When Los Angeles-based perfumer Maxwell Williams placed an order for perfume bottle caps from China on April 26, they weren’t sure what they would have to pay in the end. With the de minimis loophole set to end on May 2, which had previously exempted goods worth less than $800 from tariffs, Williams was concerned about having to eat an additional cost.
Fortunately for Williams, the caps arrived in Los Angeles from China on April 30, before the de minimis loophole ended. But in light of uncertainty around President Trump’s evolving tariff policies, Williams is holding off on purchasing more supplies from abroad.
“I have already held off on ordering some bottles from the U.K. because it’s too volatile and it would not fit under de minimis,” said Williams, whose UFO Parfums label makes scents like a hentai-inspired perfume and collaborates with the likes of sustainable clothing brand Everybody World. “I can’t take on that extra cost right now. I’m operating on very, very thin margins, and a 10% cost on an order of a few thousand bucks breaks me.”
A single bottle of perfume may source ingredients and materials like essential oils and plastic caps from up to 30 different countries. The closing of the de minimis loophole and new tariffs ranging from 10% across the board to 145% on goods from China will add additional costs to each of those materials. And for independent perfumers operating at a small scale, the extra fees may be challenging to absorb.
“Everybody is going to be tightening their purse strings a little bit, and I don’t think I can raise prices,” said Williams. “I feel like I’m gonna start to see a little bit of attrition already.”
Global politics have always affected the price of perfume materials, said independent perfumer and Scent Trunk founder Yosh Han. Think: civil unrest driving up the price of Haitian vetiver. But Trump’s tariffs have highlighted just how dependent many American businesses and consumers are on Chinese-made goods.
“A lot of consumers didn’t really understand how manufacturing works, and they, just like J.D. Vance, think China is full of peasants,” said Han. Since starting in perfume in the early 2000s, Han has seen how Chinese manufacturing has evolved to compete with European and North American manufacturers with improved quality and minimum order quantities as low as just a few hundred units. Lower MOQs on Chinese-made packaging materials have allowed smaller perfume brands to enter the fray and, in turn, made both them and consumers accustomed to China’s lower prices.
“These manufacturers have now lowered their MOQ so anyone and their mother can fabricate in China. So then we’re all addicted to lower prices,” she said. She said prior to the tariffs, she had already shifted to sourcing paper goods from Canada to lower her Scent Trunk brand’s carbon footprint and reduce dependency on China.
The full impact of the tariffs remains to be seen for many businesses, however. If brands have enough inventory in stock, they may be able to hold off on reordering supplies from countries with higher tariffs like China, Han said — unless, say, a perfume goes viral on TikTok and upends their sales forecasts.
“Right now, the question is whether everyone has enough inventory to tide us over until somebody in the Senate or Congress gets a hold of Trump and it slaps him in the face,” said Han. “But until then, we don’t know exactly when it will affect you or where exactly.”
“Compared to some of the volatility with essential oils, 10% doesn’t put us in panic mode,” said Dierking, whose company’s clients include small- and mid-sized producers of perfumes and personal care products. “It will be material and, ultimately, consumers who are buying finished products are going to see a difference. We’re still just taking a wait-and-see approach, because we don’t know if that 10% is going to be relatively permanent or just transitory to the trade negotiations.”
Holly Tupper, founder of San Antonio-based natural fragrance and jewelry house Cultus Artem, said she does not intend to raise her prices in light of the tariffs. But the answer to how tariffs will impact the cost of her materials, like osmanthus from China or honeysuckle from Egypt, is hard to predict, she added.
“We are vertically integrated. We do everything in-house,” said Tupper. “And there is not one single part of our business which isn’t impacted by tariffs. Every single thing we do is impacted, because my materials come from all over the world.”
Working with entirely natural materials already means being subject to price fluctuations as crop values shift year over year, Tupper said. And time will tell how tariffs impact the farmers she works with. As far as packaging, she said she is still working through her existing supply, including glass bottles made in China.
“If I have to change where my bottle is manufactured, that’s going to cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because I’ll need to retool it. I’ll need to make a new mold,” she said.
Jim Dierking, CEO of Oregon-based essential oil supplier Liberty Natural, agrees that price volatility is nothing new in natural materials. Dierking estimated that roughly 70% of Liberty Natural’s raw materials are imported. Save a few ingredients like wintergreen oil, he said few of Liberty Natural’s oils are sourced from China and the blanket 10% tariffs will not be impossible to navigate.
But for Liberty Natural, more impactful than the fees themselves is an overall hesitance to make any big orders while the full effects of the tariffs pan out.
“We’re a small company and we’ve tracked our sales for over 40 years. Right now, people are holding back on purchasing in a big way,” said Dierking. “I am concerned. We’ve had adequate cash supplies, so it’s not an immediate thing, but I need to look at the long term.”
The stated goal of Trump’s tariff policies has been to return manufacturing to the U.S. But when looking to purchase their next shipment of caps or bottles, Williams said American manufacturers are not an option. Those companies, Williams said, are not interested in working with small-scale brands like UFO Parfums that are ordering hundreds of caps or bottles at a time, rather than tens of thousands.
“I do work with the chemical manufacturers in the U.S., and it’s hard to get their attention because I am a small producer. I have to send them 25 emails already to be like, ‘Hey, I’m over here. I want to give you money,'” said Williams. “None of this is for my benefit. Even if manufacturing moves back into the U.S., it’s not for people like me.”
