2025 Fragrance Trends & Predictions
No data just vibes
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Action News on 6ABC in Philadelphia holds the record for the longest running theme song on any news program. It has withstood the test of time because it is a legit banger. The full version of the song is accompanied by a Ray Conniff-esque chorus singing hippie-dippy 70s lyrics about moving closer to the world and coming together.
When I learned a friend of mine would be featured on an upcoming Action News segment I delightedly informed him that he will be ushered in with one of the greatest theme songs in TV history. None of my friends are from the Philly area so naturally I had to educate them about the theme so they would understand its greatness. I shared a YouTube video in the group chat and commented:
I am glad this is still played as the news forecast begins every night in the greater Philadelphia area.
I immediately sent a followup saying of course I meant cast not forecast. But the idea of a news forecast is good. It is very Philip K. Dick sci-fi but also speaks to a desire that is very ancient and human. We want to know what is in store for our future, which is why trend predictions and forecasting are so popular.
I started this list of predictions a few weeks ago over a month ago, then got sidetracked (and then I was delayed AGAIN by a five day work-related trip). While sidetracked, I read a couple articles about trend forecasting and the annoyance of repackaging trends that we’re already seeing and giving them a new name. Also, a bunch of 2025 fragrance trend articles and podcasts came out. So, I decided to add two categories to each of my predictions:
Is this already happening?—an assessment of whether or not the trend has already started or if it will be truly novel in 2025 (with the caveat that nothing is ever truly novel, blah blah blah).
Who else is saying?—calling out if I’ve come across anyone else making the same prediction, either in the media or IRL. If other people are sayin’ maybe the trend is more likely to manifest.
So although the year is 1/12th over, here are my predictions.
Feeling so fresh and fancy free
Lighter floral fragrances return and give our exhausted noses a break
Blown out from the BR540s and Delinas of the world, we collectively need a refresher. This year, we will see the return of breezy, ladylike florals. Proper florals done with a light handed touch. Peony, orange blossom, muguet, and lighter, dewier interpretations of rose will abound. I think we will see two opposing marketing concepts supporting this olfactory trend, each evoking feminine archetypes: 1) commodified girlhood, fueled by the prevailing online discourse over the past couple years. Expect photoshoots with baby deer and bows used as visuals to support an airy, delicate pink and white olfactive garland of blossoms dancing through the air. There may even be some boys wearing pearl earrings and ruffles thrown in the mix as well, á la Simone Rocha. 2) a responsible, mature but still buoyant vision of womanhood. This vision will be different from the severe, yet somehow stunted, girlboss. Picture the original Sunflowers ads for Elizabeth Arden or Isabella Rosellini for Tresor. Perhaps the stranglehold of perpetual youth will begin to loosen and we’ll be ready to grow up a little.
Who else is sayin’?: Allure’s fragrance trends article says “florals are ready for their comeback” but it doesn’t really go into how or in what form so I am going to say it DOESN’T COUNT. Chloe on the Nose Candy podcast said something about soapy florals coming back, which seems adjacent to my prediction so I say it counts.
Is this already happening?: I don’t think this was an existing trend in 2024, but this is already starting in 2025. DS & Durga just released Cowgirl Grass, which I smelled at their launch a couple weeks ago, and it fits into this category. It is centered around a breezy peony accord atop the grassy vetiver base cribbed from their existing Cowboy Grass fragrance. I also recently sniffed the lab mod for a soon-to-be-released BDK fragrance which was very much a ladylike floral—a springy orange blossom concoction. We only need one more example for this to be a real trend.
90s revival incoming
Speaking of Sunflowers and Tresor, perfumers will start to crib retro notes and compositions this year and 90s style fragrances will become du jour. Freesia, aquatic, and melon notes will pop up. Expect olfactory tributes to fragrances like L’Eau d’Issey, CKOne, and Tommy Girl. Josh Meyer from Imaginary Authors recently stated in a Fragrantica article that his next fragrance will use calone, that stalwart molecule of 90s aquatic fragrances. Although these fragrances have a reputation for being light and watery they are often quite tenacious and embracing them may be a way to satisfy consumer demand for longevity and “performance” without resorting to the typical #beastmode scent profiles that have proliferated over the past few years.
Who else is sayin’: I haven’t seen anyone else make this specific prediction, but correct me if I am wrong.
Is this already happening?: Yes. 2024 saw the release of a few aquatic floral fragrances such as Osmo by Andrea Maack and The Point by Clue, both with sea salt and jasmine notes. I should note that I do not think niche interpretations of 90s style fragrances will market them as such. The scent profiles and notes will be there but the branding and marketing will position it as something new rather than a throwback.
