Malin + Goetz planted the seeds early for the tomato trend in fragrance and beauty.
The skin-care and fragrance brand was one of the first to the vegetable scent craze with the launch of its Tomato candle in 2020, the same year brands like Loewe and Flamingo Estate also launched their own tomato candles. Since then, the vegetal scent has spread to the mass market in launches from the likes of Bath & Body Works and Mrs. Meyers.
But the widespread availability of tomato scents has not squashed consumers’ appetite for the note at the prestige and luxury end of the market. Sales of Malin + Goetz’s Tomato collection, which was expanded this summer to now range from an $18 hand lotion to the limited-edition $205 jumbo three-wick candle in collaboration with famed New York City restaurant Carbone, are up 52% year over year, according to the brand. Sales of the standard $68 9-ounce Tomato candle, available in both the original clear vessel and a limited-edition green glass vessel, are up 136% year over year.
That growth reflects a larger uptick in the brand’s home fragrance category, which includes candles and room sprays. According to Malin + Goetz, sales in the category rose 11.4% in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period a year earlier; overall retail sales rose 6% in that same period.
“Our home category is one of our most buoyant categories in the brand right now,” said Emily Coleman, who joined the brand as CEO from Chantecaille in 2025. “It’s partly [due to] the market; it’s partly people gathering more interest for being at home; it’s partly the response we’ve seen from our consumers. And so we’re also launching more products.’
Fragrance remains one of beauty’s hottest categories, with more and more brands getting in on the demand for everything from pricey fine fragrance to body splashes. But unlike more dedicated fragrance brands that may release a new fragrance a few times a year, Malin + Goetz, which also sells skin care, scented body care and hair care, has not launched a new scent since Strawberry. That scent debuted as an eau de parfum in 2021, followed by a candle in 2023.
Instead, the brand has generated excitement around its existing fragrances with new formats and collaborations. After the success of the Tomato candle, Malin + Goetz expanded the scent to room spray in 2024 and teamed up with Carbone in 2025 for a limited-edition three-wick candle. The brand expanded to a tomato hand soap and lotion in July and relaunched the Carbone collaboration with a new green vessel in August. It also teamed up with streetwear brand Brain Dead on a collaboration featuring its Leather scent in March.
“There’s this appetite for multi-format fragrance,” said Coleman. “[Consumers] want the hand soap, they want the lotion, they want the candle. Maybe they want a home spray, maybe they want a diffuser.”
Other fragrance brands have taken to new distribution channels to remain competitive in a saturated market. Byredo announced its expansion to Sephora in August, while Bath & Body Works has launched at both Amazon and Ulta this year. But while Malin + Goetz is available on Amazon, Coleman is unsure if the gender-neutral brand will work in the specialty beauty retail environment.
“Malin + Goetz was born in a primarily department store world. And you’ve seen the rise of Sephora, you’ve seen the rise of Ulta, you’ve seen the rise of Amazon, you have TikTok Shop. So the whole landscape is changing,” she said. “We want to go where our customers are shopping, and if you think about a lot of the traditional beauty retailers, they’re quite feminine-heavy. So for us, the biggest question is: How would we also be sure that we’re reaching a male consumer in a place where they’re already shopping and that feels appropriate?”
Despite Tomato’s popularity, Coleman said the brand’s best-selling scent remains its first: Dark Rum, launched as a candle as part of the brand’s debut collection in 2004. Since then, Malin + Goetz has divided its scents into two categories: “virtues,” which includes fresher scents like Bergamot and Tomato, and “vices,” which includes richer launches like Cannabis and Dark Rum.
Fruit and vegetable scents remain popular in the fragrance sphere; Google searches and social media posts for banana perfume are up 222.5% year over year, according to trend forecaster Spate. But after Tomato and Strawberry, Coleman said consumers are perhaps overdue for a more decadent fragrance.
“We do better on vices,” said Coleman. “If you see [new] stuff coming from us, it’s probably going to be not so much in the sort of vegetable fruit territory. I think we’re due for another big vice.”
