Fine fragrance trends: celebrities hold steady in the fragrance market while organics make their way into the perfume arena.

FRAGRANCE HAS the ability to make a good first impression. Whether it's that cute guy who just walked by or grandma coming to stay for the holidays, the scents that we wear can have a lasting effect on our perceptions of each other. With so many fragrances available, it's hard to distinguish what's good in a mixed bag of mass, specialty and prestige fragrances.

Charted Choices

Fine fragrance is not just a segmented market. It has become multi-faceted, offering consumers a smorgasbord of high-quality, multi-dimensional adventures in the name of smell. From customized fragrances made with essential oils, to celebrity endorsed/created perfumes and luxury market moguls venturing off into scent, the possibilities in this lucrative industry are endless. Whichever the consumer chooses, the fine fragrance industry is ready to point her in the appropriate direction. U.S. fragrance sales rose just 1.8% last year to slightly more than $6 billion (retail), according to Lauren Beth of Euromonitor International. Of that total, prestige fragrance rose 3.2% to more than $4.7 billion, while sales of mass market scents declined 2.8% to about $1.3 billion. Taking a closer look at each sector, men's prestige fragrance sales rose 5.3% last year to more than $1.3 billion, while women's prestige fragrance sales rose 2.4% to more than $3.3 billion. In the mass segment, men's fragrance sales declined 1.2% to $428 million, while women's scents fell 3.5% to $853 million. Taking a broader view, Euromonitor puts global fine fragrance sales at $27.6 billion (retail) an increase of 4.9%. Of that total, premium fragrance sales rose 3.2% to nearly $16.8 billion and mass fragrance sales jumped 7.6% to $10.8 billion.

Celebrands

Celebrities, be they actors/actresses, models, athletes, musicians even dolls have the power to sell fragrances. Gone are the days when premium fragrance was associated with a well-known, established brand noted for delivering elegance, high fashion and accessories to highly affluent consumers. Prestige scent is being offered in ways that relate to all types of consumers. Marketing strategies and celebrity endorsements let consumers know that fragrance is the accessory to an otherwise boring, scentless lifestyle.

It seems that we have blurred the lines a bit, in an effort to encompass those entities that are outside the confines of the classic celebrity. If, according to definition, a celebrity is a person, widely recognized in society and is one who commands a high degree of public and media attention, then a celebrity entity can be the entire cast of a television show, a doll, member of an award winning hall of fame baseball team, so on and so forth. If the premise is that a premium fragrance is one made popular by the brand it has associated itself with, we've got a lot to cover.

U.S. mass fragrance sales are dwindling but globally they are strong according to Claire Briney of Euromonitor International. "Due to a lack of new product innovation both men's and women's mass fragrances sales declined in 2005." Ms. Briney attributed the decline to increased accessibility to premium fragrances in mass market channels like Wal-Mart, drug-store chains and Target.

In the celebrity realm, the prestige launch from Scan John, Unforgivable, performed …