Free Yourself: Get To Know Founders Jeff Miller and Todd Thurman

Jeff Miller, an actor, storyteller and producer met Todd Thurman, a luxury hospitality expert, almost thirty years ago. But in 2024, they released their first line of fragrances dedicated to positive change through a focus on personal growth, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship as Jeff got his Master’s in Positive Psychology and then started touring the country on his motorcycle, making the Free Yourself podcast to talk to poets, psychologists, civic leaders, and fragrance makers about the meaning of living an authentic life. We just had to bring them to Olfactif and we had to sit down and talk with these fascinating founders about all they do and why they do it. 

Let’s Meet Jeff and Todd!

You two have such diverse and well-trodden paths in completely different areas. What brought you two together to make fragrance?
We’ve been together for over 28 years. We actually met at the gym talking about our dogs, which led to our first date: a hike with them in Topanga Canyon. Fragrance has always been a shared passion, and it offered the perfect place to merge our different worlds—Jeff’s background in storytelling and Positive Psychology, and Todd’s in luxury hospitality and sensory design. It felt like a rare opportunity to not just make scent, but to make space, for presence, for emotion, and for change.

Your fragrance collection is based on The Elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air. Where did the idea come from to make an elemental collection for the first fragrances?
The elements are timeless and universal. They’re part of every culture, every generation, every human narrative. Starting with the elements allowed us to create a collection rooted in emotional resonance, inviting wearers to reconnect with who they are, what they feel, and what grounds or inspires them.

Is there a scent/element that suits each of you best?
Jeff: I’m drawn to both Air and Terre. One is light and expansive, the other grounding and deep, like the two sides of how I think and feel.

Todd: Feu (Fire) , always. It’s bold, sensual, a little wild, and somehow still elegant. That’s the energy I’m most at home in.

How do you go about making scents, or working with perfumers, based on things that don’t have a smell alone, like air or fire?
Scent may not start with the literal, but it always starts with memory or emotion. Fire smells like a barbeque, a candle, a campfire, a hearth in winter. Air shifts depending on location, temperature, time of day, or even your mood. We begin with storytelling: “What does this element feel like?” Then we collaborate with our perfumers to translate those feelings into scent structures that unfold like scenes.

Each of your 100ml bottles includes a 300-word Wordblock. What is this, and why do you include it?
The Wordblock is our brand’s soul. It’s a 300-word poetic ritual printed inside each box, a mirror, not a mandate. Sometimes funny, sometimes provocative, always intentional. It’s not an affirmation. It’s not advice. It’s a moment of reflection to consider: What might you be ready to release? What are you longing to reclaim? Inspired by Positive Psychology, the Wordblock helps deepen the sensory experience by inviting emotional insight. You can read it. Ignore it. Tape it to your mirror. Toss it. That choice is part of the ritual, too.

Jeff, you took a pivot from your career before fragrance and got a Master’s in Positive Psychology. How does what you learned there tie into Free Yourself?
I see it less as a pivot and more of a deepening my connection to storytelling and the importance of personal narratives. That said, it ties into everything. Positive Psychology isn’t about toxic positivity, it’s about flourishing in the real world. I studied concepts like narrative identity, savoring, emotional regulation, and meaning-making. That’s what Free Yourself is built on. We don’t make fragrance to fix anything. We make it to invite awareness, connection, and presence.

Free Yourself donates a large 10% of profits to charity. Why such a generous commitment, and what do you donate to?
We didn’t want to make a beautiful product that didn’t stand for something. From day one, we committed 10% of profits to causes that align with our mission of flourishing, including food security through The Farmlink Project, access to education, and support for the arts. Flourishing should ripple outward.

Jeff has been traveling across the country on his motorcycle to make the Free Yourself podcast, interviewing guests about an authentic life. Has anything shifted for the brand through that journey?
Absolutely. Whether it was a poet, a perfumer, or a stranger at a gas station, or Daniel, a Harley Davidson rider that stopped to help me deal with a flat tire outside of Albuquerque, what kept coming up was the need for realness. People want space to feel. Not perform. That reminded me why we started this: to create something that doesn’t just smell amazing, but helps people feel more like themselves.

What does fragrance mean to you?
Jeff: It’s memory. Permission. A way home.
Todd: It’s emotion made visible. It changes the air, and the energy.