APFR Brass Incense Stand

Each Brass Incense Stand is handmade in Japan and beautifully displays incense as well as collects the ashes on its tray. Designer: Emiko Makino Packaged in a Kraft box

APFR is an artisanal, handmade fragrance brand. Our products are blended, produced, packaged, and shipped by crafters at our Chiba, Japan workshop. The brand name is derived from the German word apotheke, meaning a place where fragrances and medicinal herbs are prepared, or in more modern parlance, a pharmacy. Like your neighborhood pharmacy, APFR stays true to our customers’ lifestyles, prescribing scents for their everyday lives.

The brand story begins ten years before its birth. Founder Keita Sugasawa, in his travels to different countries, was both impressed and surprised at the number of shops selling scented oils and incense. He was also surprised at the lack of such shops within Japan. After returning to Japan, Sugasawa took a position at a Japanese fragrance maker as his first step to learning the ins and outs of the craft. In 2011, he established his own atelier in his boyhood home of Chiba Prefecture. This atelier became the new home of this hand-crafted fragrance brand.

We admire the simple elegance and analog textures found only in the fruits of handmade labor. That’s why we shun machinery and outsourcing, which are the trappings of mass production. This is also why we blend and produce our products naturally, with our own hands, applying our brand seal to product labels and even packing products in boxes with the care of artisans. Our curiosity and endless experimentation with scents has built up a bountiful portfolio of over a hundred different fragrances. What once began with a single product lineup of purely candles has now become a wide range of fragrance items, including room sprays, incense, and more.