Beauty shoppers have never been more ravenous for foodlike fragrances.
Generally sweet and historically marketed to young women or adolescents, scents that feature edible notes like vanilla, chocolate or coconut are lately one of the most popular categories in the fragrance industry, where they’re known as “gourmands.”
But a new batch of scents, referred to by perfumers and retailers as “neo-gourmands,” are taking the concept into more sophisticated and offbeat territory. Some are built around unexpected notes, like sesame or sea salt, while others add woody, smoky or contrasting notes to produce new and unusual scent cocktails.
Neo-gourmands are “hitting everywhere, from a trickle-up, trickle-down perspective,” said Mary Testa-Gough, associate vice president of product and fragrance development at Bath and Body Works. The mall brand recently launched a new scent for the holidays called Perfect in Pink, with a signature note based on a fictional fruit — the Yum-Yum cherry — created with the Swiss flavour and fragrance corporation Givaudan and nosed by Louise Turner, whose portfolio also includes Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl.
Neo-gourmands are helping to drive the red-hot fragrance market, one of the fastest-growing segments in beauty this year with sales up 14 percent in the third quarter, according to data from Circana, driven in large part by a tilt toward the luxury market. In its most recent earnings report, Bath and Body Works upped its sales expectations for the fourth quarter of 2024, driven in part by holiday demand for its premiumised scents like Perfect in Pink.
The food-focussed fragrances also offer a way into a more mainstream category for niche brands like D.S. & Durga and By Kilian. Gourmand scents can be thought of as twee or unsophisticated, and for brands that market themselves to connoisseurs, a super-sweet, cherry-laden perfume might not fit the bill. On the other hand, an accord of red fruit, leather and salt just might.
Upmarket retailer Bluemercury has a dedicated assortment of neo-gourmands centred on “dark vanilla,” combined with leathers or ambers. Best-sellers include BDK Parfums Velvet Tonka ($230) and Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille ($300). While vanilla is far and away the most popular hook, Gatlin Chambers, a merchant assistant with the retailer, has also noticed marked interest in fruits, marshmallows and pistachios.
Future Nostalgia
The resurgence of gourmand fragrances relies on the earthly magic of nostalgia. Just as trends from the 1990s and 2000s like low-rise jeans and pochette It-bags have reappeared in fashion, similar ripples are moving through the beauty industry. Some of the most enduring gourmands, like Thierry Mugler’s Angel, a blend of fruit, chocolate and vanilla, were minted in that era.
For Rosie Johnston, a makeup artist turned perfumer, the current popularity of gourmands reminds her of the Los Angeles she moved to in the ‘90s. “Even though there was that grunge era, and the whole Nirvana movement, all of that, people were wearing vanilla essential oil,” Johnston said. “It was, like, a sweet kind of dirty.”
Johnston founded a clean fine-fragrance label, called By Rosie Jane, in 2012, and released a scent called Dulce in 2022. “I think we were all craving the same thing. We all went through Covid.” She wanted Dulce “to be reminiscent of a time that felt a little easier, a little more close and connected.”
The minimalist label Commodity’s best-seller is called Milk, but made with sesame oil. The result “gives a sense of familiarity without being precisely identifiable,” according to Vicken Arslanian, the founder and chief executive of Europarfums, the US-based fragrance portfolio that acquired Commodity in 2019. Arslanian added that the scent accounts for about 60 percent of the brand’s sales.
“You’re getting the clarity of the classic singular gourmand notes with the esoteric experimentation of the artistic fragrances,” Arslanian said.
Modern Makeover
Tapping into the trend doesn’t necessarily mean entirely new formulations. Legacy brands like Lancôme and Dolce & Gabbana have been reworking their hero scents with a neo-gourmand twist. Lancôme’s Idôle Nectar, introduced in 2022, features notes of vanilla, caramel and popcorn, while Dolce & Gabbana launched an intense version of its Devotion fragrance this year that opens with a hazelnut pop (and is based in vanilla). Mugler recently expanded its decades-old Angel line with Fantasm, which blends the original with dollops of creamy piña colada.
In September, Glossier released the first two extensions of its best-selling scent You, one made with musk and wood and the other with plum and buttercream. The latter, You Rêve, has polarised fans of the original scent. “The warm plum scent is lipsticky — almost plasticky — in a super cool, nostalgic way,” one Fragrantica user wrote. Another likened it to “cherry chapstick.”
“A lot of times we’re using these notes to create something addictive,” said Frank Voelkl, the perfumer at fragrance house DSM-Firmenich responsible for the new You. The term comes up constantly in describing neo-gourmands, which “still want to be sweet and addictive, but also want to be a bit more elevated,” Moda Operandi’s beauty director Jessica Matlin recently told Allure. They want customers coming back for repeat sniffs.
More experiments in foodie scents are coming down the pipeline. In January, Shiseido will officially unveil Le Sel d’Issey, Issey Miyake’s interpretation of a sea-salt fragrance, and the last one the Japanese designer worked on before his passing in 2022. The brand hopes to capture the hearts and noses of young male customers. Also in January, Parfums Christian will introduce Bois Talisman, a vanilla-forward scent inspired by sugar cubes and cedarwood that “invents its own expressive realm, of immediate and universal addiction,” wrote Francis Kurkdjian, Dior’s nose and “Creation Director.”
“I think these flavourful, tasty textures are probably a little bit what you call the ‘new gourmand.’” Voelkl added. “It’s more complex, it’s more faceted. It goes way beyond being just sweet.”
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Editor’s Note: This article was amended on Dec. 2. 2024, to correct Mary Testa-Gough’s title with Bath & Body Works, which is associate vice president of product and fragrance development, and clarify Francis Kurkdjian’s title with Parfums Christian Dior, which is Creation Director.
