Fragrance Trends for 2025

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I'm going to confess something that you probably already know: I am not a trendy person. I am never going to be the first person to try something new or jump on a bandwagon. Back when I was trying to be a food influencer--in those days pre-Instagram when blogging and writing skills were valued more than the ability to take a decent photograph or edit a reel, and certainly more than being "personalities" who are promoting themselves as much or more than any product or dining establishment--I attempted to visit new restaurants and try new food products as much as possible. But hey, I'm now a 59-year-old woman who is tired, frankly, of competing with all the newbies, the Instagrammers who have the nerve to call themselves "bloggers" when their captions are 20 words long, the ones who seem to promote the same handful of fragrance brands or products or restaurants. I am proudly set in my ways, happily and comfortably promote my favorite restaurants over and over again, and wear the same perfume brands I've been wearing for years, with few exceptions.

While I am never gonna race to my local Sephora to pick up a bottle of the latest overpriced, cloying, marshmallow-infused parfum, or pay $350 for a bottle of the latest woody amber concoction that everybody and their dog is raving over, I am somewhat curious about what the kids are wearing these days. Or what pundits predict they'll be wearing in the coming months. Let's take a look, shall we?

According to Cosmopolitan magazine, the trends for 2025 are "kinda weird," though I'm not seeing anything particularly wacky on their list. They predict folks will lean to the categories of cozy, nature-inspired--and no surprise here--gourmand. Also, branded frags from the usual celebs and cosmetic companies, but also fast food chains, will abound. Savory scents will be popular, as well as body sprays and what they're calling "scent maxxing," which includes layering same-scented creams and lotions over perfume, as well as the hideous fragrance bro propensity for olfactory torture known as "beast mode." 

Allure magazine agrees with Cosmo on the subject of savory scents. Interestingly, both mention Snif's Slice Society (which has a tomato-basil thing going on for all of 10 minutes before it becomes an obnoxious blackcurrant bomb). They also suggest that lactonic/milky fragrances will continue to be all the rage and will be jazzed up with coffee and tea notes. Fruity scents will be popular, particularly those featuring cherry and stone fruits, and that florals will have a comeback (though have they ever really gone away?) They also suggest that the mood-boosting scent category will continue to grow, slow-release fragrances will be a thing, and, happily, #beastmode will go away and be replaced by nuance. (HA! Call me skeptical.) They also believe that most brands will have a matching hair perfume for their scents, which I'm here for, as they tend to be far less-expensive than EDPs. 

New Beauty suggests there will be more demand for small-format packaging, as in travel sprays and discovery sets, that watermelon and matcha will be popular notes, and that gourmands will continue their reign of terror. There's another article on New Beauty that claims solid fragrance will be "one of the biggest fragrance trends for 2025." 

Who What Wear, in addition to the ubiquitous prediction of the continued popularity of fruity and gourmand scents, suggests fragrance layering will emerge as a trend for 2025. They also think more companies will produce hair fragrances. Another article on the site says we'll see more genderless scents, and musk, oud, and yuzu notes in the coming year.

Suzy and Nicola of the On the Scent Podcast feel that 2025 will bring us more coffee, matcha, milky, and rice notes.

So what do I think? 

1. Gourmands will continue their popularity.

People will continue to label sweet fragrances with lots of vanilla as "gourmand" scents, even if they don't smell of actual, recognizable, foodstuffs. There will be more caramel-, marshmallow-, and vanilla-based perfumes in tooth-aching quantities, many of which will be unrecognizable from their sugary predecessors. Mostly because of bandwagon whoreishness. That lack of originality will also lead to more milky fragrances from companies looking to create something to match the popularity of Bianco Latte, and even more cherry and pistachio scents. As for the true gourmand scents that will be released in 2025, I believe many will be informed by the fragrance of baked goods.

2. There will be more interesting vanilla fragrances, at least in the niche market.

Scents like Matiere Premiere Vanilla Powder and Electimuss Vanilla Edesia showed that vanilla-based perfumes needn't be saccharine. In addition to a preponderance of vanilla gourmands in 2025, there will also be a strong selection of "grown-up" vanilla fragrances. 

3. Perfumes with predominant coffee, oud, and amber notes will abound.

Yay for coffee!

4. Beast Mode will not only not go away, it will become more popular.

As more and more young men get into fragrance, I believe competition will arise between them as to who can count the most time between their fragrance announcing their arrival and the moment the individual actually steps into the room. Middle and high school corridors will become battlefields, and female students will have no other recourse except to retaliate with their own fragrant stink bombs weapons.

5. Packaging will demonstrate real extremes.

Not only will there be more minimalist packaging of fragrances, a la Obvious Parfums with their cello-free, recyclable cardboard boxes, but it will also go the other way, with rather ridiculous and decorative plastic and wood "keepsake boxes" (aka dust-collecting tchotchkes) and attached metallic ornaments, like the Tiziana Terenzi Sea Star collection (so expensive, yet somehow their bottle labels look junky). Of course this means that prices will go up for those products, as someone has to pay for manufacturing the excess.

What do you think? Will my predictions be close? Leave a comment with your thoughts on the subject of trends in the fragrance world for 2025.

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Posted by theminx on Minxstinks
Note: this post is my opinion. I am not affiliated with the companies mentioned in this post or any other companies.