The fragrance boom has immense momentum heading into 2025. According to a December 2024 report from NielsenIQ, "Fragrance's Growth in 2024," U.S. fragrance sales for the 52 weeks ending August 10, 2024 totaled $8.8 billion, up 22.1% year-over-year.
In that period, brick and mortar sales grew 22.6%, compared to 21.6% for online sales.
Units were also up, jumping 11.8% for the period covered by NielsenIQ's report. While brick and mortar units were up 8.9%, online units spiked an impressive 18.8%.
Taken together, NielsenIQ notes 2024 trended "above historical sales levels."
The data reflects earlier data from Circana, which reported that prestige fragrance sales boomed 14% in 2024 through September, with units jumping 12%.
Top-performing Fragrance Categories
Colognes and perfumes comprised 78% of sales for the period analyzed by NielsenIQ data, compared to 20% for body sprays and 2% for gift sets. The firm reports that body sprays benefited from shoppers making more fragrance shopping trips and spending more on each visit.
- In November, Circana reported that #PerfumeTok has played a large role in fueling body spray demand due to their relatively low prices.
- A focus on value has also boosted sales of minis. NielsenIQ reports online searches for mini size fragrances jumped 27% in the 52 weeks ending August 2024, while searches for travel size scents were up 5%. Circana previously noted that women's scents smaller than 1 oz grew 4x the rate of other sizes based on units sold in the first nine months of 2024.
- Value also drove sales of higher priced luxury fragrances and those with stronger concentrations. Notably, luxury brand sales jumped 15% year-over-year for the first nine months of 2024.
Consumers' Fragrance Preferences
According to NielsenIQ, Gen Alpha is driving online fragrance searches, with "for children" queries up 40% year-over-year. Launches have reflected this engagement in the market, notably from brands like Claire's.
Shoppers are also seeking gentle, safe formulations, generating high gains for queries focused on "clean," "hypoallergenic" and "alcohol-free" scents.
Finally, top-trending notes include cucumber, watermelon and florals.
