When Adelaide-based web designer Alex Edwards found himself with more disposable income, he wanted to treat himself to a more luxurious purchase. Fragrance seemed like the perfect answer. After purchasing a bottle of Valentino Uomo in 2015, Edwards discovered fragrance YouTube, sending him down a rabbit hole of niche and designer scents. By 2024, his collection had grown to more than 100 bottles. In January, Edwards posted his own video to YouTube detailing what he called his “fragrance addiction” and offering advice on how to resist giving into hyped up fragrance and impulsive shopping.
“YouTube is what got me into fragrance. And it’s also what got me to realize that I need to start getting out of it,” he said.
Edwards is far from unusual in having such a vast fragrance collection. Floor-to-ceiling shelving of perfume bottles serve as a common background for beauty and fragrance influencers, and brands are quick to seed samples to emerging influencers in the hopes of reaching a growing consumer base. Those influencers have helped spur massive growth in the fragrance sector. Market analyst Circana found prestige fragrance sales increased 14% in 2024, while luxury fragrance grew 15%. McKinsey estimates that fragrance sales will see a compound growth rate of 7% between 2023 and 2028.
But for some consumers and content creators, the excitement of discovering new perfume has devolved into burdensome collections and skepticism over social media’s tendencies to promote overconsumption.
“You’ve got the brands who are taking advantage of the customers by leveraging these creators, and then you’ve got these creators who are taking advantage of the brands being on every single trend,” said Edwads. “It’s just this constant cycle.”
In line with beauty trends like “project pan” and “deinfluencing,” fragrance fans are looking for ways to downsize their collections. Perfume declutter videos are a genre unto itself on YouTube and PerfumeTok, Swiss perfume influencer Josephine Fel culled more than 600 bottles from her collection in a November video, and TikToker PL Smells named curating his perfume collection and stopping “blind buying” — the practice of buying a full bottle of perfume without smelling it — among his 2025 fragrance resolutions.
While perfume is far from the only category that social media has propelled to massive growth, its status as an attainable form of luxury has made it an easy sell for budding influencers.
“[Influencers are] pushing and selling a lifestyle, with fragrance being an entry point into that lifestyle. So they can’t afford the Ferrari yet, but they can afford the Xerjoff, or they can afford the Parfums de Marly,” said Sam Wonder, a London-based perfume content creator.
Wonder began her YouTube channel My World of Fragrance in 2019 after more than a decade of perfume collecting. She has since seen the fragrance boom propel many creators to acquire massive collections and equally massive audiences. In an effort to keep her channel authentic, Wonder said she discourages practices like blind buying and also turns down many PR samples or asks for testers in lieu of full bottles. Her audience size has remained modest, with 24,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel and 7,000 followers on Instagram.
“I’m commercially a failure,” said Wonder, who maintains her job in marketing outside of her social channels and said she has no plans to make content creation her full-time income. “I’m never going to become one of those mega influencers. But what’s nice is that I’m building a community that’s very connected and is growing over time. After the boom is over, I’m still going to be here, because people have connected with me for a different reason than a hashtag that’s currently trending.”
Fans are also turning to each other to downsize or curate their collections. Organizations like Los Angeles’s Institute for Art and Olfaction and Perfume Lovers London host in-person fragrance swaps where perfume lovers can exchange bottles, while digital connoisseurs have turned to secondhand sites like Mercari and Ebay or fragrance forums like Parfumo to buy and sell used bottles.
“[Fragrance] is such a fun thing to get obsessed over,” said New York-based photographer Elizabeth Renstrom. Renstrom’s fragrance knowledge and collection grew as she developed her photography project Basenote Bitch, which chronicles nostalgia through fragrance. “It’s whipped up into a perfect storm. If you weren’t a collector, I think it is really easy to become one fast.”
In July, Renstrom and a handful of fragrance insiders like Highsnobiety beauty editor Alexandra Pauly hosted a fragrance swap at the Lower East Side jewelry store Susan Alexandra. For a $10 ticket, attendees could bring up to two lightly-used bottles to swap. The 50 spots quickly sold out, bringing those eager to exchange scents but also fans looking to connect with fellow fragheads.
“A majority of people were just super fragrance enthusiasts, so it was exciting for them to be among their people,” Renstrom said.
Decluttering and responsibly buying perfume comes with its own challenges. Fragrance fans outside of major cities have less immediate access to in-person swaps and stores to sample perfumes before buying. Depop and Poshmark, popular for secondhand clothing, prohibit the sale of used perfume. Sites like Ebay and Mercari can be a goldmine for lightly used and discontinued scents, but shoppers need a degree of intuition to spot counterfeits. Even giveaways can fall prey to overzealous shoppers. In a January video, perfume YouTuber Josephine Fel detailed how two attendees purchased half the available tickets to her December London perfume giveaway, leaving many fans disappointed at the lack of selection.
For others, the idea of simply giving away or selling perfumes purchased for full price can be a deterrent to downsizing.
“It’s the sunk cost fallacy,” said Edwards of the hurdles to culling a perfume collection. “I’d feel I’d just wasted all this money if I get rid of it. At the same time, if you’re not wearing it, the money’s wasted anyway.”
Not all dedicated collectors are overwhelmed with their stash. Wonder said she is content with the perfume collection she’s compiled for more than a decade as it is a reflection of her personal tastes rather than trends. But she advises budding fragrance fans to remember that more is not always more.
“I’m just as happy today with hundreds of bottles as I was when I had maybe five or 10 perfumes that I just cherished,” she said. “You don’t get happier with the more bottles you buy.”