Key Takeaways:
Amika launched a personal fragrance on Friday, revealing exclusively to BeautyMatter the details of its launch as the brand team seeks to tell a story around the 18-year-old haircare brand.
The fragrance, called Amika:Aura, serves as a hair and body spray with notes of apricot, grapefruit, vanilla, and sandalwood. Personal fragrances, often hair and body sprays, have become a mainstay of product expansion for skincare, haircare, and even makeup brands, fueled by Gen Z interest in the category. According to Chelsea Riggs, CEO of Amika, customers have been asking for a fragrance from the brand for years, and the team plans to incorporate its customers in the launch campaign as a result.
Riggs declined to share sales expectations for the fragrance but did say there is an opportunity in the future for fragrance to be a meaningful percentage of sales. Industry sources previously estimated the brand to earn between $175 million and $200 million in full-year 2023 sales.
Priced at $28, the fragrance is geared not only to existing customers who love the scent of the hair products but also to new customers who may first enter through the less expensive fragrance before investing deeper into the brand. Furthermore, it’s an opportunity to “storytell how Amika makes you feel,” said Riggs.
Notably, over a decade ago, Amika sold a personal fragrance and even a room spray via its DTC website and salons, before discontinuing them due to a lack of demand. In April, Amika collaborated with Ellis Brooklyn on a dry shampoo, which sold out 6x faster than expected.
Fragrance expansions, particularly from haircare brands, have become a rapidly growing trend within the already explosive boom in the personal fragrance category. In 2018, Ouai was one of the first haircare brands to capitalize on its cultish fragrances with the launch of a perfume based on its Melrose Place scent. Since then, haircare brands like Moroccanoil, Gisou, and Emi Jay have launched hair and body sprays, a lower-priced and less concentrated personal fragrance that is more accessible to Gen Z buyers.
Overall, fragrance and haircare were the strongest selling categories in the first quarter, according to Circana’s latest first-quarter prestige beauty sales report. Fragrance sales were up 4% year over year in the prestige channel and 8% in the mass market, while prestige haircare sales grew 4% year over year and experienced single-digit growth in the mass market, as well.
Gen Z customers have been responsible for the growth in fragrance sales, a consumer group that Amika is well-positioned to attract to its body spray. According to Piper Sandler’s latest semi-annual survey, Amika was the most popular haircare brand, with 9% of survey respondents selecting it as their top choice. And according to Amika’s own consumer survey from January, 61% of Amika consumers recommend the brand for its scent.
“There's [an element] of self-care and self-expression that we see among [beauty] consumers today, particularly among Gen Z,” said Nilofer Vahora, CMO of Amika. “That kind of intersection of functional and emotional is truly a point of difference for Amika in how consumers perceive the brand, which frankly, gives us the opportunity and permission to make this emotional expansion into fragrance.”
To tap into the sentimentality of the fragrance launch, Amika plans to bring its customers along for the launch. The messaging around the campaign is “You messaged, we answered,” alluding to how customers were actively requesting in direct social messages, emails, and even once, a letter. The Amika team is gifting products to customers and stylists, based on who the team has kept tabs on as frequently engaged or asking for a fragrance. Approximately 2,000 mailers are going to customers, a first for the brand.
The pro-stylist community will also participate in the fragrance launch through both retail and digital-social outreach. Amika launched its Stylist Collective in 2024, consisting of five people tasked with assisting Amika’s in-house education team to develop a professional education curriculum and headline educational events and large-scale brand-sponsored events. In July, Amika expanded the collective to 10 people with a new campaign.
“We started from a place of education, [by] bringing [stylists] into educate our pro community on our curriculum, content, and being partners with us on education and going out to galvanize and lead that credibility driver with our consumer base,” said Riggs.
