On fragrance, storytelling + the future of brand merch
This post was updated on August 6, 2024.
I drank the fragrance Kool-Aid.
I recently wrote a story for a beauty and fashion magazine about finding a signature scent. As part of the research, I visited a Toronto boutique called Etiket, which specializes in niche and under-the-radar beauty and fragrance brands. Think: D.S. & Durga, Byredo, Maison Francis Kurkdijan, Penhaligon’s, and a slew of others.
Again, as part of *research, I took home a few samples and tried them out. One of them was a scent called Dear Polly by Vilhelm Parfumerie. Known as a “skin-scent,” it’s supposed to make you smell like you, only better, and add warmth and freshness to the skin1. And can I tell you, I was hooked from the very beginning.
As a former beauty editor, I’d long worn fragrances (Le Labo Santal 33 is still a fave—don’t “@” me), but over the years, I stopped wearing them so as not to offend my scent-averse coworkers at the office.
In the ensuing years, I’d forgotten about the power of scent and its ability to evoke emotions and visualizations of myself as someone else. With Dear Polly’s “rich-lady smell” of bergamot, black tea, amber, and musk, I began to envision myself as a Slim Keith-style socialite, dabbing on the scent in my fancy dressing gown in my pied-a-terre penthouse on the Upper East Side. Such is the power of fragrance.
So, as is my way, sparked by curiosity, I went down a fragrance research rabbit hole, eager to understand why fragrances have had such a chokehold on everyone in the last few years, from first-time buyers to Gen Z and pretty much everyone else. According to market research firm Circana, fragrance is the fastest-growing category in prestige beauty, with sales climbing 13 percent in the first quarter of the year, and it’s projected to hit sales of $9 billion by 2026.
And I don’t need to tell you that a lot of that has been driven by TikTok, where fragrance lovers and connoisseurs have united in their passion for “silage” and “top notes.” Currently, the #perfume hashtag has 3.7 million posts alone.
As it turns out, I’m not alone in my desire to smell like a “rich lady” - ‘How to smell expensive’ currently has +28.3 million views on TikTok.2 There are many reasons cited for the explosion of fragrance: perfume as escapism, as self-expression, as a mood booster. For me, the confidence-boosting theory tracks the most based on what I wrote last week about “The Great Exhaustion.”
Beyond that, as is often the case in this newsletter, I also wanted to know: Where is the opportunity for brands to get in on the action when it comes to perfume, in which each bottle tells a uniquely different story and pulls on our emotions like almost nothing else? An emerging trend I’m seeing is that some non-beauty brands are starting to harness the potential of “perfume as merch,” which to me, makes perfect sense.
High-end fashion brands have long had brand-extension fragrances, as there’s a natural affinity (the OG being Chanel No. 5). Last November, jewelry brand Kendra Scott launched a fragrance collection, spurred by customer demand. And ultra-feminine clothing brand LoveShackFancy dropped a range of scents, bedecked in florals and bows, last year.
But the idea of “perfume as merch” is a relatively new concept. I first got wind of the trend via celebrity gossip destination Deuxmoi’s fragrance release, Plage, earlier this year. You could say this was a collaboration, as it was developed by indie fragrance brand Voyage et Cie. But to me, it felt different—the anonymous purveyor of blind-gossip items already sells its own merch, including branded hoodies and socks, etc., along with an expertly curated assortment of celeb-beloved beauty products.
Inspired by celebrities' sun-soaked travels, the fragrance, which is now sold at L.A.-based boutique Violet Grey, smells like the beach. To me, this launch is about building a brand and using scent as the vehicle to tell the brand’s story. I particularly love the 80s-meets-90s tabloid-style marketing imagery behind it and the anonymous tip letter that preceded its launch on Violet Grey.
Now, Auntie Anne’s purveyor of freshly basked pretzels, wants you to smell like its buttery baked goods. In August, it’s launching Knead: Eau de Pretzel, a scent that evokes the aroma of passing by one of its stores with notes of “buttery dough, salt, and a hint of sweetness.” Fans on social are loving the Y2K-inspired, tongue-in-cheek promo post for Knead, while some are questioning if the foray into fragrance is even legit (which, fair question). The brand is hosting a Pretzel Parfumerie in NYC for fans to experience the fragrance and take home a swag bag and Knead is available for purchase online on August 14. Per a press release: "There are few scents more recognizable than the aroma of Auntie Anne's," said Julie Younglove-Webb, Chief Brand Officer at Auntie Anne's. "Over the years, fans have shared their memories and experiences that began with just a whiff of our pretzels. We've bottled that moment and can't wait for fans to enjoy it in a whole new way."
Meanwhile, to coincide with the release of her new book, Die Hot With A Vengeance, former beauty editor and Substacker
is launching a matching fragrance. There’s a natural affinity here: the book itself is about the state of beauty, and Yong is also a self-described “frag head,” so a fragrance is a no-brainer. For Yong, it’s a more meaningful way to connect with readers versus the typical literary tote or T-shirt that defines the world of book merchandise.In an effort to make the perfume reflect the essence of Die Hot, Yong envisioned the book as a real person (which is the essence of good brand storytelling).* The author told Fast Company: “I distilled it down to an evil wealthy woman with a stolen Birkin bag.” Yong enlisted independent perfumer Hoax Perfume to develop the scent, which features notes of “Smeared lipstick on suede (that’s never going to come out),” “Thrown cake,” and “Red wine spilled in a Birkin bag.” The author is self-distributing the 240 bottles of the fragrance via her website.
In sum, when it comes to merch, it’s much harder (and more expensive) to create a bottle of fragrance versus printing a sweatshirt with a brand logo. But there’s little emotive potential in rolling out another custom dad hat for your brand, which behaves essentially like a walking billboard, as Yong noted.
Lastly, when I asked David Bernstein, fragrance director of Etiket, what’s really driving the fragrance boom, he had this to say: “Scent, neurologically, evades intellectualization and connects directly to emotion and memory,” he says. “It’s an invisible art that anybody can relate to; it immediately makes you feel something primal and beyond language or time. There’s no exposition, no verse leading to the chorus; it’s immediately the full picture, and, even better, that full picture is often designed to be pleasurable.”
Could this be the next frontier in music or book marketing? Can you imagine a Brat fragrance? Bottling, in scent form, what a “Brat” looks like is a captivating idea.
Take note, brands.
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This I learned from Etiket’s fragrance director, David Bernstein.
The fragrances most cited to fit the “smell expensive” trend are Frédéric Malle’s Portrait of a Lady, Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s Baccarat Rouge 540, and, yes, my beloved Le Labo Santal 33. Befitting the rich-lady vibe, these eaux all boast hefty price tags of $300 to $500 per bottle.