problem is never a silver bullet:
You can never just throw money at something and expect it to be a silver bullet. I learned that the hard way. Oh, this fragrance isn’t working? Let’s just pay influencers to push it. Let’s get a bigger and better PR agency, but it’s never what moves the needle. It has to come back to storytelling and the quality of the product.
When I first started, I printed all this letterhead, (this is why it’s so old school) and I asked my dad for help. I had envelopes, business cards, and probably spent $5,000 just printing them all. I don’t even know what I was thinking because sometimes too much money is not the answer. It’s taking it slow and not trying to rush through it.
On her advice for founders in their first six months:
Start slow and small. Never get too far beyond that six months, or really far beyond your first account. Build it one day, one account, one product at a time. To envision going from zero to being a $15 million brand in a matter of years is overwhelming. Give yourself grace. Know why you are creating this product, why you are putting it onto the market, and stand strong in those beliefs. If all you want is to be in the beauty business and you’ve always wanted to start a brand, ask yourself, “Is there really a place for it? Does it need to exist?” These are the big questions you should be asking yourself right now.
Hear more from Rosie on Shopify Masters, including how she approaches influencer partnerships, why she’s betting on IRL sampling events in 2026, and what it’s like being the face of a brand when you’d rather be behind the scenes.
