Our story
Growing up in the Netherlands, you don't think twice about it. The windmills, the land below sea level, the quiet fact that a fifth of this country was once sea…it's just home.
It wasn't until I moved to the United States after high school that I saw it differently. People kept asking what it was like to live below sea level. They were fascinated by something I'd never thought twice about. That question stayed with me. It made me realize how extraordinary our small country really is. And how easily we overlook it ourselves.
I started looking for a way to tell these stories properly, and landed on something unexpected: scent. A smell can hold a memory or a place in a way words sometimes can't. So in 2018 I set out to capture the story of the old Dutch windmills in a fragrance, and after a long search for the right notes, MILLS was born, our first eau de parfum. It found its home at the Zaanse Schans, one of the most iconic windmill sites in the Netherlands, and quickly became a bestseller there.
Since then, Van De Zotte has grown one scent at a time -each one takes over a year to develop-, because each one has to earn its story. Every fragrance we make is a piece of Dutch heritage, captured rather than invented.
That's what Van De Zotte stands for: honest, story-driven perfumery, rooted in Dutch heritage rather than fleeting trends. When you buy a bottle from us, you're not just buying a scent; you're buying a piece of a story, made with care and patience rather than rushed to market. Expect fragrances that are distinctive, sometimes unexpected, always genuine. Expect quality over quantity, and a scent that sparks a conversation. What you won't get is something mass-produced, something designed to please everyone, or something you'll find on every shelf.
We build our perfumes to be recognized, so that when someone smells one of our perfumes, they smell the story we set out to tell. That's the only measure that matters to us.
Every bottle is produced in small batches in the Netherlands, and we're deliberately selective about where you'll find us.
Van De Zotte is still, at its core, a one-man show, most of it built and run by me, Joeri Hottentot.
