A decade into its lifetime, Boy Smells is entering a new era. On Friday, the Los Angeles-based fragrance brand launched a rebrand, calling its new look “Boy Smells 2.0.” Out are Boy Smells’ original perfume bottles of oversized black caps and pink and black labels, and in are bicolored vials in more conventional proportions. The brand has also reformulated existing scents like Cowboy Kush and Violet Ends to be more powerful and longer-lasting and launched new, on-trend gourmand scents like Coco Cream and Sugar Baby.
But despite hitting on trendy scents, the rebrand has led some consumers to express disappointment with what they feel is a watered-down version of Boy Smells’ original ethos. On X, Daisy Alioto, co-founder of cultural publication Dirt, called the Boy Smells rebranding “the Temufication of an already Targetified indie brand.”
Fragrance consumers are sensitive to any changes in their beloved perfumes, often decrying reformulations when an indie brand gets bought out by a large conglomerate. But many fragrance consumers have taken issue not just with Boy Smells’ new scents, but also with what appears to be a discarding of its roots.
“It goes beyond the scents and the packaging alone and the fact that they were this cool, queer-coded, genderless fragrance company that is now this, sort of, clean girl, very Gen Z, Gen Alpha-appealing brand,” said TikTok user @Michysmells, who prefers to go by her first name only, Michelle. On Friday, she posted a TikTok to her 3,000 followers critiquing the Boy Smells rebrand. “It seems like such a harsh turn that everybody feels a little blindsided by it.”
Michelle said past Boy Smells’ launches, like 2023’s Vanilla Era, hit a sweet spot with original scents accessible in both price point and distribution. The new Boy Smells scents Rosy Cheeks and Coco Cream, samples of which she received through the influencer platform Skeepers, lacked the point of view and quality she expected from the brand. The new bottles are both cheaper and smaller in size, with a rebranded version of Vanilla Era retailing for $78 for 50 milliliters at Sephora, compared to $98 for the original 65-milliliter bottle, which is still available at Bloomingdale’s as of publication.
“Boy Smells bridged that gap. They had this uniqueness that we’ve come to expect from niche brands, but they had it at a more accessible price point and accessible availability,” Michelle said. “Now that feeling is gone and people feel abandoned by them.”
Boy Smells said the rebrand has been a boon for slacking sales, however.
“We respect every individual’s right to express themselves, that’s a core value of our queer-owned and led brand. So we welcome the discourse, even if we’ve admittedly been surprised by the reaction. The brand struggled the last four years, so we hope that a community we’ve supported and who has supported us for the last decade would give us the chance to show them all sides of what we have in store, which will never stray from our queer DNA,” Boy Smells said in a statement issued to Glossy. Boy Smells told Glossy that it will bring back reformulated versions of its old scents, which are currently unavailable, in the near future.
“That said, we’ve had our best week of sales across all channels in four years, our products perform better, they last longer, they’re less expensive and still gay. We’ll be showing and not telling the next few weeks with our marketing roll out, we haven’t changed all that much!”
Boy Smells was originally launched as a candle brand in 2015 by Matthew Herman and David Kien. The Los Angeles-based brand expanded to fine fragrances in 2021 with a collection of “genderful” perfumes made by Robertet perfumer Jérôme Epinette, who has created scents for brands ranging from Byredo to Ariana Grande. As the brand profile has grown, Boy Smells has collaborated on scents with the likes of country sensation Kacey Musgraves and New York City institution Magnolia Bakery, and expanded to Sephora in 2022.
“As the world around us changes, brands need to change,” said Alice Clapp, strategy director at brand design agency Design Bridge and Partners. But fragrance’s emotional resonance means making even a small tweak is a high-stakes gamble. “Anytime a brand makes a change, there is a risk you will alienate somebody. But if it were in a category like toothpaste, let’s say, there’s much less emotional connection.”
Boy Smells’ new messaging suggests its rebrand is intended to reach a younger generation. New product descriptions make heavy use of internet buzzwords popularized by Gen Z like “clean girl,” “soft launching” and “being unbothered.” Gen Z represents a fast-growing fragrance demographic; April data from Nielsen IQ showed Gen Z is spending $204.15 per year on cologne and perfume, $38 more per year than the average buyer.
But obvious catering to Gen-Z slang can be detrimental to reaching that demographic.
“With Gen Z, they don’t want to be targeted. They want to be respected,” said Rebecca Demmellash, strategy director at branding and design agency Pearlfisher. “It just feels so overtly like they’re being targeted and marketed towards. Brands have to grow with Gen Z and invite room to see how they’re growing and changing, and respond accordingly.”
An aspect of the original Boy Smells that attracted many fans was its overt queer identity that played out in not just its “genderful” labeling, but also in its brand ambassadors and inspirations. In June 2024, Boy Smells launched Citrush, a candle and perfume duo inspired by poppers, a recreational drug popular in the gay community. Boy Smells’ 2024 holiday campaign featured stylist and internet sensation Cosmo Lombino, a.k.a the Queen of Melrose, and Levi Coralynn and William Conrad, the TikTok couple known for Conrad’s “stay-at-home boyfriend” status.
Those stand in contrast to the new, more heteronormative verbiage like the “hot girl walk approved” description for its Vanilla Era scent. “This does not seem like the same brand that would have a whole release based on poppers,” TikTok user Kaylablankz said in a video critiquing the rebrand. Recapturing those early fans may require assuring them that Boy Smells still stands by those original values, Clapp said.
“Clearly, they’ve gone to this much more edgeless, cutesy place. But do you still stand for gender inclusivity? Do you still stand for supporting LGBTQ rights? Do you still stand for those founding principles that built up your brand?” she said. “Or should I now believe that was all marketing talk to make you cool in that moment? And now maybe that moment is less palatable in the current climate.”
But a few loud voices on TikTok do not necessarily mean a rebranding is unsuccessful.
“You need to give it breathing space and time. People hate change for the most part; it’s very rare that people latch on to a rebrand and it immediately increases sales and perception,” said Justine Allan, executive director of strategic business development at Pearlfisher. “If you’re not seeing a sales uptick within one to three months, then you need to start to look and go, ‘Well, actually, have we made a mistake here?’”