More limited release fragrances and media or product tie-ins
All the talk of exclusivity and gatekeeping in the niche perfume market is mostly facetious. Anyone who has four or five dollars to spend can order a sample on Luckyscent or Scent Split and have access to pretty much any new niche release of note. In fact, I’d argue niche fragrances are probably more readily available and accessible to sample than most designer or department store brands. People may be starting to catch on to the fact that “niche” may not inherently have the amount of cache that they’re led to believe it does. And, with more and more releases every year, how does one stand out and ensure customers will flock to one’s fragrance over all the others? Limited releases are one answer to creating a sense of scarcity and driving sales and interest. Appeals to seasonality and/or small batches using rare ingredients will proliferate to create real, rather than perceived exclusivity. Some of these releases may take a note from Le Labo’s playbook and be tied to a particular physical location (or event).
A specific type of limited release I believe we will see more of in 2025 are fragrances tied to specific media properties or products. Fragrance can be a natural experiential extension of other types of art, capturing ineffable qualities portrayed through visual media such as film and television or literature. However, the tie-in needs to be done well in order to be successful and perceived as considered and artful rather than a novelty gimmick (e.g. the Hellman’s Mayonnaise fragrance released by Tennessee Titan’s quarterback Will Levis or the Miller High Life Dive Bar-Fume, both of which sold out but were they sold to fragrance hobbyists or to bemused fans of the brand or practical jokers?).
Who else is sayin’?: Sable Yong and Tynan Buck have mentioned the fragrance product tie-in on their podcast and in this article for Cosmo. My friend Rachel Ann and I discussed fragrances released for books at an event last year around the time Sable’s book of essays and related perfume, Die Hot With A Vengeance, were released.
Is this already happening?: Yes. Jorum Studio had some big (for a small brand) hits with their limited releases Monolith, Opaline, and Boswellia Scotia. All sold out quickly. And the most coveted perfume for serious fragheads last year was probably Roberto Greco’s blink-and-you-missed-it release, Rauque (if anyone out there has a bottle and is willing to sell me a decant, or even just let me sniff it, please contact me). Ffern (established in 2019) is probably the forerunner of this marketing model since they exclusively sell limited release fragrances.
We also saw marketing tie-ins for media cropping up last year. The original run of Heretic’s Nosferatu perfume sold out quickly and commanded a list of 30,000 people waiting for another batch of it to be released. 2024’s Die Hot With A Vengeance is the most recent example of a fragrance with a book tie-in; others include Etat Libre d’Orange’s You or Someone Like You, created for Chandler Burr’s novel of the same name and Nature’s Candy, created by Pearfat Perfume for Camilla Wynne’s cookbook.
“Artisanal” starts to outpace “niche” (in terms of clout)
Niche fragrances are marketed as a promise of creativity and artistry—a departure from the same-ness of crowd pleasing, focus-grouped-to-death department store fragrances. The extent to which niche brands actually deliver on this is, of course, up for debate, and this year we will start to see a shift to extolling independent and artisan perfumery in fragrance marketing. I don’t mean that independent brands helmed by a single perfumer who typically fulfills all of the roles required to bring a fragrance to market will somehow outpace a corporation (even a small one) in terms of sales volume. This is about perception and marketing. Bigger brands, even those considered niche, will start to use appeals to artisanship in how they present themselves and position their products. I predict a resurgence of oil-based perfumery, often the purview of witchy indie perfumers who sell their wares at the farmer’s market, back into the luxury fragrance space. We will see at least one fragrance brand create an “artisan” or “indie” line differentiated from their primary offerings. Expect quirky note pyramids and an emphasis on creative freedom for the perfumer. Legit indie brands will be picked up by bigger retailers and go into wider distribution.
Who else is sayin’: No one? I haven’t seen or heard anyone else make this specific prediction, but correct me if I am wrong.
Is this already happening?: Sort of. Indie brands like Clue Perfumery are now being sold in Luckyscent and perfume retailer extraordinaire Stéle sells local NYC indies like Amphora Parfum and Alloy Studio alongside bigger niche houses like BDK and Matiere Premiere. We haven’t yet seen the “artisan division” of a bigger brand that I am predicting yet though.
The gourmand reign of terror persists, but begins to mutate
Sugary sweetness recedes and we see signs of a mounting gourmand resistance
Sticky-sweet gourmands have been the belle of the ball for a while now. The market for this type of scent seems saturated and is trickling down from fine fragrance into other categories—a sure sign of the decadent period and nascent decay of a trend (see the Crumb x Dove collab Brian Buchanan decried a few weeks ago for evidence), but I don’t think we’ll whiplash away from it. Instead, the gourmand category will start to smell like perfume again. The beauty of Angel and other early gourmand fragrances is that they aren’t completely literal—the patchouli part of Angel is just as important as the sugary sweet component, but we’ve over indexed on the latter and forgotten the importance of the former. In 2025 we’ll start to see a shift away from super literal gourmands to interpretations that retain gourmand elements but incorporate other, perhaps more traditional, styles of perfumery.
