Parfums de Marly has been having a strong spring. The French luxury perfume brand reported a 39% growth in sales for the 12 months ending on March 31 and opened a new boutique on Manhattan’s Madison Avenue in April. And according to a new report from market research company Mintoiro, Parfums de Marly was the top fragrance brand on Instagram for the month of May.
Mintoiro’s monthly report tracks the top fragrance brands on Instagram based on factors like follower growth and engagement. May’s report found Estée Lauder-owned Kilian took the No. 2 spot, South Korean brand Tamburins was at No. 3, French brand Pauline Rochas was at No. 4, and Dolce & Gabbana rounded out the top five.
“Having more of a focused, curated [strategy], releasing one or two fragrances at a time, tends to have a bigger impact in general,” said Mintoiro founder Jennifer Carlsson. “Fragrance is a very different category compared to skin care or hair care or makeup. A lot of it is quite expensive. And people that are buying $200 fragrances are probably pretty engaged and probably know a decent amount about fragrance.”
Dolce & Gabbana saw a noteworthy jump, rising 36 spots from the previous report to crack the top five. In May, the brand launched a new Light Blue campaign for its 25th anniversary starring model Vittoria Ceretti and “White Lotus” star Theo James.
South Korean brands had a breakthrough this year, Carlsson noted. In addition to Tamburins claiming the No. 3 spot for May, fellow Seoul-based brands Borntostandout, which received investment from L’Oréal at the beginning of 2025, came in at 37, and Nonfiction at 52.
Success on Instagram doesn’t always align with the brands making bank on TikTok Shop, however. According to e-commerce intelligence platform Charm.io, the top fragrance brands on TikTok Shop for the month of May, according to U.S. sales, included Middle Eastern brand Lattafa, with $4.9 million in revenue for the month; dupe brand Oakcha, with $1.4 million; and Sephora-favorite brand Phlur, with $1.2 million.
The more polished aesthetic dominant on Instagram does not always translate well to TikTok’s more DIY appeal.
“The biggest driver of success on TikTok is your creator strategy,” said Charm.io CEO Alex Nisenzon. “We’ve seen this dynamic where more established, traditional brands tend to do worse on TikTok, because they have this desire to maintain a lot of control around their brand image and the creators they’re working with. And that doesn’t really work.”
Many TikTok fragrance shoppers are turning to third-party sellers, Charm noted. Third-party sellers like American Seair Imports drive sales for Middle Eastern brands like Lattafa and Armaf, the latter of which had the fourth-highest U.S. sales for fragrance brands on TikTok for the month of May, with $1.2 million.
Phlur was the exception with its own TikTok Shop storefront driving its revenue on the platform. The brand, refounded by Chriselle Lim, is one of the few to crack both Instagram and TikTok success: Phlur rose 26 spots to become the No. 28 fragrance brand on Instagram in Mintoiro’s May report. The brand has kept pace with a steady flow of on-trend gourmand scents and body mists like Vanilla Nectar and Peach Skin throughout the spring with both tantalizing food-based imagery on Instagram, and a wide network of creator partners on TikTok. According to Charm.io, Phlur has worked with more than 3,800 creators this year to date.
“It’s really, really distributed. And that’s typically what we see across any successful brand on Tiktok Shop. It’s never a single video that’s going to be the biggest driver of sales,” Nisenzon said.
