Fragrance is prestige beauty’s fastest growing category and men are leading the charge.
The category, which has posted 11 percent gains year-to-date as of August, per Circana, is reaping the rewards of heightened interest from male consumers. Men’s fragrances, which comprise a third of the business overall, grew 15 percent for that time period, driven by juices and higher-priced items.
Ancillaries and body sprays, which are booming for women, don’t have the same traction with male consumers. Instead, luxe juices are what’s trending. “Men’s is a totally different dynamic from women’s fragrances,” said Larissa Jensen, beauty industry advisor at Circana. “It’s driven by a higher price point and higher concentrations, and designer brands make up 72 percent of the market.”
Case in point, Dior Sauvage is the U.S.’ top fragrance in the prestige market, as reported, and has been for two years. Per the same reporting, Bleu de Chanel, Valentino Born in Roma Uomo and Yves Saint Laurent Beauté’s Myslf are also top 10 fragrances, with the latter being the greatest share gainer in the category overall.
The retail front is still a predominantly brick-and-mortar game, Jensen said, with social media only influencing 13 percent of fragrance consumers. That number is only expected to increase, as Gen Alpha and Gen Z, who are a smaller — yet highly engaged — subset of fragrance shoppers, respond to a proliferation of user-generated fragrance content on TikTok.
“Total fragrances continue to see growth and expansion, and men’s is no different,” said Nicolette Bosco, vice president of beauty, Macy’s Inc., which is said to account for the majority of fragrance sales in the U.S.. “Coming out of the pandemic, men started using fragrances similarly to women — as an expression point. Four years later, the men’s consumer still wants that.”
From price points to customer profiles, the growth is coming from all corners. “A lot of it comes from social media in terms of the younger generation. And the male consumer has embraced luxury from Dior, Valentino, Paco Rabanne, Jean Paul Gaultier and YSL,” said Bosco. “It’s ultra luxury, and also smaller sizes.”
Macy’s introduced a new luxury concept last year, and the experiential component has become critical to converting sales. Among them, Dior’s Fragrance Atelier, which mimics a café and features personalized service and consultations. “It’s all about the experience and the service — where can we find a nice balance of art and science?” said Bosco. “You want to have a differentiated experience and something that almost becomes personalized for them when they’re shopping with us.”
Companies are reporting that the surge in men’s scents isn’t just in the U.S. “Male fragrance is booming, and it’s not booming in one geography. It’s booming everywhere globally and it is a big chunk of the growth of the total industry,” said Stéphane de La Faverie, the Estée Lauder Cos.’ executive group president. “We see the male consumer gravitating towards more luxury and ultra-luxe brands.”
Standout brands are By Kilian, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle and Jo Malone London, which saw success with a Tom Hardy-fronted campaign earlier this year.
De La Faverie said today’s shoppers span ages and touchpoints: “There is storytelling and that has contributed to the strong acceleration. Millennials still are the core consumer, but you’re seeing the rapid acceleration of Gen Z and Gen Alpha,” he noted. “Teenage boys have driven 26 percent of the growth in the past few years.”
As for what makes a winning fragrance these days, it’s finding the right balance of aspirational-yet-relatable marketing with compelling product attributes.
“The juice is clearly the key driver combined with a really cool bottle and a brand that represents aspiration. This is the magic trio,” said Silvia Galfo, president of L’Oréal USA’s Luxe division, which includes Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, Valentino Beauty, Azzaro and others. The portfolio holds 30 percent market share in the U.S., Galfo said, and is growing.
Galfo posited that the opportunity spans the entire gender spectrum. “You have two buyers — women buying for men, and men buying for themselves,” she said, noting that while the digital aspects of the business comprise incremental gains, nailing an in-store experience is paramount.
“The social media component is an additional touchpoint that we didn’t have before,” she said. “Brick-and-mortar remains the key channel because of discovery, and the channel has to evolve to keep it engaging and immersive. We have an opportunity to take this category to a bit more aspiration, more immersion and more experience.”
Given designer fragrance’s domination, striking a balance between aspiration and relatability is key. “What’s dangerous is when you are trying to be too aspirational and people cannot relate to it. There’s this component of the dream, but it has to be an accessible kind of dream,” said Galfo, referencing the success of a recent campaign for YSL’s Myslf featuring Austin Butler. “Butler had this story about him and this expression of masculinity. When all of those are synchronized, the launch does very well.”
For Chanel, which named Timothée Chalamet the new face of Bleu de Chanel last year (and debuted a commercial directed by Martin Scorsese), tapping into the consumer psyche was about finding commonalities between the brand’s values and consumers.
“There’s this cliché vision of fragrance as a seductive weapon that has to translate into a commercial. What we’ve done has none of that,” said Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur, Chanel’s global head of creative for fragrance and beauty. “The most seductive people are the people that are so well with themselves. That’s what Timothée is in that movie, there’s this sense of being in the moment, which resonates with the new generations.”
The formula of success required nodding to past creative expressions of the product, while adding in new ones. Chalamet, for example, was new to the franchise, while Scorsese had directed the original campaign when Bleu launched back in 2010. “You keep some existing elements and you bring in new ones,” said du Pré de Saint Maur. “Timothée came in and he was very involved in the story and came with something new and fresh.”
Describing the result as setting the internet on fire, du Pré de Saint Maur attributes the campaign’s success to finding the sweet spot between new perspectives and existing brand values.
“At the end of the day, the central concept of Bleu illustrates a belief that a man isn’t driven by what the rest of the world wants them to do. This is why Scorsese made sense,” he said. “This is a juxtaposition of something new and an existing point of view.”
