When Funmi Monet began her perfume- and beauty-focused TikTok in 2020, she drew upon her past work at a department store fragrance counter to offer perfume recommendations to her audience. The Dallas-based creator quickly became known as the internet’s “fragrance auntie” for her entertaining and insightful recommendations and reviews, amassing close to 500,000 followers on TikTok and more than 250,000 on Instagram. Brands took notice, too, with the likes of Maison Francis Kurkdjian and Dior soon sending products to Monet to review.
Monet has since launched her own fragrance in partnership with Bella Aura Skincare, been a member of Sephora Squad for three years running and attended the 2024 Fragrance Foundation Awards with perfume brand Kayali. A licensed therapist, Monet devoted herself full-time to fragrance and beauty content creation in May.
“[Fragrance] is a hobby you can enjoy without having a specific skill,” Monet said regarding perfume’s widespread appeal. “You don’t have to be a makeup artist or know how to do makeup. You don’t have to have perfect skin. You don’t have to look a certain way.”
In the years since 2020, there’s been a boom in online perfume communities, from niche message boards to mainstream platforms like TikTok and Instagram. There, average consumers have become influential voices in the industry, with the power to move the needle on trends and make brands and scents into overnight sensations.
Fragrance brands are increasingly capitalizing on the ability of online creators to bridge what once seemed like an insurmountable gap between perfume and a digital screen. But they are also contending with the increased scrutiny over their politics and values that comes with massive reach online.
“[Perfume] is kind of the last art form that you can commodify digitally,” said Laura Oberwetter, co-founder of Chicago-based Clue Perfumery. “In the past, brands have always seen that as just this insurmountable hurdle. Like, ‘How can we sell someone something they can’t experience?’”
Oberwetter recalled scrolling online perfume forums like Fragrantica in high school where obsessive fans left reviews that were often as entertaining to engage with as the perfumes themselves. But while old-school blogs like Now Smell This and ÇaFleureBon and forums like Reddit have cultivated a knowledgeable perfume audience for years, the rise of PerfumeTok, as the fragrance corner of TikTok is known, has brought niche perfume to unseen heights.
An October 2023 review of Bianco Latte by Giardini di Toscana from Canadian perfume TikToker @perfumerism, who goes by her first name Emma, has clocked more than 11 million views and put the Italian fragrance at the forefront of a trend for milky perfumes. The TikToker @fragranceknowledge, who also goes by only his first name Evan, counts nearly 1 million followers on the platform and has turned scents like Erba Pura by Xerjoff into must-haves for young male consumers. Niche frangrance retailer Luckyscent calls Bianco Latte its viral hit of 2023 and 2024 — it remains on backorder after having sold thousands of bottles and spurred a trend for other gourmand perfumes like Gourmand Escapade by Maison Mataha and Delizia di Marshmallow by Kyse.
Brands are moving quickly to find new voices to reach a growing perfume audience. Elise Grenier first discovered a more serious interest in fragrance in 2022 through a friend she made on Bumble BFF who was an avid perfume collector. She started her perfume TikTok @eliselovessmells in 2023. Within months, Grenier said, brands were reaching out to her to use her videos, leading her to connect with other perfume creators on how to monetize her content. Grenier, who lives in Southern Vermont, said she has already doubled the income she makes from her retail job thanks to social media.
“I’ve always tried to be transparent with my audience, saying, ‘I’m new to this. I am seeing my PerfumeTok as a dialog,’” she said. “I’m excited to learn back and forth with everybody on [TikTok], instead of positing myself as somebody who knows everything about this.”
Other online creators have made themselves industry experts through a non-traditional path. Emma Vernon, who now counts fragrance as her full-time job through her various social platforms and consulting work, traced her obsession to scrolling perfume forums in the early 2000s. “I have no idea who in 2002 was telling me that, like, their husband couldn’t keep their hands off them when they wore this scent. I had no business getting those fragrances,” she recalled.
In 2020, Vernon made a perfume-focused TikTok account, where she now has more than 100,000 followers, and she launched the Perfume Room podcast in 2021. Her podcast has counted guests from renowned perfume historian and writer Michael Edwards to gymnast Asher Hong, an Olympic bronze medalist and self-proclaimed fragrance fan. While many creators are self-taught in their fragrance knowledge, Vernon has taken fragrance courses through New York City-based fragrance consulting firm Serendipitee.
“At this point, I feel like I’m a little bit more than just someone who reviews fragrances,” said Vernon. “I think people know that when I recommend something, even if you’re hearing me talk about six things at once, there are probably 100 things that didn’t make [it to the video] because I’m smelling so much.”
Perfume fans and creators discuss more than just what scents they like to wear. They are also sharing where companies and founders are putting their money. “[Perfume] is political,” said independent perfumer Yosh Han. The San Francisco-based educator and creative director of perfume house Scent Trunk said she has seen online platforms like TikTok break open what was once a very insular, exclusive world. “That technology kind of democratized fragrance, and it allowed young people and people of color to express their tastes.”
For years, Han and other perfumers have spoken out about issues like the use of the term “oriental” in perfume marketing. More recently, news outlets like the BBC and Vice have investigated unethical labor practices in perfume ingredient sourcing like jasmine and frankincense. And TikTok has made those conversations more mainstream than ever. “It wasn’t until the young generation, who cares about where their dollars are being spent — the values-driven Gen Zers who made videos as allies — that [these conversations became mainstream]. And that change was a tidal wave,” said Han.
