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These 5 Fragrance Trends Will Be Everywhere This Year

#PerfumeTok has spoken and as the beauty world shifts towards Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers, beauty trends have focused more on individuality and self-expression. We’re less fixated on covering up blemishes and more focused on the vibe we’re projecting.

Sydney Sweeney

When it comes to beauty categories, there is nothing as deeply personal as fragrance. It’s linked to our memories and can change our mood, and unlike skincare, makeup and haircare, it’s more about how we want to feel than how we want to look.

As the beauty world shifts towards Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers, beauty trends have focused more on individuality and self-expression. We’re less fixated on covering up blemishes and more focused on the vibe we’re projecting. Fragrance is inherently individualistic – deeply connected to our emotions, memories, and moods – so it’s no wonder a category that connects with our deepest memories and feelings is currently going gangbusters. Anyone who has been on PerfumeTok, where twelve-year-old boys show off their Paco Rabanne and Jean Paul Gaultier perfume collections, and experts rack up millions of views reviewing niche and luxury scents, doesn’t need to be told the fragrance category is booming. But if you like stats industry report, Circana has confirmed that perfume is outstripping every other beauty category (that’s right, even lip oils) in 2025.

It checks out. While a luxury cost outlay, the fragrance is a beauty item you reach for daily, and unlike mascara on your worst days, it can feel like charisma in a bottle.

So, while we’re all watching our wallets, finding a unique signature scent that you will wear for years has become the beauty version of an investment designer bag.

With this in mind we’re looking at the biggest fragrance trends of 2025.

The Biggest Fragrance Trends Of 2025:

Extraits: Ultra Longwearing Fragrances

Byredo Rouge Chaotique
Byredo, Rouge Chaotique

 

We have eau de toilettes and eau de parfumes but in 2025, another category is entering the chat. Sangeetha Smith, Fragrance and Education Manager at Mecca, has observed a rise in concentrated “extrait” perfumes. “We anticipate that next year, extraits will surpass EDTs and EDPs in popularity with customers seeking scents that make a lasting impression,” she says. Smith explains that extracts contain the highest level of fragrance oils, giving them a rich, concentrated, long-lasting scent with high projection. “These are qualities customers are designing from premium fragrances.”

Premium brands are catering to them. Maison Francis Kurkdjian now offers a best-selling gourmand, Maison Crivelli’s Hibiscus Mahajád Extrait de Parfum, Baccarat Rouge, and the Byredo Night Veils extrait collection has been collecting steam on TikTok. Our pick? Rouge Chaotique is a sweet and sticky gourmand that layers plum and praline with timber oak and base notes of oud, patchouli, and papyrus.

Objets D’art: The Ornamental Fragrance

Eau de Parfum Soie Malaquais | Dries Van Noten
Dries Van Noten, Soie Malaquais

PerfumeTok has transformed fragrance into a category that is as visual as it is sensorial the flacons that go viral tend to have a striking aesthetic. Influencer Ethan Gaskill swooned over the newly launched Dries Van Noten, Soie Malaquais ($520) which he described as a “silky floral chocolate masterpiece” and “just as beautiful on the skin as it is on the dresser.”  The bottle features blue and white porcelain china contrasted with burgundy glass. Troye Sivan’s brand Tsu Lange Yor has expanded into homewares, taking inspiration from the perfume’s molten metal caps create an abstract bowl.

These bottles don’t just catch the eye of TikTok influencers – they’re an answer to dupe culture, offering a multi-sensorial layer to the luxury fragrance experience that’s too cost-prohibitive to dupe. Given that your perfume will sit on your night stand for years, a bottle that combines beauty and art is something we wholeheartedly embrace.

