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Trickle-Down Fragrances
Perfume lovers can now buy a deeply scented bottle of a new eau de toilette, blended with natural oils of sandalwood and jasmine absolute sambac, both imported from India, formulated by the French-trained perfumer who has worked on scents from luxurious niche brands like Atelier Cologne, which last year introduced a pair of fragrances in sleek glass bottles infused with either gold or silver, retailing at $195.
That earthy scent, called Red Promisia, costs $19.99 and is sold only at Target.
Part of the Sonia Kashuk Bath and Body Collection, a line of fragranced products like shower gels, perfumes and body lotions introduced last November, the scent exemplifies a shift in the mass fragrance market toward a higher sophistication level in both aroma and packaging. While prices remain low (a scented hand cream from Ms. Kashuk’s collection is $6.99, for example), the look and smell of this type of line are closer to what you would expect to find at a department store counter, instead of a few aisles away from paper towels, detergent and cat food.
“The thing that’s cool about being at Target is that right away you know it’s somewhere in your realm of, ‘I’m going to be able to afford that,’ ” Ms. Kashuk said.
“Consumers are looking for more prestige appeal,” said Karen Grant, vice president and global beauty analyst at the NPD Group, a market research firm. “We’ve seen it also in makeup and skin care. The products themselves over all are becoming more prestige-esque, and it would make sense that this would carry over into fragrance. The consumer wants to engage and wants a more high-end experience.”
“Consumers are more sophisticated across the beauty categories,” said Jeff Falk, editor in chief of the trade magazines Global Cosmetic Industry (GCI) and Cosmetics & Toiletries. “Fragrance is an aspirational category, so while they might not want to spend the big dollars that a niche or boutique fragrance might cost, they still want and expect the same fragrance notes and sophistication.”
To try to reach those consumers, the new Target collection is being displayed on its own, often near Ms. Kashuk’s makeup line, away from other fragrances that are typically packaged in plastic clamshells or locked behind clear plastic cabinets. (The retailer also mounted a one-day pop-up store in Grand Central Terminal for its November introduction.) Bath & Body Works, with 1,636 stores in North America, revamped its Signature Collection of scented products last October with more upscale packaging; it has also increased what it spends on the scented ingredients in those items, while keeping their retail prices the same. In addition, the company introduced a somewhat higher priced scent, Forever Red, in 2012; a similarly priced companion fragrance, Forever Midnight, came out last November.
“Manufacturers are realizing that if they want to keep their consumers, they have to elevate the quality of what they’re offering,” said Ann Gottlieb, a fragrance consultant who has developed scents for Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs as well as for the mass brand Axe. “The companies I work with are realizing that better juice brings better sales.”
The new breed of affordable fragrances aren’t directly imitating luxury scents, as Parfum de Coeur’s Designer Imposters sprays do, boldly asserting their similarity to more expensive perfumes on the package. Nonetheless, some so-called masstige fragrances do bring to mind the genteel olfactive and aesthetic sensibilities of boutique lines like Jo Malone London and Miller Harris. “Of course, when you think prestige bath and body, I think the majority of people would think Jo Malone,” Ms. Kashuk said. “She really carved that niche in high-end bath and body. I try to do chic at a price.” Some may argue, incidentally, that Purple Seductia, one of Ms. Kashuk’s scents, has a whiff of that prestigious brand’s Pomegranate Noir.
To the surprise of some consumers, many mass brands are developed by the same handful of fragrance houses that create luxury scents sold for many times the price. Robertet Fragrances, which created the olfactive elements of Ms. Kashuk’s line, has also formulated fragrances for brands like Bottega Veneta and Chloé. Givaudan designed scents for Banana Republic, as well as for products like shampoo and body wash for Unilever, and iconic scents like Opium, Poison and Angel, too. International Flavors & Fragrances came up with the scent of Forever Midnight for Bath & Body Works and worked on perfumes for Prada, Estée Lauder and Lancôme; Firmenich has worked on fragrances for Marc Jacobs and Dolce & Gabbana as well as for Victoria’s Secret.
“It’s not like there are other fragrances houses to go to,” said Elizabeth Musmanno, president of the Fragrance Foundation, a trade organization. “Whether you’re working in mass or working in prestige, you still have to go to the same perfumers, and there’s only a handful of them. A perfumer that works on a high-level prestige fragrance can also work on a mass fragrance. It’s the same noses: you’re getting the same person and the same level of understanding of the world of fragrance.”
These partnerships aren’t exactly a secret. A September media event to introduce the celebrity scent Rogue by Rihanna was held in the Midtown Manhattan office of Givaudan, which created its scent. (Rogue is sold at department stores like Macy’s at a starting price of $18 for a 0.2-ounce roller ball.) Jérôme Epinette, the Robertet senior perfumer who worked on the Sonia Kashuk collection, attended its media preview a couple of months earlier, and Bath & Body Works mentioned the three noses at International Fragrance & Flavors behind Forever Midnight in the perfume’s publicity materials.
Although they also create expensive, top-tier scents, fragrance houses have gotten more comfortable acknowledging their less luxurious projects. “They’re proud of it now because of the volume behind it,” said Harry Slatkin, a consultant for Bath & Body Works and the founder of Slatkin & Company, a home fragrance line. “Everyone is always worried about just being prestige, but there’s nothing more prestige than having a company that does billions of dollars a year.”
The influence of niche perfume brands, which often focus on olfactive complexity, is helping make fragrances more dynamic across the board. “The Diptyques and Byredos are really the ones driving the market and creating differentiation,” said Jennifer Powderly, Robertet Fragrances’ vice president for marketing. “There’s a kind of trickle-down effect to other brands and that’s where we get a lot of our inspiration from.”
Ultimately, a more refined customer, even at the mass level, is more open to increasingly elevated fragrances. “You don’t have to talk down to your audience,” Mr. Slatkin said. “Once, maybe everyone thought they had to do it at a certain level because that customer was used to it, but now, everyone’s exposed to everything. The customer, no matter what level, has become so much more sophisticated, so it doesn’t matter where your customer is. It’s no longer a closed world to the sophistication.”
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