You were a L’Oréal model. How did that experience segue into creating a fragrance line?
From modeling, I always loved jewelry and fashion. I started my first business called Zodiacaa, which is a jewelry store with zodiac signs. That was my first segue into business outside modeling… My fragrance line today kind of came accidentally. I was going through a dark time in my life and I really just wanted to heal with scents… I enrolled in a perfume school in Los Angeles. I took courses and got trained by high-end instructors who taught me everything about making a fragrance. Even though I was making it just for myself, I thought, ‘This smells so good—I think I can bottle up my self-love journey and sell it and see what happens.’

What were your go-to scents that lifted your mood and brought you to a happier place of acceptance and love?
The top notes of my fragrance…Moroccan orange blossom—orange has a citrusy awakening [aroma] even when you’re cutting it, it just kind of wakes you up, so that was one that I had to have. Lavender helps me the most because it has a very calming effect. Those are my two that helped me realize I’m putting together a fragrance that’s going to be beautiful and have healing agents in it, too.

Your fragrance is called Simply Fancy. What’s in a name?
Even though my name is Fancy, I’m a very simplistic girl. I don’t wear a lot of makeup. I don’t do a lot of glamorous things per se, but people—because of my name—expect that I’m going to be fancy and bougie. I have my moments, but in a general sense, I’m very simple. There’s a lot of pressure on social media to be perfect, only showing the fancy side of your life…I have a full-time job, I have family, I have friends. And I’m not always showing the good parts of me. So, people have seen the vulnerability of me, and they’ve seen the simple side of me. I’ve always had that nickname, ‘Simply Fancy.’ …The perfume name represents who I am and what a “simply fancy” woman is.

What’s in the fragrance?
The top notes start with orange Moroccan blossom and then it goes into lavender. In the middle, there’s jasmine for my mom because that was her favorite scent…The base is vanilla and cedarwood. I wanted the base to be strong and confident and long-lasting.

Is your goal to lift others up the way your scents have helped you heal?
One hundred percent. When I went through what I went through, I got thousands of women emailing me telling me: ‘you’re strong.’ Even though I didn’t feel as strong as they thought I was, I just realized how many people are going through the same thing. Maybe they don’t have a public platform to showcase how they felt, but I realized that I want to do something for women who supported me and who have been through difficult times and want to heal and want to feel beautiful.