When Europerfumes founder Vicken Arslanian purchased the shuttered fragrance brand Commodity in 2019, he didnât have much of a plan on how to revive the cult line. But he did know one factor was key to unlock the brandâs future: get back on the shelves of Sephora.
âSephora doesnât leave success for chance,â he said. âTheyâre working with a brand on a consistent basis, to talk about activation, to talk about in-store visual merchandising, to talk about sampling, all of the above.â
After a brand refresh, which included a logo update and new scent profiles, Commodity made its Sephora comeback in 2022. Like countless other retailers, including department stores and discount shops, Sephora stocks fragrance scents from giants like Dior and Tom Ford, but the inclusion of Commodity â with its accessible price point, limited availability and scents that straddle the boundary between niche and mainstream â exemplifies much of what has made Sephoraâs fragrance offering distinct today.
âThey understood, before a lot of the competitors, that niche is going to be the mainstream of tomorrow,â said Romano Ricci, founder of Juliette Has a Gun, which has been sold at Sephora since 2016. Juliette Has a Gun was part of an early wave of fragrance brands to debut in Sephora like Kayali in 2018, Boy Smells and Phlur in 2022, and Nette in 2023.
âWhat the client has told us over time is they love to discover things with us,â said Alison Hahn, senior vice president of makeup and fragrance merchandising at Sephora. âWhat we started to do was take our knowledge and our passion about incubating brands into the fragrance world.â
Getting onto Sephoraâs shelves means playing by Sephoraâs rules, however.
âThey are probably the most demanding client that we have in terms of timing,â Ricci added. Joining Sephora means not only having the inventory to match its sizable audience, he noted, but also the resources to participate in its robust sampling program and deliver assets months ahead of schedule.
âYour marketing team needs to have a foundation, you need to ensure that you can support the growth, with that obviously comes inventory, with inventory comes upfront investments,â said Dedcool founder Carina Chaz, who launched at Sephora in 2022. âSome brands canât make it because they donât have infrastructure.â
For brands that can meet those demands, the payoff can be immense. Ricci estimates that Juliette Has a Gun distributes roughly 1.7 million samples through Sephora each year. According to Arslanian, Sephora â the exclusive retailer for Commodity outside of its own ecommerce platform â accounts for around 65 percent of the brandâs $10 million in annual sales. Chaz says Sephora now drives 40 percent of overall sales for the laundry and fine fragrance line.
But the rest of the beauty world is catching onto indie fragranceâs mainstream appeal; last year, Ulta Beauty brought on DTC fragrance line Snif, and in April expanded the brand to all 1,385 of its stores across the US. Later this month, the retailer will welcome Noyz, the unisex, vegan fragrance line developed by beauty incubator Beach House Group and perfumer Jérôme Epinette. According to Ultaâs earning report for the first quarter of 2024, fragrance comprised 10 percent of the retailerâs $2.7 billion in net sales.
Sephora in turn is setting its sights on more fragrances outside the youthful, under-$100 scents that make up much of its offering. This fall, the retailer will welcome Montale, betting that its audience is willing to spend $180 on the French niche brandâs powerful oud and floral scents.
âWhen you talk about the Neimans and Saks of the world, they have to experiment with how low they can go [in price],â said Arslanian, whose company Europerfumes is the US distributor for Montale and Juliette Has a Gun. âWith Sephora, how high is high?â
Indie Incubation
When Mona Kattan launched Kayali with Sephora in November 2018, she recalls fragrance was âa dead categoryâ compared to the likes of skincare or color cosmetics. She had faith in the sectorâs eventual growth, but her line of Middle Eastern-inspired perfumes was not an instant hit among North American consumers.
â[Sephora] told us, âLetâs make a fruity floral together.â Because fruity florals do really well in the North American market, and itâs not my typical type of fragrance that I create,â Kattan said. The resulting fragrance, Eden Juicy Apple, launched in December 2021 and is now one of the brandâs top four scents in North America. The following year Kayali was given shelf space at Sephora on a trial run, precious real estate among newer brands. Currently, the line is negotiating for more space.
While Sephora is drawn to founders with a strong point of view like Kattan, the retailer also takes an active role in its brandsâ success, offering advice on how to spend marketing dollars, how to price fragrances and guidance on the naming and commercial viability of a given fragrance.
By cultivating those rising indie brands, Sephora has in turn benefitted from their ability to quickly catapult on trends, like the minimal skin scents of Phlurâs Missing Person or sweet gourmands like Kayaliâs viral hit Yum Pistachio Gelato.
âThey are agile, they can pivot, they can really identify the trends,â said Lisa Payne, head of beauty at trend forecaster Stylus, of emerging lines. âThey donât have all of that red tape thatâs holding traditional or big or heritage brands back.â
Sniffing Out the Future
Identifying trends goes beyond banking on just scent families. In 2023, Sephora launched candle brand Netteâs debut fine fragrance line, which claims to improve mindfulness and well-being; earlier this year, the retailer welcomed Charlotte Tilburyâs âmood-boostingâ fragrance line. Ulta Beauty, too, is on this trend, launching Bella Hadidâs Orebella in May.
And the timing couldnât be better: according to research from Stylus, 71 percent of fragrance consumers are looking for a scent that lifts their mood; 50 percent are interested in fragrances that they link to physical or wellness benefits.
But there is one growing sector of perfume Sephora has all but sidestepped: celebrity fragrances. While some recent celebrity launches from the likes of Harry Styles and Victoria Beckham have gone for high-end retailers like Dover Street Parfums Market and Bergdorf Goodman, many celebrity perfumes, from Hadidâs Orebella to Kylie Jennerâs debut fragrance, are camped out at Sephoraâs main competitor, Ulta Beauty.
For Payne, steering clear of the celebrity category is wise for Sephora, even if it leaves potential money on the table. âIf they were to open the floodgates and let through lots of different designer [scents], very ultra mainstream fragrances and lots of celebrity fragrances, then independent fragrance brands might not necessarily want [their] products aligned.â
And Payne adds that fragrance prices are upwards into the luxury sphere versus affordable celebrity scents, even amongst younger consumers.
Ricci, who is also co-owner of Parisian niche perfume retailer Nose, is skeptical however that Sephora can speak to that top echelon of the market. In 2018, Sephora brought on Estée Lauder-owned Kilian, whose $300 perfumes remain something of an outlier in its fragrance offerings. âI donât think that Sephora is really optimized for that. I think today with Juliette, we are almost below the mainstream price, so itâs a good fit,â said Ricci.
Time â and sales â will tell if the fragrance consumer is willing to go to Sephora rather than Bergdorf for high-end scents, like Montale.
âThe audience will dictate this,â said Payne. âSephora is going to host the brands that it knows its audience likes. And predominantly, itâs going to choose the products that have a little bit more commercial value.â