It should also be noted that fragrance is currently the only beauty category where the prestige market consistently dominates the mass market.
This year, according to Circana data through September, year-over-year sales of prestige fragrance increased 14% in dollars and 12% in units. And luxury fragrance sales increased 15%. Fragrance was the fastest-growing beauty category in 2024.
— Read more in The fragrance boom is nowhere near over at Glossy.
It’s because the higher end perfumes really do smell better than the aroma-chemicals in blingy bottles, isn’t it? One really nice $200.00 or $300.00 perfume that smells good to you, and on you, and that your entourage, and total strangers, compliment you on, is worth far more in enhancing your personal prescence, than a dozen $50.00 perfumes that sorta smell ok for 2 hours or 20 minutes, but you know that there is something missing…
My current perfumes which meet these criteria are Mitsouko, Mon Precieux Nectar, and Irisss. I expect Grimoire will also meet these criteria as soon as I wear it out in public. A classic chypre, a classic sweet floral, a modern cold floral, and a modern woody incense constructed in a classic fashion. These sorta cover all my bases!
Somewhat…but once you get over $100 I think there is often — not always, but often — very little difference in what you get or what the brand paid for the juice itself. It is no longer like the old days where top dollar got you an extrait made with expensive ingredients. There might be very little difference in the materials cost or artistry between a perfume that costs $100 and a perfume that costs $400 or more. It just depends.
I do totally believe that many brands just take an fairly ordinary product and put it in an exclusive, not widely distributed collection and price it to attract luxury consumers, in fact, that’s what I think most designer brands do. And it’s a competition. IMHO Chanel HAD to raise the prices of their Exclusifs because they had become too reasonably priced compared to other brands, so they weren’t looking luxury enough.
All that money spent and I still hardly ever smell perfume on anyone. When I do, it’s still Light Blue or AG Cloud. On men I only smell ambroxan, which is a shame. ( I do have one male coworker who wears Bvlgari Black and an older Mont Blanc. He smells nice)
This is so true! It’s very rare that I smell perfume on the street.