Chris Cullen of Catie’s Bubbles on Scent, Story, and Connection
- Teutonblade
- 5 hours ago
- 7 min read
Founded in 2013 by Chris Cullen, Catie’s Bubbles is a brand synonymous with artisan wet shaving. Named after his daughter, it has become a fixture of the community, known for quality, originality, and an uncompromising commitment to performance. Chris is a rare figure in the industry: entirely self-taught, yet guided by a sharp scientific mind, relentless experimentation, and a deep passion for the craft. In many ways, he is a perfectionist, always striving for better lather, better balance, and better scent composition. Inspiration comes from everywhere, from his local surroundings to music, friendships, and everyday life itself, and his themes are often accompanied by an atmosphere of elegance, romance, and whimsy. The result is a product that has earned a devoted following for both exceptional shave performance and fragrances marked by precision, balance, and individuality. ShaveSplash was fortunate to catch up with Chris to talk about his journey, from the brand’s earliest beginnings to where it may be headed. Here’s Chris...
Paco Rabanne Pour Homme was your first fragrance love, and you’ve also spoken highly of Acqua di Parma Colonia. What did those two scents teach you early about elegance and masculinity, and where do you still hear their echoes in Catie’s Bubbles today?
I was still in my teens when I discovered that odd little green bottle and the wonderful scent contained within it. It was truly the first perfume that opened my eyes to how amazing a scent can be and how it can tickle different parts of my brain. I occasionally wore scents but I didn't really start to dip my toe into the deeper parts of the fragrance world until I was in my 30s. Even now, while the style is considered dated by some, the scent itself still brings a smile to my face and lifts my mood every time. That's really what draws me to the medium, I get a chance to tell a story or sing a song or dig up a memory for someone in a way that isn't exactly traditional yet feels personal. My approach isn't about elegance or masculinity, it's about life and connection.
Catie’s Bubbles has such a personal origin, right down to the name. Looking back, how much of the brand was built around making great products, and how much was built around creating a life and work structure that fit your family and your values?
Everything needs balance and both factors including many others have to be considered. With having two small children, one with some additional needs, the flexibility of self employment coupled with my odd sleep schedule allowed some really interesting working hours to let me be present while still be able to provide for my family as well as make some really fun stuff.
You’ve said the scent usually comes first, and that your fragrances often begin as spreadsheets. When you’re building a scent, where does the math stop and the instinct begin?
Knowledge from previous experimentation gives me a starting point to build from with the initial skeleton of an idea. I don't even make it that far without both math and what I've learned along the way. If we're going to refer to that as instinct, then I'd say they go hand in hand from beginning to end.
I love your idea that the artwork should be a visual presentation of the scent. Can you walk me through a fragrance where the picture came to you instantly, and one where the scent was clear but the visual identity took real work to find?
It's a remnant of my former life in retail. People shop with their eyes first. We also haven't invented “Smell-o-Vision” yet even though I'm sure pop culture promised we'd have it and flying cars by now, so we need a way to capture someone's attention and tell part of the story without them being able to smell anything.
You live in a place that sounds almost symbolic of your work: a narrow strip between the water and the Pine Barrens. How much has that New Jersey landscape shaped scents like Sunrise and Barnegat Bay, and does place still quietly sneak into your work even when you’re not consciously composing a ‘regional’ scent?
The scents that Jersey has influenced the most are Blugere and Pine Barrens. Barnegat Bay was designed as a fairly traditional bay rum, naming it after home was just showing some love. Pine Barrens was made to smell like walking down the trails out here. Blugere was originally called Jersey Blues and was made for a “East Coast Wet Shavers” meetup in NJ. The entire idea of the scent came together in one discussion about NJ with the gentleman that organized the event. That situation has repeated itself multiple times, the most recent when I worked with Matt at Teton Shaves to come up with Top of the World.
Le Piment de la Vie launched in 2014 and was still your bestseller back in 2023. Why do you think that scent endured? What does it get right emotionally that more obviously crowd-pleasing scents often miss?
LPV is a very unique scent that many have never experienced something like before in fragrance form. It can be a bit confusing for some at first but quickly wraps itself through the mind. Either the sweet warmth, its richness, or the familiar gourmand spices pull on memories of safe and/or happy times which drives an emotional response by many to it. I think that's the key. While it may not be everything to everyone, it hits enough happy buttons in the brain that an emotional attachment to the scent forms quickly.
From your perspective, how have the fragrance tastes and trends of wet shavers evolved over the past few years, and how is this represented in your product portfolio today?
I've seen 2 camps slowly form, one that seeks unique, original offerings and another that seeks the familiar and won't entertain a scent unless it is a duplication of a commercially available scent they've already been exposed to. I bet a psychologist could do an interesting breakdown of the mental processes that lead to this.
322 started as a joke, yet it became a real fragrance people connected with. What does that say about the role of humor, looseness, or even creative mischief in your process? Have some of your best ideas come when you weren’t trying so hard to be serious?
My best ideas come during conversations with others. I draw a lot of my inspiration from places and phenomenon, they normally get brought up chatting with friends/family/customers/myself and then my mind goes off skipping through the flora and putting together odd things that I can occasionally translate into reality.
Your soap base produces a distinctive lather which is both high volume and dense, yet miraculously feels airy. When you formulate, what variables are most important in creating that balance, and what makes that kind of lather so difficult to get right?
This comes down to math again, it's the starting point for all my formulation. All the ingredients that are available that can be turned into soap are made up of different balances of 8 primary fatty acids, the most common in shaving soap being stearic acid.
Those fatty acids all offer different properties once they're turned into soap so the balance between them dictates most of how to the lather works out. It's very similar to the my logic behind building a fragrance, use what you know to give the starting point and then tweak through trial and error until you are happy.
You’ve intentionally kept Catie’s Bubbles small, and the brand still presents itself as handcrafted in small batches. In a hobby where scale is often treated as success, what have you preserved by staying small, and what opportunities have you knowingly left on the table?
Staying small initially was a strategic decision so that I could drop anything at any moment when I was needed for something with the kids. I know I've left a LOT on the table but I try not to focus on that. Handcrafted is the best descriptor I can use because it is accurate, every soap/aftershave/perfume is made by hand by one person, me.
Today the brand spans shaving soaps, premium soaps, aftershaves, perfumes, and newer scent worlds like Top of the World and Daydream. When you look ahead, do you see Catie’s Bubbles becoming an even fuller fragrance house with a dedicated workspace or shop, or is the real ambition still the same simple one: keep the flexibility, keep the joy, and keep making people smile?
While the additional financial benefits of expansion could be nice, it would take either a relocation or an exponential growth in business for it to make sense. I'm currently happy with my short, carpeted commute to work and only having to worry about the costs of supporting one piece of real estate in NJ.
What’s on the horizon in the near-term for Catie’s Bubbles? Are there any new scents, products, or projects that fans can look forward to in the coming months?
I'm not quite sure what has caused it but I've been dealing with way too many creative deserts lately so I don't currently have anything fun to tease, at least nothing close to completion that is worth trying to get someone excited about it. That can change quickly once something clicks so all I can say is follow me on Instagram cause that's where I normally share info first.
If you could leave the wet shaving community with one message, what would you want people to remember?
Be kind, be friendly, and to quote Adam Pearce, “Love someone today.” This world is too cruel and life is too short for all the chaos and tribalism we've dealt with in the hobby over the years.
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