Inspiring Conversations with Grace Howland of ÉVOQUER

Today we’d like to introduce you to Grace Howland.

Hi Grace, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I would say I technically started my first business when I was 11 – “Golf Balls by Grace”. My dad had this device that found the sweet spot on a golf ball, and I would mark it and then draw designs around it. My dad even helped me make a website for it. My business plan said “sell for more than they cost”… I don’t think I sold very many. Between now and then I’ve probably run 100 business ideas past my dad, some more serious than others. Both he and my mom have always encouraged my love of entrepreneurship.

My next encounter with entrepreneurship was through my first real job during college working for a start up in the tech space. I got the job by volunteering at one of their events over the summer after Freshman year. The CMO was working that event and we hit it off, and they brought me on as a paid intern after that, and then part time on the operations team. I was employee #11. I traveled all over during college to help run their events, called “hackathons”, in person – to London, Hong Kong, New York, SF, etc. It was an incredible experience. I think that job in part helped develop my love for travel and my love of entrepreneurship. Since then, I’ve kept a note on my phone with over 500 business ideas and counting.

After graduating, I spent the first 6 years of my career between investment banking and private equity. I learned so much in those roles and met some pretty incredible people, but ultimately I didn’t love what I was doing. It’s not to say I didn’t enjoy investing, I would actually like to get back into with my personal capital someday in the consumer space, but I wanted to “get my hands dirty” and be more in the operations of the businesses. I missed the scrappiness of working on an 11-person team and getting to do a little bit of everything.

Between investment banking and private equity, I had wanted to take a few months to travel through Southeast Asia, but this was in 2020, so that obviously didn’t happen. As I got closer to becoming a Vice President in my last role, I realized that if I wanted to take any kind of gap to travel, it was now or never. Then my firm announced they were moving the office from LA to NY, and a quit the next day. I ended my lease in Los Angeles and spent the next 9 months traveling through Africa and Asia.

In 2022 I spent a few months living and working in Paris. Right after I had moved there, I bought a perfume at a street market. I wore it every day while I was there. When I came back to the States, it sat on my shelf and collected dust for a while. But one evening when I sprayed it, I immediately felt like I was back in Paris discovering the city for the first time. It wasn’t a specific moment in time, but a *feeling*. Re-living all of those experiences at once. We’ve all had that happen before – where a smell transports us back to a different time of our life.

During my travels last year, I wanted a better way to remember this once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m such a nostalgic person, and I love capturing memories through sights and sounds. But as humans, we are most emotionally tied to our sense of smell because of how closely it’s wired to the brain’s memory and emotional centers — more directly than any other sense. And then I thought, why not build an entire fragrance brand around the idea of associating different chapters of our lives or experiences with specific fragrances, so that we can always come back to these moments?

After that day I decided that instead of finding a job when I returned back to the States, I would work on building this business. I started working on the brand identity immediately and filed for my LLC a couple months later.

I also decided that I was going to post the entire journey online. I had heard so many incredible stories from entrepreneurs who had already become successful or at least had a product. But this was just an idea in my head. I was so far from even beginning the product development stage. All I had was the name and an idea, and I wanted to show the entire process starting from day 1 of turning an idea into a finished product and full business. I hope this is helpful for anyone else who was/is in a similar position as myself. You can see the day 1 video pinned to my profile on Tiktok!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Something I didn’t expect (though probably should have) is that product development has been taking longer than I thought it would – I’ve already had to push my launch once. I am very focused on getting this part right – for one of the fragrances, I’m currently on trial #90 and counting. That means we’ve mixed 90 versions of this fragrance so far!

Another struggle has been knowing what to spend time on. There is always something to be done, and at this point in my journey it’s not clear what is going to move the needle and what isn’t. I’ve gotten some good advice from a few different entrepreneurs, but the fact is a lot of this is trial and error.

The biggest struggle has been being a solo founder. As someone who is generally pretty indecisive, it’s tough not having anyone to bounce ideas off of who is as in the weeds as myself. There’s also a lot of emotional volatility associated with starting a business, and sometimes it’s hard going through that alone. Keeping a positive mindset all the time can be hard – somedays I feel like there is no way my brand won’t be in Sephora one day, and then other days I wonder “what the heck am I doing and why would anyone buy my fragrances?”. I think this is why it’s so critical to know your “why”. If you’re clear on that, it makes the late nights, time and monetary investments, and emotionally tough days a lot easier to deal with.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Our goal is to capture an era in your life – a collection of emotions, sights, sounds, and feelings – and bottle it forever. Our whole brand is centered around associating different eras in your life with our fragrances. I believe there is something unique in our product offering that allows you to do this, but I haven’t publicly talked about it yet. Enter your email on our landing page or follow my socials for when that drops!

Although this is a product-based business, the brand is all about living life to the fullest, getting outside your comfort zone, and saying yes to opportunities that come your way – you never know where they might take you. I truly believe that doing things that make you a little uncomfortable are where the most personal growth happens, and you’ll always look back on those experiences with pride and gratitude. I want ÉVOQUER to encourage people to take those leaps, just like I did when moving to Paris.

I’m hosting a launch event in Los Angeles in September. I hope to make the community aspects more than just this single event. I’d love to create a space for like-minded people to get together once a month whether it’s a workout class, a hike, a happy hour, etc. As I’m a one-woman show, I’m currently very tied up in everything that has to get done before launch, but this will be a focus for the brand in the future. Suggestions for community events are welcome!

One thing I think that is important to note about our products – they are unisex and clean by Sephora beauty standards. Meaning if you saw our brand on the Sephora shelf, it would have the green “clean” check mark next to it. I am very conscious of the products I use in my household and on my body, and I would never make a fragrance I wouldn’t wear myself.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Expanding my network in the Consumer-Packaged Goods space has been a huge goal of mine in 2025. When I was first starting out, I made a list of anyone and everyone I could think of who could support across any aspect of business, or who could connect me with someone who would be helpful. This is a running list I keep that I still add to every week. I include name, contact info, how I met them, and relevant expertise. I always make sure to ask what I can do to help them at the end of any conversation.

The next thing I did was search through Linkedin to find anyone who went to my university, based in LA, and who worked in the CPG industry. This took a lot of time and didn’t yield great results in all honesty.

I started posting my journey of entrepreneurship publicly on Tiktok and Instagram. One unexpected outcome of this has been connecting with so many other entrepreneurs. I have probably 3+ people a week reach out to me, and not just other people who have started businesses. I’ve connected with branding agencies, creative directors, packaging designers, suppliers, photographers, and more. This has easily been the most helpful tool in expanding my network.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shopevoquer.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gracehowland_/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@gracehowland_