Whether it’s deodorant or perfume, scented candles or infusers – scent and fragrance sales have traditionally not found a huge market in China. However, in recent years, international brands have launched into China with gusto, and a number of successful Chinese brands have sprung onto the market with much fanfare. So why has smell suddenly become so important in China, and which brands are making the most of it? Tom Pattinson investigates
According to Huang Xuelei, author of ‘Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell’, China’s history of scent dates back to the incense culture that was a big part of the imperial court. However, it was in the 1930s that the first perfumes started appearing in China, when perfume manufacturers used natural and local smells. “They used local smells to keep costs down but also because of the familiarity between product and consumers. Physical exposure to a certain scent certainly attracts people to it. Today, traditional or indigenous Chinese smells are still very much relevant to the consumer trends,” she says.
Elisa Harca, CEO of China Marketing Agency Red Ant Asia, agrees that historically, China has had a long-standing preference for natural aromas such as incense, herbs and flowers rather than artificially created scents. “The use of perfumes and fragrances was not deeply ingrained in Chinese culture, which posed a challenge for the fragrance industry,” she says.
“However, China’s beauty standards have evolved, and there is a growing emphasis on personal grooming, fashion and self-expression. Fragrances are considered an integral part of one’s personal style and image, leading to increased demand for perfumes and colognes.”
Covid was a big turning point for the scent industry in the modern era. Harca explains that as people spent more time indoors, they were looking to “enhance their living spaces and create a soothing atmosphere.”
“Home fragrance products not only offer pleasant scents but also contribute to a therapeutic environment, aligning with the concept of the ‘healing economy’,” she explains.
Huang agrees that Covid was an important trigger, not only as a way to enhance the home but also to find a new form of self-identity. “China had a very, very strict lockdown [during Covid], and people felt a need to find connectivity. Subconsciously, they regarded smell as a way to connect,” she says. “But at the more conscious level, people found lockdown boring, and self-care and home care become a higher priority for them. The joke was that as people were wearing masks, they didn’t need to wear lipstick, so instead they started to wear perfume instead,” she says.
However, Huang argues that much of the surge is related to the confidence of the modern Chinese consumer. “They are more confident in terms of finding diversity and finding their own identity, and scents and perfumes are related to that trend,” she says.
“Some people wear Chanel No. 5 or those iconic brands for status – and they are still selling very well – but it is definitely a younger generation of consumers who want to have their own identity who are developing consumer trends, tastes and preferences,” says Huang.
Since the Covid boom, Western brands have been aggressively pushing their products into the Chinese marketplace. How much of that is demand for the product from consumers, versus brands trying to build a new perfume marketplace in China?
Fragrance distributor Julie Shah argues that although the rising middle class allows for more consumers, it is the brands that are leading the growth of the sector rather than consumer demand. “A RMB 1,400 perfume is still very expensive for the majority of the Mainland customers,” she says. “And fragrance is still not worn on a daily basis; it’s not deeply entrenched in the culture as it is in the Middle East for example. Time will tell if fragrance becomes a part of day-to-day life.”
One of the international brands that has recently launched in China is the heritage British fragrance brand Creed. Creed entered the Chinese market in 2021 via TMall during the intermittent Covid lockdowns before opening 14 physical stores the same year. Working with Harca’s Red Ant agency, they have had a number of successful collaborations and launches, including releasing the ‘scented art toy’ which, says House of Creed’s CMO, Giles Gordon, “will live physically in our stores across the world, in 3D video assets across our owned and earned media, and virtually in the metaverse with China’s leading virtual KOL, Ayayi.”
A Creed store in Wuxi, Jiangsu (Photo: Creed/Xiaohongshu)
Creed’s success, according to Harca, is due to the fact it has a high-quality product with a genuine story. “They are steeped in quality, history and craftsmanship, and have a reputation for excellence. Hence, their basis is solid. Pre-market entry, they had global success, and this translated into appeal to the Chinese consumers as many top Asian celebrities were known to be fans,” she says.
