Xu Wenjun

Jinhua Jumei Network Technology,Co.,Ltd.,China

Many vendors are selling colorful perfume bottles at night markets in second-tier,third-tier and even lower level cities.You may find almost all wellknown brands there such as Chanel,Dior,Guerlain and Jo Malone.However,these brands are sold at a quite low price.In fact,the polarization of domestic perfume industry is very serious.The majority of domestic perfumes,comparing with the high-end international perfumes worth of over 1,000 yuan,are at the bottom of the pyramid and cannot be regarded as brands.Part of such perfumes are still the copies of outer look and scent.

Over the past two years,as fragrant wash and care products and household fragrance becomes vogue,perfume category is getting popular.And an increasing number of “new faces” has been emerging in domestic perfume industry,even showing a booming picture.Some quality national perfume brands,in recent years,have stood out conspicuously.A variety of perfume brands are attracting their fans with differed positions and values like Demeter,MEET HOUSE,Young Beast,UTTORI,Scentooze,YILI Olfactory Art and BARRIO.

In recent years,the domestic perfume market has been growing at a double-digit rate higher than the global average,and much higher than other categories.According to the data of Euromonitor,Chinese perfume market is expected to maintain a compound growth of 15% between 2018 and 2024 and reach 40 billion yuan in terms of market size in 2022.From the perspective of market penetration,Chinese perfume market still enjoys a large room for growth in comparison with markets in Europe,America and Japan.

Capital driving

The internal force of perfume industry development is consumer demand and cultural confidence,while the external force may be the capital boost.Based on incomplete statistics of the following financing situation of perfume industry in recent years,it shows the fundraising cases of perfume brands increase evidently after 20 years.As more brands appear,a larger amount of capital come in.The year of 2020 may be seen as a watershed marking the shift of domestic perfume from downturn to boom.We may ask if 2020 the right time for domestic perfumes to stand out? According to insiders,the front cosmetics enterprises hold two completely opposite views.Some believe 2020 offers the great chance to sell perfume and fragrance.Because Chinese overall market,consumer needs and confidence are interconnected,it is sure for us to build excellent brands.Others reckon that China has not developed a big perfume brand mainly due to the lack of market demand.Chinese people don’t have body odor and their needs are different from those of foreign countries,so there won’t be a big market.

At the new product release meeting of Sephora in spring and summer in 2021,the global public relations director of Loewe mentioned the rapid development of Chinese perfume sales.The new customer base of perfume industry aspire for perfume with strong personality and new brands with solid value.Niche brands are also becoming very trendy in China.What are insiders’ takes? Many founders and executives mentioned that the domestic perfume industry has just reached a period of opportunity.Thanks to tastes suitable for all ages and huge marketing expenses,foreign perfume brands have gained a foothold in relatively empty Chinese perfume market by relying on their experience over hundreds of years.Yet Chinese culture still remains the “white moonlight” hidden in Chinese people.Domestic perfume brands thus enjoy the unique and innate advantage.

Chinese culture as the “white moonlight”

The Chinese market is experiencing the awakening of cultural identity,and the “national brand” is becoming a social phenomenon across all cultural,creative and consumer fields.For Chinese people,Chinese culture is the foundation,the heart of the white moonlight.For brands,there are so many stories to tell about China’s 5,000 years of history.In contrast to foreign fragrance brands,domestic brands have a better understanding of what Chinese consumers want to smell.Following the introduction of cold boiled water and white rabbit rolls in“originator” scent library,more brands would utilize the strong connection between fragrance and personal memory to build perfume centering on the common life scenes of Chinese consumers.

The Scentooze’s “70% sweet” perfume was listed as the top searched news as “bubble milk tea perfume” in micro-blog.Other types of perfumes like “grandpa’s attic” and “a small goal” focused on the scenes familiar among youngsters.Another brand called beast youth was inspired by the special memories and emotion stories of Chinese people.It developed perfumes with childhood memory featuring the aroma of “orangeade” and “green bean”in order to build the bond with more consumers.

