What once would have been unthinkable—choosing a perfume without trying it—has now become a frequent purchasing behavior, driven by emotional connection rather than physical sampling. “This goes against everything” Interparfums has done for the past four decades, [Jean] Madar continued, yet it shows how central storytelling has become in beauty—and how willing consumers are to buy if they feel aligned with a brand’s narrative.
— Read more in Interparfums Bets on M&A, New Licenses as It Braces for a Slower 2026 at BeautyMatter.
This doesn’t surprise me: there’s such an uncontrollable proliferation of fragrances that it’s completely impossible to try everything that might interest you or make an intelligent choice.
Over on the Reddit fragrance subs there’s a never-ending stream of posters asking for help finding a scent that fits a certain set of criteria — sweet but not too sweet, vanilla but grown-up, not too flowery, this but definitely not that. A lot of these people will buy whatever gets the most mentions or is argued for most convincingly. There is an astonishing amount of misinformation, and some of the responses are likely to be bots, but that’s the world we live in.
Probably doesn’t surprise much of anyone at this point…certainly nobody here 🙂