Photorealistic Perfumes

Diptyque L'eau papier
Diptyque, L’Eau Papier

Tiktoker Perfume Siren noted she’s expecting a rise in “photorealistic” perfumes – that is, scents that vividly remind us of a single thing. This is reflected in the numbers. Kayali, owned by Huda Kattan’s sister Mona Kattan, is one of the fastest-growing fragrance brands in the world, known for its straightforward one-note replicas of real-life food scents. Most recently, it’s launch of Yum Boujee Marshmallow ($171) that’s sent customers scurrying to the aisles of Sephora. But before that, single-focus scents Vanilla, Vanilla Sugar Rock Candy, Eden Juicy Apple and Yum Pistachio Gelato made the brand famous.

But we’ve also seen the trend beyond the world of sugary gourmands.

Carriere Freres, Tomato Candle
Carrière Frères, Tomato Candle

Back in 2024 we noted that tomato fragrances were everywhere, with simple scents that smelt like you’re vegetable garden popping up in candles from brands like Loewe and Carrière Frères and fragrances like the Buly Les Jardens range in which you can find fresh, evocative scents that smell like everything from succulent water-fresh cucumbers to crisp earthy carrots or even Diptyque, L’Eau Papier which features the dry, crisp notes of a freshly turned page. All these trends lead to a subtrend: neuroscience.

Good Vibes: Neuroscience-Based Scents

Charlotte Tilbury, Love Frequency perfume
Charlotte Tilbury, Love Fequency

Charli XCX told British Vogue last year that she shares a signature scent, Byredo, Bibliothèque with her boyfriend. Her reason? “When I’m on tour or away from him, I spray this, and it reminds me of him.” Fragrance and our sense of smell are intertwined with the olfactory parts of our brain that regulate learning, emotion and memory. That’s why the fragrance worn by your high school bully can trigger a shudder decades on, the smell of a rose your grandmother had in her garden can light up a deep sense of calm and joy, and, as Charli XCX has found the signature scent of a lover can feel almost as intimate as an embrace.

Vyrao, Witchy Woo
Vyrao, Witchy Woo

 

While any fragrance can connect to a memory, some notes have been shown to play with our brain chemistry, citrus notes have been linked to greater energy and focus while vanilla aromas have long been considered relaxing, and specific fragrance brands are engaging with this. Charlotte Tilbury, who launched a range of mood-enhancing fragrances in 2024. Vyrao, created by ex-fashion director Yasmin Sewell, approaches scent creation from the perspective of holistic well-being. “These are functional fragrances that are designed to provide a sensory experience that supports both emotional and physical well-being,” Smith explains. “As consumers become more attuned to the relationship between fragrance and self-care, we’re expecting these brands to flourish.”

In a world where we have more reason than ever to want to give ourselves a daily mood boost, we can’t argue with the desire for a vibe shift in a bottle.

Luxury Body Mists:

SOL DE JANEIRO BRAZILIAN CRUSH CHEIROSA 62 PERFUME MIST( 90ml ) – Luxe by  Kan
Sol de Janeiro, Cheirosa 62


Sol de Janeiro gave body mists a luxury rebrand when they brought out their signature body balm Cheirosa 62 scent as a perfume mist.

Since then, the category has exploded. The hashtag has accumulated millions of views, with TikTokers tracking down cult mists like Phlur (unavailable in Australia) and endless obscure drugstore renditions. Affordability is, without a doubt, driving the popularity of the category. Unlike the 12-year-old influencers doing luxury fragrance hauls, you don’t need a trust fund to collect body mists; most of them are a fraction of the price of their luxury counterparts.

They undoubtedly tap into TikTok’s eagerness for all things weird and Y2K, and many on the platform spend time tracking down the weirdest and tackiest scents like “strawberry shortcake” and “iced vovo.” The millennial cohort are having flashbacks to Impulse Vanilla Kisses. At the other end of the spectrum body mists from prestige brands are tapping into an interest in skincare.  The Rare Beauty, Find Comfort Hair and Body Fragrance Mist ($49) have good skin and hair ingredients, making them popular hybrid products.  We’re guessing in 2025 body mists will get even more luxurious. Watch this space.

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Read the original article in ELLE AUS

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