Embracing local culture is something that not all international brands have done successfully, especially in an era of patriotic purchasing (aka guochao). This has created space for a number of domestic brands to launch – some of which are really giving international brands a run for their money. To Summer and Melt Season are two of the better-known Chinese brands to leap into the growing market.
“These brands have great narratives about their products,” says Huang. “At the To Summer store, they have a story around each product. A few lines of poetry, and then it also gives you fragrance notes. The notes don’t just say ‘lemon, apple’ and so on, they describe it as ‘the morning sunshine shining through the skin’ or something similar. I think this kind of narrative is very important for consumers,” she adds. Huang also says that the detail in the packaging and bottles and the in-store experience are all part of the brand’s identity.
One of the most successful Chinese fragrance brands is Melt Season. Launched in 2021, Melt Season has since announced a minority equity investment from Estee Lauder Companies (in December 2023) and is now one of the most recognised domestic scent brands in China.
Lishi Ni, the CEO of Melt Season, tells FOCUS that the company has plans for a number of new store openings this year. “The emphasis of Melt Season is on brand expression depth: beyond the surface of Asian culture, supporting the inheritance of Chinese intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship, local culture, cooperation with artists, and exploring activities and collaborations in various art forms to convey an ‘Oriental charm’,” she says.
Ni says that with the initial launch of many fragrance brands in recent years, the market has changed from price wars to “healthy competition” and that brands work collaboratively on fragrance industry exhibitions and awards “to jointly promote the overall progress and growth of the industry.”
Shah agrees that domestic Chinese brands are creating designs that are more curated for the domestic market, as well as scents that have a stronger memory base for local consumers. “Right now, purchasing decisions depend on price and scent quality,” she says.
According to Melt Season’s Ni, Chinese perfume brands are more restrained in brand narrative and fragrance expression. “Chinese perfume brands prefer to use Chinese local raw materials when creating, and the creative inspiration and naming of products are drawn from Eastern culture, which brings more imagination and interpretation space to everyone,” she says.
Roaming Wind is a Melt Season perfume inspired by wild grassland landscapes (Photo: @MELTSEASON_OFFICIAL/Weibo)
Harca agrees that there is a big difference between Chinese consumers and, say, British fragrance consumers. “Chinese and British cultures have different olfactory traditions and associations. In China, there is a deep-rooted appreciation for natural scents such as incense, herbs, and flowers, which have long been used in traditional Chinese medicine and cultural practices. British consumers, on the other hand, have a long history of using perfumes and fragrances as part of their grooming and personal care routines.”
Local scents, says Huang, are very important when selling to a Chinese audience. For example, “Japanese yuzu is very popular now, not only in the perfume sector, but also in the culinary industry too. Chinese traditional floral fragrances… like osmanthus, magnolia and gardenia, are also very high on the list. And these can increasingly be seen being used in flavoured coffees in China,” she says.
China has become the litmus test for whether brands have what it takes to cut through in the crowded fragrance market
The ingredients used differ between audiences, but also, according to Ni, Chinese consumers are more confident in supporting local Chinese brands as they have gradually become disenchanted with international perfume brands. “There is a high willingness to pay for cultural values and high-quality products delivered by local brands,” says Ni. “At the same time, the aesthetic and demand of Chinese consumers are also constantly improving, and they have higher and higher requirements for products and brands, which is tantamount to continuously improving the entry threshold and competitiveness of Chinese perfume brands,” she adds.
Melt Season recently partnered with the Cannes Film Festival in a bid to grow its international brand, so how likely is it that we will see Chinese fragrance brands on the shelves of UK shops? According to Shah, it is still quite early for these new domestic brands to crack the international market. “The quality needs to improve before becoming global, but I think it’s only a question of time before some of these brands expand outside,” says Shah.
But Harca argues that we are only just at the start of this journey. “There is still a strong appetite from Chinese consumers for new, interesting, niche, luxury fragrance brands. The market is, of course, increasingly competitive, but this just means the stronger brands will prevail. The weaker ones with no clear DNA should probably look at other, less developed markets. China has become the litmus test to see whether brands have what it takes to cut through,” she adds.
