Warm and spicy. Sweet and floral. Woody and earthy.
Washington
The fragrance industry is booming. Here’s why it makes scents.
Fragrance is the fastest-growing category in the prestige beauty sector, with sales climbing 13 percent in the first quarter, according to market research firm Circana. First-time buyers and men are driving much of those gains, gravitating to high-end brands such as Chanel, YSL, Dior, Le Labo, Jo Malone and Tom Ford. Meanwhile, younger shoppers, particularly tweens, are stocking up on gift sets and body sprays available at lower price points, such as Sol de Janeiro.
The upswing speaks to evolving consumer habits after the pandemic, from which Americans emerged flush with savings and eager to indulge. Beauty influencers and the “quiet luxury” aesthetic also propelled interest in prestige scents, which, even at $100 a pop or more, are relatively affordable in a retail space where clothes and accessories routinely come with four- and five-digit price tags. More than 100 million units were sold in the United States last year, Circana said. Annual sales are projected to hit $9 billion by 2026.
“This is unprecedented in industry,” said Larissa Jensen, a beauty industry analyst at Circana. “Everything that goes up, comes down. … We haven’t seen that yet with fragrance. It’s incredible.”
The beauty sector, which includes makeup, skin care and hair care, tends to be resilient regardless of broader economic conditions. We spend when we’re feeling good and when we’re feeling down, Jensen said. If the economy is in a slump, we buy a low-ticket luxury to boost our mood.
It’s an emotional industry, she said. “But fragrance — it’s like the power of scent is unquestionable. It’s nostalgia.”
Prestige fragrance sales have exceeding expectations since the start of the pandemic in 2020, Jensen said. After long stretches at home, their social and professional lives disrupted, Americans wanted to treat themselves. In some cases, that meant dropping more than $300 on a 2.4-ounce bottle of Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540 or 3.4 ounces of Byredo Mojave Ghost perfume.
“What drove fragrance in the immediate post-pandemic period was super luxury,” she said. “It was the $300 and the $400 fragrances that were doing phenomenal.” That, in turn, powered revenue and unit growth, ”which is incredible.”
But consumers also were reaching for scents in the $100 to $200 range, allowing them to dip into luxury with “a reasonable spend,” said Olivia Tong, an analyst at Raymond James Equity Research. “It may not be feasible to buy a purse, shoes or clothes but perhaps you can get the Tom Ford or Chanel fragrance.”
Plus, people wanted to “smell like a rich person,” said Dominica Baird, chair of the business of beauty and fragrance program at Savannah College of Art and Design. You feel like “you’re in a club” when someone compliments your fragrance, she said.
Beauty conglomerate Coty said its seven top brands — Hugo Boss, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Chloé, Davidoff, Gucci and Marc Jacobs — accounted for nearly 90 percent of its fragrance sales. Net revenue in the category swelled nearly 60 percent year over year.
And consumers aren’t settling for just one; they’re going for an array of perfumes or body sprays. For Gen Z, it’s an added layer of self-expression, Tong said.
“It completes the look,” she said. “You may be feeling fresh one day, feeling spicy the next, and making sure you have the scent to go with that.”
Estée Lauder chief executive Fabrizio Freda noted that younger shoppers have as many as eight fragrances in their rotations, “one for every occasion,” he said at a conference in May. “That is a big change [for] the category.”
What’s more, prestige lines are attracting more first-time buyers: Coty reported 5 million new customers last year, a 6 percent increase year over year, CEO Sue Nabi said at a retail conference last month. Men added a nice boost to growth, too, she said.
And they’re spending at a faster rate; prestige sales climbed 17 percent compared with women’s 11 percent year over year, Jensen said.
“Men are becoming more sophisticated beauty consumers,” Baird said. They’re leveling up and reaching for brands such as Gucci, Jensen said, though drugstore staple Axe Body Spray is “still doing great.
Among shoppers ages 25 to 44, sales have soared 19 percent, according to Circana, though unit sales are notably stronger in households that have children. Gen Alpha — those born from 2010 to 2024 — is big on body spray, which tends to be a lower cost, less potent option, Jensen said.
