Filipino Brand Proudrace’s First Fragrance Is a Love Letter to Home

Preview BFFD 2024 honoree Proudrace consistently takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to everything they create, as seen in their previous collaborations spanning headphones, furniture, and art. “Creating a scent felt like a natural next step,” says Rik, and it captures the same irreverent spirit.

The eau de toilette, also aptly named I Love U, carries a warmth that lives up to its name. “I wanted to keep the name simple and straightforward. It’s probably the sweetest thing you can say, and the sweetest thing you can hear.” In Rik’s words, “It’s clean, nostalgic, a little sensual, and ultimately, a love letter in a bottle.”

Mandarin and bergamot greet you at first spritz, offering a bright introduction to the scent’s romantic story. Pink pepper, lavender, and vetiver follow soon after, revealing a heart that is subtly spicy but undeniably soft. Finally, I Love U settles into a warm base of cedar and labdanum, lending the fragrance a sense of maturity—as if saying those three words with absolute certainty.

The scent typically lasts between four and six hours, with moderate to strong projection. As it wears, a subtle woody finish lingers, leaving an unmistakable trail.

The fragrance sits at the intersection of innocence and sensuality—a duality Rik had in mind from the beginning. “When I started developing it with the Human beauty team, I already had a very specific scent in mind. Something I’ve always loved, and never really got tired of smelling.”

With that in mind, Rik drew inspiration from baby cologne, a scent he’s always had a “soft spot” for, but reimagined for an adult. “As I got older, I started playing around with baby cologne, layering it with the stronger, sexier fragrances I gravitated toward as an adult.” Rooted in nostalgia but laced with tension, the result is a scent that “smells like childhood, but wears like a grown-up.”

Since Proudrace’s inception in 2012, creating a fragrance has always been part of the vision—one that the Human team helped realize through a scent that feels cohesive with the collection’s story. The partnership was a natural fit for Rik, who has been wearing Human’s fragrances for some time. “This felt very personal,” he says. “It’s about creating something people can experience and wear from Proudrace beyond clothes. Something that can live on Human’s shelves beyond the apparel collaboration, and hopefully, feel timeless and seasonless.”

The fragrance is housed in a playful vessel that captures the spirit of the collaboration. Its tinted bottle is adorned with a heart bearing the fragrance’s name, then topped with an asymmetrical round cap. Beyond the design details, however, the bottle is rooted in memory—a recurring thread in Proudrace’s creative language. “I wanted it to feel like a vintage perfume bottle from the ’80s or ’90s, inspired by the bottles I grew up seeing in my mom’s collection,” Rik tells Preview.

“But more than the bottles themselves, I was drawn to the memories attached to them.”

Paco Rabanne, Anaïs Anaïs, and Perry Ellis were among the perfumes with sculptural bottles that Rik remembers seeing in his mom’s collection. But as the son of an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW), it was the sight of these fragrances arriving in balikbayan boxes that left an even more distinct impression.

“I remember these perfumes as the kind of things that would arrive from abroad, carefully packed inside a balikbayan box and sent home by someone you love,” he shares. “They were small objects, but they carried so much weight—the feeling of receiving a little piece of someone who was far away.”

That memory also finds its way onto the fragrance’s packaging, which features an image of the Philippines with an airplane flying across it.

From the scent itself to the vessel that contains it, I Love U reimagines nostalgia through the distinctly Proudrace lens—playful, unbound by seasons, and deeply Filipino. “In a way, it’s not just a perfume bottle,” says Rik. “It’s a little piece of home, passed from one generation to another, with a story that hopefully lasts long after the scent fades.”

Proudrace's "I Love U" fragrance officially launches in Human stores nationwide and on TikTok Shop tomorrow, September 27. The 50 mL EDT retails for P388.