When Mona Kattan moved to Dubai in 2002, she quickly fell in love with the region’s centuries-long tradition of layering perfume oils. Over the decades, she amassed a collection of over 3,500 perfumes, often layering 20 at once and earning the title of “Perfume Princess” from her social media following.
But when she was developing her own fragrance brand Kayali, international investors and consultants didn’t get the concept.
“I was developing the concept, telling everyone, ‘It’s all about layering.’ Everybody thought I had three heads, and they were like, ‘You’re crazy. This is never going to take off,’” said Kattan.
She’s since proven them wrong. Kayali went on to become a top seller at Sephora, boosted by TikTokers applying its fragrances in countless combinations, taking early advantage of a trend now driving the fastest growing category in beauty. The latest data from Circana finds the fragrance category rising by 17 percent in mass and 6 percent in prestige for the first half of 2025, making it faster than all other categories at both price points. Layering has transformed perfumery, leading brands to launch layering kits and design fragrances to be paired rather than worn alone.
Ask any 20-something today what fragrance they’re wearing, and you’re likely to get an answer of not one, but a string of three to five different scents. Inspired by TikTokers’ wall-to-wall collections, their fragrance layering goes hand-in-hand with “wardrobing” — switching scents each day, and freely creating customised concoctions. This is occurring at all market segments, from tweens amassing rows of Sol de Janeiro to Gen-Z shoppers layering Phlur or Kayali to luxury collectors showing off their status-affirming collections of D.S. & Durga and Frédéric Malle.
While it certainly drives sales, the practice is costly for brands – perfumers feel the pressure to ramp up their product pipeline to meet the insatiable demand for newness.
Chriselle Lim, the creative director at Phlur, said layering has influenced the masstige fragrance label’s product development and marketing. The approach propelled the brand to a projected $150 million in sales, attracting an acquisition from TSG in July. “When we’re creating new scents, we think about how they might interact with existing ones in our wardrobe,” said Lim.
The End of the Signature Scent
For decades, fragrance brands centered their strategy on the “signature scent” – releasing one hero fragrance at a time and selling it through an iconic bottle and celebrity campaign, inviting customers to imagine themselves as the Chanel No. 5 woman or Miss Dior girl.
Young shoppers are “not necessarily looking for their signature scent anymore,” said Matthew Berkson, co-founder of fragrance label Maison Louis Marie, which has incorporated layering into its marketing. According to fragrance experts, this era of consumer loyalty to one perfume is slipping away. Boston Consulting Group found that 73 percent of Gen-Z and Millennial respondents regularly use three or more scents.
US-based perfumers and influencers first noticed layering within the past three years. These include Paul Fino, who has become a layering influencer with 2.3 million TikTok followers and a mainstream leader of the #PerfumeTok world driving fragrance hype. Gen-Z shoppers spend $204.15 per year on cologne and perfume, $38 above average, according to Circana.
“One day, we went from being only allowed to wear one perfume, to now, [where] people are wearing five and six and seven perfumes at a time,” said Fino, adding that seven is his “absolute max.”
According to a 2,000-person Unilever survey, 29 percent of Gen-Z respondents layer multiple scents, while 56 percent buy fragrances they see on social media without smelling them.
“It’s no longer about someone wanting to smell like an identity that’s been prescribed by a brand for them, and rather creating their own identity that is aligned with their style,” said Jeff Lindquist, a managing partner at Boston Consulting Group.
Brands Embrace Smellmaxxing
Beauty labels have quickly adapted their launch strategies to the layering trend, also dubbed #smellmaxxing on TikTok, emphasising volume and newness.
“Layering sets” have been hitting the market across price points, from masstige brands like Noyz to luxury labels like Louis Vuitton. In September, Jo Malone London launched its London Scent Layering Collection, unveiling a campaign with new global ambassador, UK actor India Amarteifio. Louis Vuitton’s The Pure Perfumes layering set was launched in 2024 as an homage to the Middle East’s layering tradition, which is gaining more recognition from Western brands after catching on globally.
Scents that aren’t meant to be worn alone are also entering more collections. Niche label D.S. & Durga offers its “I Don’t Know What Murder Mystery Layering Eau de Parfum Set” starring hero scent I Don’t Know What, a “fragrance enhancer” designed to be layered. Chanel unveiled its Coco Mademoiselle Fragrance Primer in July 2025 with orange, jasmine and patchouli.
Brands are also eager to offer layering guides to introduce consumers to the practice. While some fragrance aficionados support a layering free-for-all, experts argue there are guidelines when it comes to palatable combinations.
“There’s no rules to anything,” said David Seth Moltz, the co-founder and perfumer of D.S. & Durga. But “it takes a kind of certain technical know-how to do it the right way,” he added. “If you wanted to eat chocolate ice cream with pizza and ketchup, that’s your prerogative.”
But as shoppers stock up on fragrances, brands’ pipelines have to adjust to keep up. Many are releasing multiple scents per year, with launches often coming out in collections rather than a single fragrance — seen most recently with the debuts of of Balenciaga’s fragrance line and new brand Lore. The trend is also lending itself to expansion into new categories including hair perfume, deodorants, body sprays and perfume oils.
“Brand loyalty is much harder today,” said fragrance consultant Robert Sorce, a former president of Byredo. “That’s why brands launch so many new fragrances. They’re trying to keep their base of people happy for something new, so they don’t go to another brand.”
This calls for not only higher marketing spend, especially on influencers, but adjustments to allow for a faster launch pipeline. Many luxury fashion labels have moved toward collections of fragrances with uniform bottles to avoid slowdowns in production.
The idea of a unique bottle is a “mass thing” in Moltz’s view. Launches of unique fragrances where “this one’s a gold bar and this one’s a shoe — that’s just a totally different thing that’s not even on our radar.”
Long-Term Shifts
Fragrance layering is not without its detractors. Maison Francis Kurkdjian opposes layering, a representative said, noting that the brand’s founder – one of the world’s leading perfumers – designs each scent to stand alone.
Some influencers have retreated from the layering craze. Kudzi Chikumbu, who goes by Sir Candle Man on TikTok, said he used to layer scents until meeting with perfumers.
“There’s so much more joy in experiencing the purity of the creation of the artist,” he said. In June, he sparked debate with a video arguing that scent layering “has gone too far.”
As brands plot out their launch timelines, they must gauge whether layering in the US is a fleeting TikTok trend, a cultural shift that will span the stretch of centuries as it has in the Middle East, or something in between.
Individual launches of the traditional “signature scent” variety are still happening, mainly at the prestige level among licensed fashion names. And among those brands with wide permanent collections, breakout fragrances like Santal 33 or Baccarat Rouge 540 emerge, even if they’re added to shoppers’ vast collections.
Brands can discourage layering, but they can’t stop it. In a TikTok video viewed 2.4 million times, influencer Maddison Taylor combines Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s Gentle Fluidity and Sol de Janeiro’s Cheirosa 68 body spray. Young people are confident to make these combinations: according to BCG data, 60 percent of Gen-Z and Millennial respondents view themselves as fragrance “experts.”
Many fragrance founders believe that layering will become more popular, as its longevity in the Middle East indicates that it’s more than a short-lived trend.
“There’s no turning back,” said Kattan. “Once you start layering, you’re never going to stop layering, because you realize it makes your fragrances smell so much better.”
Sign up to The Business of Beauty newsletter, your complimentary, must-read source for the day’s most important beauty and wellness news and analysis.
