Fragrance house

House of Orpheus

Founded in 2014 by Marcus R. McCoy, House of Orpheus is a fragrance house whose founder is also identified as its owner and perfumer. McCoy’s early education included an apprenticeship with a South American shaman, followed by study of plant extraction, distillation, and the alchemical origins of perfuming. Named for Orpheus, described as the progenitor of the Orphic mysteries, the house draws on the sacred incense associated with those mysteries as a foundation for many of its perfumes. Its approach combines plant, animal, and mineral materials with alchemical or metallic oils, treating each composition as a themed invocation and exploring ritual, esoteric, and talismanic ideas. Raven exemplifies this method as a talismanic perfume conceived as an olfactory mask for trickster, magician, storyteller, and shape-shifter archetypes. McCoy’s broader creative practice is rooted in plant spirituality, ethnobotany, ritual, and Bioregional Animism. In November 2024, he said scent and perfuming were no longer his main passion; the house was operating with limited availability while he focused on blacksmithing, knife-making, and occult art.