Danger, Indecency and Dirty Fragrances: Talking Scents With BORNTOSTANDOUT’s Jun Lim
April 15 | 5 minute read
Words by Izzy Wight
Nothing about Jun Lim’s thrill-seeking scents is to be expected. A self-professed fragrance obsessive, Jun was working in corporate finance in South Korea before quitting in 2022 to launch his brand, BORNTOSTANDOUT.
In a sea of pleasant florals and crowd-pleasing mists, Jun set out to create a line of polarising perfumes – truly boozy, sticky, filthy gourmand scents that always leave a lasting impression.
A self-taught master of his craft, Jun understands the most captivating scents are found with friction. Dirty Milk EDP, his latest juice, is inspired by "milk that's about to turn" (in the best possible way); while fan-favourite Drunk Lovers EDP is a blend of cognac and red berries, created after a particularly boozy date night. Aged in a traditional Korean earthenware vessel called an Onggi (typically used for fermented foods), BORNTOSTANDOUT’s scents have an unmistakable, indescribable richness – the kind you have to experience for yourself.
In this instalment of Talking Scents, Jun Lim tells us the note-worthy stories that helped bring his rule-breaking brand to life.
Jun Lim: “My grandmother’s kitchen in Korea. Rice cooking on the stove. The smell was warm, fermented, almost animalic and completely alive.”
The first fragrance I wore...
JL: “Versace Blue Jeans. Grade nine. Discount shop in Toronto. $20. I sprayed it and felt like the whole world was suddenly available to me. Twenty years later, I still think about that 20 dollars as the best investment I have ever made.”
Falling in love smells like...
JL: “Someone’s skin at 2:00am, when they are not trying to smell like anything.”
JL: “Warm and slightly dangerous. Which describes my favourite people in general.”
The end of the day smells like...
JL: “Skin that has been somewhere interesting. The dry down of whoever you actually are once the performance is finished.”
Australia smells like...
JL: “Something green and slightly feral with excellent coffee underneath it. Which honestly sounds like a fragrance I would make. Consider this a pitch!”
The fragrance I wear everyday...
JL: “Dirty Rice, layered under whatever I am testing that week. It changes the character of everything it touches, and I find that deeply relatable as a personality trait.”
The one note I would never wear...
JL: “Marine notes. The olfactive equivalent of a motivational poster. It does not smell like the sea; it smells like someone’s idea of the sea who has never actually been uncomfortable near one.”
The scent I wish existed...
JL: “The specific smell of making a decision that terrifies you and doing it anyway. Metallic, electric, with a warm base that only reveals itself 20 minutes later. We are working on it.”
The scent that changed my life...
JL: “The real answer is the first time I smelled something truly animalic and intimate (I cannot namedrop this one!) and thought, ‘Perfume can do this?’ That moment changed what I believed fragrance was capable of. Everything after that was just trying to get back there.”
JL: “Finding the feeling that is impossible to explain. The notes come after – always after. If you start with notes you end up with a list; if you start with a feeling you end up with something worth wearing.”
The scent I’m most proud of...
JL: “Dirty Rice – not because it is technically the most complex, [but] because it is the most honest. A skin-close, animalic, slightly transgressive fragrance named after the most intimate food in Korean daily life. It should not exist in a serious niche perfumery context. I am proud it absolutely does.”
The scent with the most interesting story is...
JL: “Indecent Cherry. It is about the specific indecency of someone I was completely convinced was decent. I was wrong about that. The fragrance is better for it.”
The note combination that surprised me...
JL: “Rice and animalics. On paper, it should not work as a luxury fragrance. In practice it is the most skin-accurate, intimate, irresistible thing we have ever made.”
The most important thing I’ve learnt about fragrance...
JL: “That the reaction you are looking for is not, ‘Wow, that is beautiful.’ It is, ‘I cannot stop thinking about that.’ Beauty is easy. Obsession takes courage. Make things that create obsession, even if the obsession is uncomfortable.”
The hardest feeling to capture...
JL: “The moment just before a decision. The specific quality of standing at the edge of something that could change everything and not yet knowing whether you will step. That suspended tension between who you are and who you are about to become. We have not fully got it yet. That is probably why we keep working.”
A fragrance is finished when...
JL: “You smell it and nothing in you wants to add anything or take anything away. When it feels inevitable, like, ‘It could only have ever been this.’ That moment comes rarely. You know it immediately.”