Tweens are particularly enamored with Sol de Janeiro, a body spray and lotion brand with at least seven scents that has gone viral on TikTok. Some industry experts see it as a gateway for younger shoppers looking at influencers, older siblings and parents for what to buy next. And they’re starting to gain expensive taste, with some of the hottest beauty products creeping closer to the prestige category.
At Ulta, which started carrying Sol de Janeiro at the beginning of the year, the brand is “right in that sweet spot for us,” chief operating officer Kecia Steelman said at a conference in June. Fragrance was 10 percent of Ulta’s net sales in the quarter ended May 30, up from 9 percent from the year-ago period. Sol de Janeiro also has gift sets, an attractive option for consumers looking for value and to layer scents, which Steelman noted is one of the top trends this year.
Fragrances from music artists are also popular with younger shoppers. Baird’s students have told her that perfumes from Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter and Beyoncé make them feel connected to the artists.
“There’s something that feels a bit personal about a fragrance,” Baird said, “especially if the celebrity seems genuine about it and it’s not just a money grab.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “on behalf of the Department of Education (ED),” on Monday released a Notice Inviting Grant Applications for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program. Applications are due by May 29.
Last November, ED announced that it had entered into an interagency agreement with HHS to administer the CCAMPIS program. This is the first CCAMPIS competition conducted under this arrangement.
Approximately $73.5 million will go to institutions of higher education that awarded at least $250,000 in Pell grants to enrolled students in FY 2025. HHS will award about 148 grants, ranging from $150,000 to $1 million.
The terms of the grant competition are not significantly different than prior competitions. As before, there are two absolute grant priorities that every application must address – leveraging non-federal resources and utilizing a sliding-fee scale for low-income parents.
This year’s competition includes only one invitational priority that reflects the Trump administration’s general educational policy. The new priority, entitled “Expanding Education Choice in Early Learning Settings,” encourages applications that “expand access to education choice … including by empowering parents in choosing the early learning setting that best meets their family’s needs.” Flexible childcare programs that include drop-in care and care during nontraditional hours are also encouraged.
One other notable difference from prior competitions is an expanded “Terms and Conditions” section that not only requires compliance with applicable civil rights laws, but also refers to Trump administration Executive Orders and guidance on racial discrimination that clarify “the application of federal antidiscrimination laws to programs or initiatives that may involve discriminatory practices, including those labeled as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) programs.” This includes any “discriminatory equity ideology [as defined in Executive Order 14190] in violation of a federal antidiscrimination law.”
The exact scope of these terms is unclear because courts have not found many of the practices described in these Executive Orders and guidance documents to be violations of federal law.
The Newsfeed
This week, the team brings you stories about how communities including Filipino immigrants, Sephardic Jews and Somalis arrived in the Pacific Northwest
Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
Group hopes to boost recognition for Seattle’s Filipinotown
By Venice Buhain
The group Filipinotown Seattle hopes to make sure that the legacy of Filipino Americans in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District isn’t forgotten.
One of the group’s current projects is pushing for a Filipinotown placemarking sign in the CID.
“Filipino Americans have had a presence here for over 100 years in Seattle,” said Filipinotown Seattle Executive Director Devin Israel Cabanilla.
He said that the signage is important to remind people that “the International District is not just Chinatown. Japantown. Filipinotown is here as well.”
The group held a poll on what signage might look like and where it might be located. It would be similar to the Chinatown sign on South Jackson Street and Fifth Avenue South, or the Wing Luke Museum
In the early 20th century, the area now known as the CID was a hub full of businesses, entertainment, social groups and housing that served Seattle’s growing immigrant population from Asia and elsewhere. The communities all intermingled throughout the CID.
“This area was a central place for Asian Pacific immigrants simply because of segregation,” Cabanilla said.
Because the Philippines was a U.S. territory from 1898 to 1946, Filipino immigrants were unaffected by laws in the 1920s that restricted immigration from Japan or China. Many Filipinos came to study at the University of Washington or to work in burgeoning industries, like lumber, farming, canneries and factories.
