Selecting the ideal women’s perfume can be a difficult task. You can easily feel lost in a sea of fragrances when so many options are available. Furthermore, new trends in perfumery update every year, and the industry is consistently changing.
This is where you need to know what fragrances and best perfumes for women trends are in and not.
It takes more than just fashion sense to understand these trends. It’s all about selecting a perfume that appeals to you and fits well with your style of living and personality. It all comes down to feeling confident in the decisions you make after doing your research.
Thus, this guide is essential for everyone interested in women’s perfume trends or who wants to learn more about not-to-follow trends.
Evolution Of Women’s Fragrances Over The Years
Perfumery as we know it today holds a rich heritage that dates back to the earliest civilizations such as Egypt and Persia. They used fragrance for hygienic purposes, for religious rituals, and as a symbol of high class. The 20th century saw a period of transformation in which the association with fashion houses and celebrities changed the nature of perfumery forever.
Chanel no 5, for instance, created over 100 years ago, is known for being fresh, sophisticated, and contemporary. Timeless perfumes you might recognize today include Gucci Bloom, Heretic Dirty Vanilla, Miss Dior, Chance from Chanel, Baccarat Rouge 540 by Maison Francis Kurkdjian, Santal 33 by Le Labo, and Black Opium by YSL Beauty.
The evolution bears witness to the fact that perfumes speak of the alternating norms and fashions responding to the general context and, at the very least, to personal tastes.
While classic perfumes aren’t going anywhere, we can expect exciting new trends to flavor the future of perfumery ahead.
New Trends in Women’s Fragrance
Unhinged and Unexpected
The “Unhinged and Unexpected” trend is exactly what it sounds like – it’s all about unusual and unexpected scent notes. We’re talking about everything from the smell of Play-Doh to buttery croissants, the nostalgic scent of lipstick, and the earthy smell of hemp leaves.
The aim is to create fragrances that are not simply nice but encourage these memories, emotions, or experiences. A scent could take you to a cozy little bakery on a Sunday morning or bring back memories of play and creativity.
This trend really speaks to the ever-changing world of perfumery. What was once unconventional is quickly becoming standard, and what was once a tradition is giving way to the new. It’s about embracing the unexpected and seeing the beauty in the unusual.
Functional & Mood-Boosting Fragrances:
This trend involves perfumes more than just what they smell. A growing number of women’s fragrances are now being created with the mood (and not just the odor) they evoke in mind. The jury is still out on the science behind it, but they’re definitely a thing right now. These scents often include notes that make us happy or relaxed, like citrus fruits or specific floral and herbal notes. They can also be included in or used alongside practices such as aromatherapy to heighten their mood-boosting effects.
Mists & Sprays:
This trend began in 2013 and is still strong. Mists and sprays are lighter and less highly concentrated than traditional scents, which means they’re perfect for everyday wear. They often include ingredients other than fragrance oils (if any), such as hydration, making them multi-function products. Even luxury brands like Tom Ford are now releasing them.
Patchouli:
Patchouli, a classic scent from the 60s, is returning. The earthy, musky scent rose to popularity among the peace and love generation of the 1960s and 1970s. But now, it’s being reinvented in new and creative ways. Modern perfumers include it in complex scent profiles, often combined with other notes to create a rich, multi-dimensional fragrance.
Unexpected Gourmand Scents:
This scent trend is about giving gourmand scents a new look. Traditionally, gourmands are sweet and dessert-like. However, the new trend is towards unique and more complex interpretations of the category.
Picture fragrance that smells like fresh bread, salted caramel, or even roasted coffee beans – they’re still more delicious and tempting, but in a less sweet, more striking and elegant sense.
Wellness-Focused Fragrances:
While most fragrance trends are about what’s new, one 2017 scent trend is about what’s good for you. Wellness-focused fragrances are formulated to have a positive impact on your emotional well-being. They frequently contain notes traditionally associated with relaxation and stress relief, like lavender, chamomile, and sandalwood. A few are even meant to aid meditation or yoga, adding an olfactory layer to these healthful practices and taking them to the next level.
This scent trend reflects a growing holistic approach to health and wellness, and the idea that fragrance might play a role in promoting mental and emotional well-being could be the next big thing.
What’s Not Trending in Women’s Fragrances
Here are the non-trending aspects changing women’s fragrances:
Overpowering Scents:
As strong, personal scents become more of a sought-after story, perfumes and colognes that smell up or fill a room become less fashionable. As people increasingly want their fragrances to be an extension of their personality rather than make as much noise, this side of the trend is growing. The emphasis on less strong and loud scents is also driven by the fact that more and more people are getting fragrance allergies or sensitivities. That is making more people avoid fragrances of the room-clearing variety.
Single Note Perfumes:
With complex and unexpected scents becoming more of what fragrances can offer, the story of more simple and single-note perfumes is less in style. As the name implies, these single-note perfumes are dominated by one scent note, such as rose or vanilla. While these kinds of scents can be very nice, consumers increasingly want their fragrance purchase to give them more of a complex and layered scent experience than this.
Synthetic Fragrances:
As more and more women enter the market for natural and organic beauty products, perfumes and cologne made from synthetic scents are becoming less popular. Part of this trend is driven by greater and greater consumer awareness of the potential health problems regular exposure can cause. And part of the story here is that more people want a beauty product than a fragrance made with more natural and environmentally friendly ingredients.
Non-Functional Fragrances:
As fragrances that boost mood and provide health benefits become more of the story, regular non-functional fragrances that only deal with smell are less in the new trends. When it comes to buying these items, today’s consumers are mostly looking for fragrances and beauty products that do more than one thing. For example, fragrances that are said to relieve stress.
Generic Floral Scents:
While people still want floral notes, what went out of style some time back are generic floral scents. More of the moments are more unique and less expected floral combinations, which play into the searcher’s search for the unique and individual in perfume and cologne.
Conclusion
When it comes to women’s fragrances, the only thing that stays the same is change. The trends we talked about above are proof of that. We haven’t looked into the future perfume trends yet, but we think that individuality, health, and environment will be important to everyone. We can’t wait for more surprising scents, less brain-straining, and, of course, new ingredients, especially those that come from nature. Keep an eye on this space, and until then, have fun scent-sploring