Besides,the common elements in Chinese culture such as sweet osmanthus,jasmine,writing brushes,ink sticks,paper and inkstones,plum blossoms,orchid,bamboo and chrysanthemum are the same feeling shared by domestic perfume brands.But for the same material,the aroma will be completely different due to varied understandings by different brands and teams.MEETHOUSE focuses on restoring the aroma of sweet osmanthus by fostering a scent which “passes by sweet osmanthus tree”.Some fragrance pays more attention to artistic conception and the feeling of overall vibe.The Chinese culture expressed by brands will be more integrated with the life and thoughts of modern young people,such as the pursuit of self-expression and some common memories in life.The brand of To Summer highlights the oriental plant perfume.Following its products of aromatherapy,inserted incense,balm and bath foam,it finally extends the category to perfume.The aroma of the products released by To Summer is inspired by oriental arts and history.For example,the flower aromas like sweet-scented osmanthus,peach flower,lotus and plum blossom were used to describe the beauty of four seasons in China.The boiling snow in Kunlun mountain was adopted to express the artistic conception of enjoying the falling snow around furnace.It was reported that the brand’s perfume series would be combined with Chinese familiar tea citrus and other raw materials to express the Oriental fragrance.In terms of packaging,the minimalist design has delivered the new oriental modern aesthetic keynote,highlighting the eastern elements in details.The wax cup was inspired by the Ding kiln in the Song Dynasty.The inspiration of incense burner made of angelica essential oil comes from the ancient fire burning incense.The incense hanging is inspired by the traditional window lattice in eastern gardens.The design of the fragrance bottle is inspired by the ancient jade spring bottle…The brand creates an atmosphere and scene with aroma,content and packaging design.

UTTORI presents the fragrance of symbolic flowers like sweet osmanthus,plum blossom and orchid,also combining the paper and ink scent with Chinese characteristics and aroma with abstract elements as wind and light.Apart from the vertical extension of product line,UTTORI extends the fragrance of “sweet osmanthus” horizontally,while unveiling various kinds of fragrances like osmanthus with white pekoe,oolong and wine.This series of packaging brand invites illustrators to draw illustrations based on the three chapters of Chang’e flying to the moon:first sight,neon clothes and flying to the moon,with the three traditional colors of sky blue,cloisonne blue and black green as in inspiration to interpret traditional culture from a new perspective.

Another brand is called Chasense which calls for “immersion in nature with tea as the master”.The main artistic conception tea fragrance series of brand perfume is created under the guidance of six tea series,and has produced four types at present:green tea,dark tea,black tea and oolong tea.Conception is a creation idea of fragrance by Chasense the perfumer.Each perfume is aimed at fostering a life scene.For example,black tea was especially created in memory of the history of fighting against the pandemic in 2020.Being soft and warm,it absorbed the fragrance of black tea,litchi,lemon and coconut in the hope of clearing the haze.

Besides,some local perfume brands launched multiple fragrances inspired by different cities under the theme of city impression such as “good morning Guangzhou”,“happy water Shanghai”,“warm winter Harbin” and “pastoral poem Chengdu”.SHANGHAI VIBE,a type of the first launches of another new brand MAISON DIXSEPT,also restored the “story of Shanghai in autumn” by using scent and sentiment with the theme of the city Shanghai.Apart from the life scene,other brands would focus on ancient culture.Liu Hua Shu started from the ancient fragrance.It was reported each type of fragrance could be traced.The star SKU of goose pear incense in tent was the most popular incense in the Song Dynasty,also called “incense in the emperor Li in region south of Yangtze River”.This was produced by the Little Zhou queen,wife of Li Yu in Southern Tang Dynasty.Such formula has been passed down through generations due to its popularity.It was said that the bottle of the fragrance was carved with the writing of Slender Gold style by Emperor Hui Zong of Song Dynasty.Apart from that,the bottle lid was made by lost-wax process.Each lid was hand-carved and goldplated.Another brand was Nan Ke Ji,also focusing on ancient fragrance,originated from the legend play of Nan Ke Ji by Tang Xianzu,the opera artist in the Ming Dynasty.In terms of design and product,Nan Ke Ji chose the skill of leaving the space commonly used in traditional painting.The names of products also reflected it:beautiful peach,autumn forest,lotus,empty mountain and bamboo dew…Li Zi,the founder of the brand,viewed that Chinese classical culture paid attention to the beauty of artistic conception,and the aroma of these products was also built around this artistic conception,reflected in top,mid and bottom notes.For example,the material of the empty mountain was wood in top,mid and bottom notes though,it shifted from coldness to moderate just like the transition from the early morning to dusk.The fragrance was a revelation of one day’s change in the mountain.

