When Ashley Benson goes to Paris, she stays at Hotel Costes.
From the plush velvet couches, to the dim, ambient lighting and black lacquered walls, the hotel’s atmosphere offers Benson precisely the home-away-from-home feeling she seeks during her frequent travels.
What helps, too, is the cache of candles, lotions and fragrances reminiscent of her everyday life that the Los Angeles-native-turned-New-Yorker brings to each destination.
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“I’ve always mixed-and-matched different perfumes I’ve collected over the years,” said Benson in an exclusive interview with Beauty Inc, adding that it wasn’t until she visited a fragrance merchant at a bazaar in Morocco that she formally created and bottled her own custom scent.
“We spent hours in this amazing setup with candles and tea, just testing different scents and learning all that goes into creating a perfume,” Benson recalled. “Being in Morocco and doing that, versus being, you know, in a New York conference room — it just made me feel very inspired.”
Three years later, not only does Benson still have the fragrance she created in Morocco, but she is launching an eponymous, genderless perfume brand that aims to share her realized love of fragrance with the public.
Launching Nov. 15 direct-to-consumer, ASH by Ashley Benson comes to market with two scents: The Eighth, which includes notes of bergamot, soft musk and cashmere wood, was inspired by Benson’s travels in Paris, while East 12th, which is comprised of black cedar, orange and damask rose, was inspired by New York City’s East Village.
“New York has become very special to me since I moved here five or six years ago, and I’ve made so many memories in Paris, so I wanted to dedicate my first two scents to my two favorite places,” Benson said.
The fragrances, which retail for $79 for 50-ml. and $25 for 8-ml., will also launch at online fragrance subscription platform Scentbird on Nov. 17, where ASH is slated to be featured as Fragrance of the Month — for men and women, thanks to the brand’s unisex positioning — in January 2023.
“I wanted to do something in the beauty world, I just didn’t know what that was until I landed on this,” Benson said, adding that ASH has been nearly two years and more than 60 rounds of testing in the making. “I wanted to go in a direction that was a little more masculine, but with femininity still being there so that it could work for everybody.”
While Benson did not specify sales expectations for the launch, industry sources estimate the brand could reach $18 million in first-year sales.
“I’m starting out with fragrance, of which my goal is to create as many as possible, but I also want to dive into everything I possibly can,” said Benson, adding that she sees ASH expanding into different beauty categories in the future.
Best known for her role as Hannah Marin in Freeform’s hit show “Pretty Little Liars” and movies like “Spring Breakers” and “Pixels,” Benson, who has been acting since she was just 10 years old, is now exploring additional avenues through which she can employ her creativity.
“I’ve started writing during the pandemic, I’m producing and trying to tackle new stuff; I’m getting to know who Ashley is in her 30s, just maturing and figuring out what I want for my career and life,” she said.
She describes her seven-year run on “Pretty Little Liars” as her “college years,” due to the fact that she’s been homeschooled since the seventh grade and often saw her costars more than her own family. Benson said she’s enjoying her current phase of life, which sees her deviating from the script as much as possible.
“Now I’m at a point where I know where I want to go in life, and it’s scary and it’s fun, but I’m so happy,” Benson said.
While she has embarked on entrepreneurial endeavors before, including cofounding sunglasses brand Privé Revaux in 2017 and craft spirits brand Thomas Ashbourne earlier this year, ASH marks Benson’s first solo business venture.
The level of creative freedom afforded to her as the lone founder of her new brand is reminiscent of that which she recalls being granted when she began filming the antic-filled 2013 film “Spring Breakers,” alongside costars Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and James Franco.
“We rehearsed every day for about two weeks when we first got to Florida, but when it came time for the first day of shooting, Harmony [Korine] told us to just start doing improv — that terrified me,” recalled Benson, who, up to that point, had yet to encounter a gig which allowed her significant creative leeway.
Although it was a foreign practice to her at the time, improv ultimately resulted in some of the crime drama’s most iconic scenes (including a certain fever-dream-like scene which saw Benson and her costars belting out Britney Spears’ “Everytime” mid-crime spree).
“When you’re on a show, the writing is very important and you can’t miss a word or you have to redo the tape, so ‘Spring Breakers’ gave me a great sense of freedom, and being free creatively like that helps me make my mark on what I’ve done since,” Benson said.
Although she is relishing testing new waters, Benson’s acting career is still going strong. Last month, the multihyphenate was cast in an upcoming biopic about famed bank robber, Pretty Boy Floyd.
While she continues to make her mark as an actress, with ASH, Benson hopes to strike a chord with her fans on an intimate level yet-uncharted by the actress.
“To see ASH do well and to see the public like things that are personal to me — that would mean success to me,” Benson said.