Who else is sayin’?: Emma Vernon discussed this on her trend prediction podcast episode earlier this week a couple weeks ago and created a brilliant graphic demonstrating the lifecycle of a fragrance trend. We’re moving into the “unexpected”/”adjacent” phases for dessert-y gourmand notes.
Is this already happening?: Yes. The emergence of several “floral gourmands” (or “fleurmands” to use Jessica Murphy’s apt turn of phrase) from popular niche and indie perfumeries late last year are indicative that this is a trend that is starting already (see: Lilac Brulee from Bruno Fzolari, Fleur d'Éclaire from Regime des Fleurs, Fior di Pane from Profumo di Firenze).
The kitchen pantry opens up
2024 was the year of starch in fragrance. Rice and bread notes proliferated, complimenting the sugary dessert carbs that dominate the gourmand category. In 2025, we’ll see further exploration of gourmand accoutrements through the proliferation of spicy and herbal notes. Rather than baking spices, which I think have already had/will continue to have a moment, I predict we will see more aromatics taking the center stage. Think: lemongrass, basil, rosemary, mint, cilantro. Also, riding on the popularity of tomato (both leaf and fruit), and the wider cultural influence of RFK’s MAHA initiative and Ozempic, I think we will see more vegetables incorporated into the note pyramid. Healthy, wholesome vegetables! I, for one, would love to sniff a celery-centric fragrance.
Who else is sayin’: Emma also mentioned this in her trend forecast episode, but she seems more bullish on warm spices than I am. Sable and Tynan from Smell Ya Later are big promoters of the incoming vegetable scent trend (both on their podcast and in that aforementioned Cosmo article about fragrance trends). The initial impetus for this prediction is a conversation I had at a party Addison Cain of Inconsistent Beauty Updates hosted back in December.
Is this already happening?: Yes. It’s not like aromatic and spice notes are completely novel, but I think the positioning here is important: the core idea will center on being edible rather than atmospheric or environmental. DS&Durga’s Bistro Waters is an early example of this. Last year also brought us Pho Breakfast from d’Annam and Coriandre 39 from Le Labo (which fits the brief note-wise but not necessarily conceptually, as it was a City Exclusive release and thus about place not cuisine).
What I want to see but don’t think will happen
Stupid ancillary fragrance products driven by spurious marketing claims go away
Hair perfume is a scam. Its existence is ostensibly justified by the ridiculous notion that the alcohol in perfume is DrYinG and will DaMAgE youR HaIR. While, yes, this is true in the most literal technical sense, NO ONE is spraying enough perfume in their hair that it will have any effect on its texture and relative level of moisture whatsoever. One or two spritzes of perfume will not destroy your hair since the alcohol in it evaporates in about two seconds, hardly enough time for it to cause any damage. Anyone who is wary of damage but wants to have a fragrant mane can always spritz a comb first then run it through their hair, thereby avoiding any drying effects.
Hair perfume is just the tip of the iceberg. I think we will start to see more objectionable products that are attempting to market a sprayable fragrance for a single use-case that is perfectly met with perfume.
I will note that a perusal of Sephora’s latest fragrance products includes a lot of “hair perfumes” but many of them are described as “hair and body mists” now, which is less annoying to me since it essentially fulfills the niche that an EDT or other lower-concentration (and therefore lower priced) fragrance would. I guess upscale brands like Diptyque or Byredo are too fancy to sell body mist and therefore need to pretend that their product is exclusively for hair.
Brands slow down and decide not to release anything new in 2025
It’s a not uncommon refrain that there are way too many fragrances being released every year. Sadly, our hyper-accelerated news and trend cycles mean that if you aren’t constantly putting something new out there, you’re basically dead to consumers. Or that’s the perception in any case.
I would love to see brands mine their own history and archives for inspiration and bring back previous releases into their current line of offerings. Long standing designer brands are especially positioned to make this happen. Imagine if Bulgari re-released Black this year! Or if those who missed out on Feu d’Issey the first time around got another chance to smell it. Sometimes a fragrance is a bit too early for its time and is under-appreciated. With the fervor for fragrance at an all-time high, old gems just might find the love they deserve from a new audience.
What are your predictions for 2025? What have you seen so far that might turn into a trend for the rest of the year? The comments are open <3
Montreal’s Monsillage has a scent called Eau de Celeri (and it’s great)! 😁
Jorum Paradisi smells a lot like celery to me!