A production line of Scentooze has been dedicated to adding the spiritual core into perfume in the new era based on the Chinese stories/emotions by creatively inheriting the history.Scentooze invited Wu Qing for deeper cooperation.Wu is a specialist and member of the Incense Culture and Art Professional Committee,China National Arts and Crafts Society,also the representative inheritor of “fragrance stories about traditional literati in regions south of Yangtze River”,an intangible cultural heritage in Changning district,Shanghai.By tracing back to ancient incense prescriptions and textual incense materials in cultural relics and ancient books,they aimed to integrate the spiritual meaning of traditional incense culture with modern perfume fragrance lifestyle,in order to create the first non-hereditary perfume in China.

The production of YILI Olfactory Art,another brand built by independent perfumer recorded the splendid history of Chinese civilization and also presented the elements of marketplace.Relatively speaking,brand is more focused on contemporary Chinese culture and local customs,which can also be reflected in the names of perfume brands,such as oak barrel brew,time,wanderer,pimp and tyrant,etc.Take Bongenbom as the example.This is a perfume inspired by the culture of the Dulong ethnic group.The team even went to Dulongjiang township in Yunnan province to collect wild spice plants and draw materials for the perfume creation.In creating the perfume of Bongenbom,Yili wanted to express the disposition of heroic masculinity and uprightness and the power of nature.Therefore,they selected pepper,cloves and nutmeg as the top notes.Following the short pungency,bloode woods fragrance becomes the bottom note combining Japanese cypress,incense and guaiacum.

Relatively,domestic perfume brands’understanding of Chinese culture is more profound and thorough,and they could also express the artistic conception and emotional connotation of Chinese culture by means of elements such as aroma,naming and packaging.In addition to using Chinese culture to create a perfume story,some brands are good at exploring classical Chinese fragrance materials.The sound of the sky,a perfume with the same name as the independent perfumer brand Tianle,has added Hainan aloes,an ingredient of classical Chinese incense.In fact,a large number of special and precious materials in Chinese classical incense prescriptions have not been applied to the field of daily fragrance.Targeted at Chen’s Book of Fragrance and Collection of Fragrance,such brands summarized and calculated the raw material and formula of fragrance by way of bibliometrics.Also,they restored the symbolic classic fragrance formula based on modern fragrance technology and theory.Up to now,about 800 Chinese classical incense prescriptions and the characteristic natural materials have been streamlined.In future,they may cooperate with the upstream of the industry involving science and research institutions and botanists so as to discuss how to better apply the classic fragrance raw materials and traditional fragrance into the area of fragrance blending today.

Chinese characteristic incense materials are the common cultural memory shared by everyone,and also the starting point to inspire the development of new synthetic materials in the future.Despite European culture and market are still the absolute center in the area of international flavor and fragrance,Chinese classical flavor culture and flavor raw materials will definitely become a new creative source of global essence industry.

