Fragrance house

Apoteker Tepe

Apoteker Tepe was founded in Harlem in 2014 by perfumer Holladay Penick Saltz, after she studied fragrance formulation and trained with Le Labo Fragrances in New York City. In 2016, the brand relocated to New Orleans, which Saltz described as close to her family and a spiritual home. Apoteker Tepe explores fragrance’s ancient and human significance through rare and unusual raw materials and individually sourced, hand-produced, deliberately small-scale methods. Saltz’s creative approach draws on fine art, literature, history, philosophy, memory, and material research, treating fragrance as an inquiry into culture, perception, and the physical world. The brand’s first four fragrances were issued as The Illuminations collection, structured around stages of the monomyth: separation, call to adventure, attainment of wisdom, and return. In 2016, Pale Fire explored warmth, excess, and physical closeness, while Karasu explored austerity, ritual, and transcendence. After operating under Saltz’s care and creative direction from 2014 to 2018, the line was purchased in 2022 by Nick Nilsson, founder of Pineward Perfumes, with the aim of returning the perfumes to production in cooperation with Saltz. The current collection is presented as the Apoteker Tepe Collection by Holladay Saltz and Nicholas Nilsson.