We bought a lot of perfume last year. As of last September, fragrance generated close to approximately $6 billion—and that’s before the holiday season. Brands also released a lot of perfumes. According to Circana, a market research company, the industry saw 50% more launches in 2025 than the year before.
After all that unfettered growth, the question for 2026 is, “What’s next?” “I think the industry is headed toward a clear split,” says Kara Kowalski, head of product and scent development at Snif. “Some brands will continue following trends and give people what they already know they like, but with their own spin. Others will lead with instinct and originality. Consumers are more savvy now, and you can feel that they’re craving something to react to again.”
The industry experts we spoke to—perfumers, brand founders, retailers, and #PerfumeTok content creators—agree. In 2026, the industry will double down on what consumers have been loving: Investing in different formats that encourage scent layering and reimagining fruity and gourmand fragrances. There will also be brands, primarily niche independent ones, that will do everything to raise a reaction from perfume fans. Expect to see brands tap into the more artistic side of perfumery, collaborating with composers (a scented symphony, anyone?), creating scents with classic literary references (more “Wuthering Heights” than Heated Rivalry, though, you never know), or developing fragrances that evoke tangible raw materials like rubber and steel.
After a year of exponential growth and more vanilla-based scents than we could ever spray in a lifetime, the trends in 2026 seem to be about breaking through the noise, bringing a strong point of view, and inspiring us as we look for new additions to our scent wardrobe. “It will be about creating moments of awe across scent, packaging, and storytelling,” adds Kowalski. “I’d say 2026 is the year of upgrading: better routines, bolder layering, and higher standards.” Below, we delve into what exactly those upgrades look—and smell—like.
Fragrance will go beyond the bottle.
When is a rose not just a rose? When it’s accompanied by a musical composition, launched alongside a blockbuster film, or inspired by your favorite literary heroine. In 2026, expect brands to find ways for you to experience their scents beyond the perfume counter. “Attaching a fragrance to a cultural moment is going to be huge,” says Emma B, a content creator known as Perfumism and perfumery student.
This synergy between perfume and other art forms isn’t new. In the 19th century, English chemist G.W. Septimus Piesse used music as an analogy to talk about the way different perfume notes work together, writing about an “octave of smells” with “high notes” to “low notes.” This correlation continues today, and not just because Piesse’s writing helped inform the modern-day olfactive pyramid. Heretic Parfums founder Douglas Little predicts that this year we’ll see more projects bringing fragrance and music together. “What’s interesting is that both of these art forms are invisible,” he says. “When they come together, they populate each other with color and texture, and it becomes something really rich and dynamic.” And, yes, it also offers brand founders a splashy way to market their scents.
Many of this year’s fragrance-centric events and cultural crossovers are still top-secret, but you can see the wheels in motion. For its Mixed Tapes initiative, Initio partnered with French electropop group Kid Francescoli to create soundscapes based on five of the company’s perfumes. Scentbird collaborated with RuPaul’s Drag Race to create a “Yasss Queens!” collection for season 18. This curation of nine existing scents from brands like DS & Durga and Room 1015 will appear on the show. And there are two separate Bridgerton-licensed fragrances from Coty and Floral Street, the latter by star perfumer Jérôme Epinette.
Initio Parfums Privés
Carnal Blend Side Effect Eau de Parfum
Raw materials are inspiring elemental fragrances.
Expect fragrances to go heavy metal this year—or rather, invisible, light-as-air metal—as brands are using notes that bring materials like silver, gold, and steel to mind. “I think of metallic notes not just as a smell, but as a tactile and visual sensation,” says Erwan Raguenes, a DSM-Firmenich perfumer.