Perfume creators have the power to bring brands large and small to the forefront, but they can also keep brands that don’t align with their values out of the spotlight. Monet said she will not partner with or promote Dolce & Gabbana fragrances, due the founder’s past instances of racist comments. And Grenier said she won’t support Nest Fragrances due to the company’s past funding of Autism Speaks, a non-profit that has been criticized by the members of the autistic community for promoting fear and prejudice toward autistic people. Clean perfume brand Skylar, meanwhile, faced swift criticism from its followers for sharing support of Israel in the wake of the October 7 attacks. The brand later shared an Instagram post announcing donations to both Israeli and Palestinian Red Cross affiliates, leading to commenters sharing their disappointment in the brand for not fully supporting Palestine.
Many of those critiques take place on public forums like Instagram and TikTok, but Han advised that companies be aware that conversations are happening behind the scenes, as well.
“The fragrance community is very interesting, because most people are friends, most people know each other, and a lot of people have each other’s backs,” said Han. “If one person has a complaint about something, you better believe it’s going to go viral.”
Those ethical concerns extend not just to brands but also to the platforms on which perfume fans congregate. Fragrantica, the forum founded in 2007 with over 1 million users and a database of notes pyramids and launch information on more than 95,000 perfumes, is the de facto internet perfume archive for many fragrance fans. And yet some consumers and creators are hesitant to openly promote the site due to the founders’ politics.
Fragrantica’s banner includes the slogan “Free to Choose,” which some believe to be an anti-vaccine statement, and the founders have been accused of failing to moderate anti-LGBTQ comments. Fragrantica co-founder and editor-in-chief Elena Knezevic shared support for former president Donald Trump and his Trump-branded perfume in the wake of his July assassination attempt. Such activity has led creators including Grenier to state that they won’t share Fragrantica content on their platforms.
“[Fragrantica] just happens to be the most helpful, user-friendly perfume database that I found. But also, I cannot condone these opinions,” said Grenier. “The ad revenue from looking at Fragrantica is going toward people who are supporting these causes that I can’t get behind.” Fragrantica’s website runs targeted banner and pop-up ads.
For all its controversies, Fragrantica remains a beloved archive for many fragrance fans. Its lack of sophisticated design and largely user-generated content makes it an attractive alternative to social media feeds dominated by paid posts and sponsorships. “Fragrantica is not like these modern internet platforms that are like hyper-algorithms, serving you the top thing. There is this treasure-hunting element,” said Clue Perfumery co-founder Caleb Vanden Boom. “It feels like you could discover things.”
New platforms are popping up hoping to satiate the perfume community’s desire for trustworthy information and connection. In 2019, Australian perfume YouTuber Demi Rawling began dating fragrance entrepreneur Pierre-Louis Berrier after meeting at a fragrance convention. The two initially began working on a perfume app that could offer tailored fragrance recommendations before switching instead to a database-oriented app for perfume reviews and information. Now living in Dubai, Berrier and Rawling launched the Sniff app in 2023 — it has since acquired more than 60,000 users and currently features notes breakdowns and perfumers for fragrances from more than 400 brands in its database, information which Berrier and Rawling say they source from the brands directly.
“We really started to expand on the concept and capitalize off of the fact that the perfume community … it’s like a cult,” said Rawling. “There’s so many fans of this industry.”
Berrier has seen firsthand how online creators like Rawling have helped turn niche perfume brands into mainstream hits. In 2009, his father, Axel Berrier, co-founded Parfums de Marly, the niche perfume brand that was acquired in 2023 by Advent International in a $700 million deal, bolstered in large part by the brand’s TikTok and Instagram favorite perfume Delina. He said niche labels like Kilian, BDK Parfums and Maison Francis Kurkdjian are among the most reviewed brands on the Sniff app rather than designer brands like Dior and Chanel.
But he and Rawling are also wary of how that mainstream success has led to a proliferation of new brands and launches hoping to get a piece of the pie, diluting what made niche perfume special to begin with.
“It feels like fast fashion, but in fragrance,” said Rawling. “Eight years ago, niche was like this hidden gem. … It no longer feels like that because of the oversaturation of the industry.”
Even with the rampant commercialization of perfume spaces, creators still cite interpersonal connections as a core part of their communities. “I had a follower who’s getting married, and I said, ‘Hey, I’d love to send you some samples or some fragrances to help you pick out your wedding day fragrance,’” said Funmi Monet, who now counts more than half a million followers across her various platforms. “I always try to remind myself, no matter how big my platform gets, your community and the people that keep coming back to you consistently are the reasons why you’re able to have a platform to begin with.”
Outside of TikTok’s finely-honed For You page, smaller conversations around perfume are still happening all over the web, creating a space for more offbeat scents to find a consumer base. Han referenced perfume Substacks, including from writers like Christina Loff and Taylyn Washington-Harmon, as another growing space in online perfume communities. Clue Perfumery’s founders cited a tweet from perfume writer Audrey Robinovitz as boosting sales for their With the Candlestick perfume. The scent, which is inspired by a First Communion and lists melted wax among its notes, remains sold out on Clue’s website and niche fragrance retailer Luckyscent.
In addition to her social media and podcast, Emma Vernon runs a monthly Scent Club, where fans can purchase access to a virtual meet-up and a sample set of fragrances curated to that month’s theme. She said 80-90 people join every month, with many forging IRL friendships with fellow members.
“There’s a place for everybody to talk about what they’re into,” said Vernon. “Not everybody looks good in the exact same shade of eye shadow, in the exact same shade of blush. But everybody can wear fragrance.”