While the physical Filipino presence in terms of buildings and storefronts in the CID dwindled in the later 20th century with redevelopment, Seattle Filipinos and Filipino Americans continued to make impacts locally, regionally and nationally.
“It may not have been in terms of storefronts, but our presence has always existed in terms of politics, culture as well,” Cabanilla said.
The Seattle Department of Transportation said it is aware that the group is working on its signage request, but the Department of Neighborhoods has not yet received a formal request. They are also working to develop a clearer process for this and other similar neighborhood signage proposals.
Filipinotown Seattle said it hopes that the sign helps remind Seattle of the CID’s unique designation as a neighborhood shaped by many immigrants and migrants to Seattle.
“Is it Chinatown? Is it Japantown? Is it Little Saigon? It’s all those things. And I think re cultivating that this is a multicultural district, Filipinotown is helping establish: Yes, it’s more than one thing,” Cabanilla said.
Venice Buhain is a multimedia journalist at Cascade PBS. She previously was the Cascade PBS’s associate news editor and education reporter. Venice has also worked for KING 5, The Seattle Globalist and TVW News.
Venice Buhain is a multimedia journalist at Cascade PBS. She previously was the Cascade PBS’s associate news editor and education reporter. Venice has also worked for KING 5, The Seattle Globalist and TVW News.
The state of Washington is getting a seventh temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Marysville Washington Temple was announced Sunday night during a devotional in the Marysville Washington Stake by Elder Hugo E. Martinez, a General Authority Seventy in the church’s United States West Area Presidency.
“We are pleased to announce the construction of a temple in Marysville, Washington,” the First Presidency said in a statement. “The specific location and timing of the construction will be announced later. This is a reason for all of us to rejoice and express gratitude for such a significant blessing — one that will allow more frequent access to the ordinances, covenants and power that can only be found in the house of the Lord.”
The other temples in Washington are the Columbia River, Moses Lake, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver temples.
The church has 214 temples in operation. Plans for another 170 temples have been announced; many of those temples are in various stages of planning and construction.
Sunday’s temple announcement follows the new practice of the church’s First Presidency, which determines where temples will be built — and when and how they will be announced.
The First Presidency directed a General Authority Seventy to announce the first temple in Maine at a fireside there in December.
In January, church President Dallin H. Oaks said the Maine announcement set the pattern for future temple announcements.
“The best place to announce a temple is in that temple district,” he told the Deseret News.
The First Presidency will continue to decide where future temples will be built. It then will “assign someone else to make the announcement in the place where the temple will be built,” he said.
This pattern came to him as a strong impression after he assumed leadership of the church in October, following the death of his friend, President Russell M. Nelson.
This came as a strong impression to him shortly after he assumed the leadership of the church, President Oaks said.
The church remains in the midst of an aggressive temple-building era. President Nelson announced 200 new temples from 2018 to 2025. All but one were announced at general conference.
Five dozen temples are now under construction.
President Oaks now has overseen the announcement of two temples, neither at a general conference.
At the October conference he said that “with the large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction, it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”
Ten new temples are scheduled to be dedicated in the next six months.
- May 3: Davao Philippines Temple.
- May 3: Lindon Utah Temple.
- May 31: Bacolod Philippines Temple.
- June 7: Yorba Linda California Temple.
- June 7: Willamette Valley Oregon Temple.
- Aug. 16: Belo Horizonte Brazil Temple.
- Aug. 16: Cleveland Ohio Temple.
- Aug. 30: Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple.
- Oct. 11: Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.
- Oct. 18: Managua Nicaragua Temple.
Two-thirds of the 170 temples still to be built are outside the United States.
Temples are distinct from the meetinghouses where Latter-day Saints worship Jesus Christ each Sunday. Temples are closed on Sundays, but they open during the week as sanctuaries where church members go to find peace, make covenants with God and perform proxy ordinances for deceased relatives.
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