In the Air

For personal care, candles and other home fragrance products, scent is as vital a sales driver as color. We talked with two experts in the field to find out what's in the fragrance forecast for 2007.

In women's fine fragrances, Pierre-Constantin Gueros, perfumer for Drom, New York, sees a recurrence of rose. Unlike old-fashioned rose mixed with violets or powdery notes, Gueros envisions a fresher, more modern take paired with nutmeg, pepper, dry woods or amber. Woods are also popular in strong, dark perfumes for evening.

Trees are contributing to the scent mix in more ways than one. “We see more and more real fruit cocktails, and not only for a young audience,” Gueros says. Since red fruits and peaches have already been done, what's hot now is “tropical fruits — guava and mango.”

Simplicity is also in style. “It's the trend to go back to more simple and clear accords, not complicated fragrances,” Gueros says, citing cotton and cut grass as examples.

For men, aquatic and marine notes are “over,” says Gueros, while green notes are “strong.” While men's scents are more conservative than women's, fruity top notes are becoming accepted as masculine aromas. “Classical fruits such as apple and pear,” notes Gueros, “But more noticeable than in the past.”

In home fragrance, Gueros sees “less very figurative fruits or herbs, more the mood or atmosphere story.” Candles named for places in the world or times of the year epitomize this trend. Gueros also cited the continuing influence of aromatherapy: besides smelling good, products should offer added value, whether curative or mood-changing.

Perhaps most interesting, Gueros says that personal care scents are no longer “trickling down” from fine fragrance. Whereas once he saw 90 percent of the business that way, Gueros now sees ingredients as the driver of personal care scents: manufacturers chase new ingredients to differentiate themselves, then need scents to support those ingredients.

“So now you see more based on new, exotic ingredients that are a bit different. Edible notes as well as fruity — soy, rice and cocoa,” says Gueros. He added that men's personal care scents are becoming more differentiated from women's, due in part to the proliferation of men's-only lines.

Ingrid Liss, vice president of design and innovation for Colonial Candle/Midwest, Cannon Falls, MN, also shared her sense of where home fragrances are headed.

Liss tied fragrance trends to broader market influences, including an ongoing focus on “comfort and connection, family, warmth and nostalgia.” These come in the form of scents that remind customers of home. Liss says baked bread, lemon cream pie, cotton sheets, and other soft, smooth fragrances, often with overtones of vanilla, will continue to be strong.

Liss agrees with Gueros that simplicity is in. “Easy to understand, very simple — fragrances that take you right there,” she says, though offering the caveat that the counter-trend toward more complex mixtures exists too.

Liss also cited health and wellness, including spa trends, as well as food industry buzzwords such as organic ingredients as strong trends. She says, “The single biggest influence is an artful approach to eating, as connected to health.”

But where Gueros saw water as “over” for men, Liss cited scents like rainwater, sea glass and ocean waves as hot for home — in part because they convey a feeling of well-being. Lending support to the “atmosphere story” approach, Liss explains abstract names such as “sea glass”: they “paint a picture of where you'd encounter this scent.”

Other wider market trends Liss sees influencing scent include indulgence and luxury. Extreme adventure and exotic places show up in papaya, mango and orchids, and woods such as teak and firewood are popular for the home too. Exotics also combine with spirituality in a trend towards incense — heady, spicy scents “concocted to evoke someplace in Thailand,” says Liss.

Last but not least is fusion: creating contrast through unexpected combinations such as blackberry mint. “People love this,” says Liss. “They respond to jagged combinations because the element of surprise really grabs attention.”