This is an episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the beauty and wellness industries. More from the series →
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Longtime beauty executive Lori Singer has been instrumental in some of the biggest fragrance license deals of the past 20 years.
Singer spent more than a decade at Coty, where she worked on bestselling fragrances by Calvin Klein, Vera Wang, Balenciaga and Nautica. She also tripled global net revenues for Marc Jacobs with its iconic Daisy franchise launched in 2007. Singer got her start at Revlon, and her CV also includes Calvin Klein Cosmetics, Unilever and Benetton Group.
“I’ve spent my entire career in beauty. I’m sort of a beauty lifer,” she told Glossy. “I fell in love on day one at Revlon, my first job, and I really have never looked back.”
Singer joined Parlux in 2019 to grow its license business and immediately set her sights on Billie Eilish.
“Other than music, fragrance and scent are everything to her. So, upon meeting her and hearing about her deep knowledge [of fragrance, we knew it was a fit for Parlux],” Singer told Glossy. “She knows ingredients and she knows about olfactory territory. She has had a natural nose for scents.”
By 2021, her first scent, Eilish, was released, which she followed up with Eilish No. 2 the next year and Eilish No. 3 in 2023.
Fast forward to last week, and Parlux released Eilish’s fourth fragrance, called Your Turn. The new scent is priced at $90 for 100 milliliters and available DTC — it will launch in Ulta Beauty doors later this spring. Your Turn is gender-neutral and described as “warm, woody and fresh” with notes of peach, ginger and sandalwood.
Frank Voelkl, principal perfumer at fragrance house Firmenich, was the “nose.” One of the most famous perfumers working today, he has created Glossier’s You franchise, Phlur’s Mood Ring and Father Figure, and Le Labo’s cult Santal 33, among others.
Parlux is a global licensee for celebrities, fashion houses and lifestyle brands. The company launched in 1984 and is privately held. Its licenses include Kenneth Cole, Vince Camuto, Jessica Simpson, Steve Madden and Jason Wu, among others.
Most recently, Parlux entered into a partnership with basketball player LeBron James to create The Shop, a line of grooming products distributed through Walmart. Then, in late 2024, the company launched its first fragrance with influencer-turned-designer Danielle Bernstein, the creator behind WeWoreWhat, called WeWoreWhat 001.
Later this year, the company will celebrate another milestone: Paris Hilton’s 30th fragrance over 20 years. Called Iconic, the scent will launch this spring.
Singer joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss the secret sauce behind Parlux’s celeb fragrances, the evolving fragrance consumer and 2025 industry predictions. Excerpts from the conversation, below, have been lightly edited for clarity.
On meeting Billie Eilish in 2020
“I actually met Billie during Covid. We had our finger on the pulse and were looking at her as this rising star and this incredible musician who was just breaking out on the scene. We had the opportunity to meet with her and hear about her love of fragrance and her passion. Seeing the connection she had with the fans [was amazing]. When you look on social media, and you see the engagement and you read the comments, it’s very telling [of her reach]. … Other than music, fragrance and scent are everything to her. So, upon meeting her and hearing about her deep knowledge [of fragrance, we knew it was a fit for Parlux]. She knows ingredients, and she knows about olfactory territory. She has had a natural nose for scents since her childhood [because] she has a condition called synesthesia [where a person experiences more than one sense simultaneously, such as seeing a scent or hearing a color], which is sort of the way that she processes senses. She and her father both share this condition.”
On selling fragrance online
“One day, maybe we’ll be able to smell through our screens, but we’re not there yet. [Until then], what the industry has done a great job of is the storytelling behind fragrances. Consumers are just savvier than ever before. They’re very interested in peeling back the layers of the onion, if you will, right? They want to understand the notes, they want to understand the ingredients, the composition of a fragrance. They want to know who the perfumers are. … They’re hungry for information, they want to be educated and they want to learn. Social media has allowed us to do that. So even though we can’t smell the fragrance, the storytelling, the visual cues that we can provide and the importance of influencers [still have influence]. When [influencers] talk about the products in their own authentic voice, whether it’s the celebrity whose name is on the fragrance or an influencer who just loves it and wants to share it with their following, [it helps to satiate that consumer desire for information].”