A shortage of perfumers who think like artists

We can see that a lot of new brands have emerged in current perfume industry.The maturity of domestic supply chain is the prerequisite of the perfume development and a bunch of perfume brand founders agree:some perfume manufacturers have their own processing and supply chain integration capabilities,and also launched their own perfume brands.But in the meanwhile,there exists bottleneck in the perfume industry.The step of perfume manufacturing,in particular,is an extremely monopolistic industry.In China,almost 80% of the essence market share is monopolized by listed companies from Europe.Like the fashion industry today,foreign companies dominate the perfume industry in cultural sense.China’s essence industry has been playing the role of a follower in the entire industrial chain.Many brand founders mentioned a lack of creativity and domestic perfumers as one of the bottlenecks hindering the industry’s development.Some think domestic perfume brands don’t necessarily need to cooperate with domestic perfumers.Instead,engaging in cooperation with foreign perfumers could produce great effects.While others hold that the shortage of domestic perfumers make the industry of perfume in China lack the unique language of blending.The co-founder of MEET HOUSE said most perfumers enjoyed a multicultural background and nationality is no boundary.There are both international perfumers and new domestic perfumers.And indeed,cultural differences remain between these two types of perfumers.Foreign perfumers have a strong interest in Chinese culture and market and are skilled in expressing their own views.They are proficient and bold in perfuming techniques.At the same time,they have great creative presentations on some personalized concepts and prefer to use their understanding of Chinese and Eastern culture to observe Chinese people’s life from the perspective of another cultural background.Domestic perfumers are relatively introverted,and the corresponding emotions conveyed by aroma are also relatively implicit.They are better at capturing the essence in restoring the theme of some Chinese cultural artistic conception.Perfume has attracted the broad attention over the past two years.It means that this category can obtain more resources in China.Also,we can be more capable of solving the current problems with more diversified forces.At present,the domestic perfume category is at the start-up period.Different brands have varied issues to be solved.But in general,there remains no bottleneck problem in the industry within a short term.

Insiders believe the interest remains the starting point of all creativity.The results of the perfumer’s creation come from his experience.So,brands need to focus themselves before matching with perfumers.Many perfumers can work together and make choices based on the brand styles.Indeed,there is no national boundary,linguistic and cultural limitations and barriers as for creation.But the talent pool is an urgent problem facing the perfume industry’s supply chain.Today's domestic market lacks the cultivation of perceptual literacy:the cultivation process of perfumers is more in accordance with the development of technicians,and there is a lack of perfumers who think like artists.Aroma blending itself needs to combine art technology and commerce,but art has always been in short supply.In conclusion,more creativity-centered talents are required to satisfy this explosion of consumer demand for creative perfume.

We have to solve two issues as talent and raw material before we truly embrace the rise of domestic perfume industry.Yili,who calls herself as “wild perfumer”,said the first enormous challenge she met was how to find raw materials when she took interest in blending flavor at the beginning.“I contacted all the flavor companies I could find at that time,but the reply I received was that the minimum order quantity should meet the requirements,which was a very realistic difficulty for the perfumers who just started.”As Yili mentioned,“another difficulty is that the ideas owned by independent perfumers are the avant-garde.They may seem like the taste of illumination,but may not so agreeable for consumers.Such gap and difficulty can only be solved by market over a period of time.Recognition is gained by enough patience.”It is certain that apart from brand and supply chain,there is the bottleneck problem to be solved in terms of market demand.The founder of scentooze held that China’s perfume industry also needed to overcome the obstructions of brand preferences set by imported brands.On one hand,Chinese people haven’t completely developed habitual choices and cognition and they should be educated and guided.On the other hand,Chinese market is a very conflicting market,with some consumers at a high cognitive level and many entry-level consumers.Brands should maintain their uniqueness while finding their own balance among the fluctuating demands of consumers.

Today,China’s perfume market is shifting from 2.0 to 3.0 era marked by rapid development in full swing.The key to turning the domestic perfume industry around is cultural self-confidence.And a series of new perfume brands have embraced opportunities.The perfume brands in 4.0 era may be the starting point for China to produce world-class brands in future.So,we are looking forward to more and more new brands which can stand on the soil of cultural confidence to explore the localization of original creation,and to create personalized work in a free atmosphere.