Fragrance has made a comeback, according to Larissa Jensen, Executive Director and Beauty Industry Analyst, The NPD Group. After several years of soft holiday performance, prestige fragrance sales in the U.S. have experienced strong growth leading up to the holiday season, with dollar sales up 8 percent year-to-date through October, according to The NPD Group.

“In December 2017, fragrance proved to be a giftable category for the holidays and we continued to see this turnaround during other key periods in 2018, including Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and I anticipate its streak to continue this Christmas,” said Larissa.

According to NPD’s Scentiments, half of consumers purchasing fragrances for others buy for their partner or spouse, and the majority of these purchases are gifts for the Christmas/holiday season. In the most recent four weeks, the top selling women’s fragrance was Coco Mademoiselle and men’s was Acqua di Gio Pour Homme.

So far this year, fragrance brought in $2.7 billion in sales and grew at a faster rate compared to 2017. Specifically, juice sales grew by 10 percent – an increase of 7 percentage points over the prior year. Overall, the fragrance market’s growth rate is trending behind skincare—beauty’s fastest-growing category, but ahead of makeup – beauty’s largest category.

“New brands will be an important driver for fragrance during this holiday season. With close to a third of full year fragrance sales happening in December, most fragrance manufacturers wait until the second half or the last quarter to introduce a new scent,” said Jensen. “The success of new launches during holiday can make or break the category, but given the strong performance seen so far in 2018, I anticipate fragrance will end the year strong.”