Fragrance Swaps Are Sweeping the Nation
All products featured on Allure are independently selected by Allure editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Condé Nast may earn an affiliate commission.
Courtesy of Viv Chen; Getty Images
On a mirrored table in the center of vintage boutique Pretty Penny, a voluptuous red perfume bottle—La Belle by Jean Paul Gaultier—catches my eye. Then, I’m distracted by a clear, turquoise bottle with a name I don’t catch…. before my gaze lands on a twisted rectangle filled with golden liquid: Elixir Pour Elle by Mauboussin. By the minute, new bottles are added and lifted off the table—first, they’re inspected, then they’re sprayed, and with a deep breath, taken in—before returning to their original position. Between sniffs, the human attendees discuss which notes they detect and share memories conjured by, say, a bottle of A Scent by Issey Miyake…and then the swapping ensues.
Fragrance swaps are organized meetups where perfume lovers—also called fraghags—exchange scents. The idea is that collectors can bring fragrances they may not want anymore and swap them for new ones—the perfume version of “one man’s trash is another one’s treasure.” People often swap designer fragrances for something niche, or bring something rare or unavailable they want to share with others.
It’s a small subculture of a rapidly-growing industry: The global perfume market was valued at more than $50 billion dollars in 2022 and is expected to continue to grow by five percent each year through 2030. Arielle Weinberg, founder of fragrance boutique Arielle Shoshana in Fairfax, Virginia, believes it’s a “golden age to be a perfume girly” thanks to TikTok (where hauls and reviews by #PerfumeTok creators regularly rack up millions of views), Discord channels, and swap groups.
But as Arabelle Sicardi, founder of fragrance collective Perfumed Pages, points out, fragrance swapping isn’t an entirely new concept. The Institute of Art and Olfaction has been running swaps in Los Angeles since 2013. “Fragrance nerds from all over come to grab really cheap fragrance material and swap stuff,” says Sicardi, who is planning a swap of their own in New York in December.
What is new about the fragrance swaps of 2024, however, is that there are a whole lot more “fragrance nerds” interested in attending them. The swap at Pretty Penny in Berkeley, California was held by fashion and culture writer Viv Chen who says she’s wanted to host one since she began sharing scent-related stories in her newsletter, The Molehill. Though her newsletter was originally intended to provide connection through fashion, scent offered her followers another opportunity to engage in authentic conversations about identity and culture. “I've noticed there’s been an increased interest in fragrance as another element of personal style or fashion,” says Chen. “I started writing more about fragrance in the past year or so, and [began] connecting with others, especially about Asian fragrance houses like d.grayi, J-Scent, and d'Annam.”
Untitled design - 3
Chen brought J-Scent’s Ramune—a bubbly, minty blend meant to mimic the essence of Japanese soda—to her swap. “I think people really enjoy hyper-specific food and beverage fragrances,” she says. “And [at the swap], they appreciated sampling fragrances from brands like J-Scent that are hard to find in the US.”
Chen wanted her event to be in a “cute" space, similar to a clothing swap. But unlike clothing, “fragrance is something that's so easily interchangeable with folks,” Chen says. “You don't have to worry too much about sizing and logistically they're just so much more compact.”
Jasmine Watson—a fragrance lover who attended Chen’s event and has been collecting scents since the nineties—says fragrance swapping is “pretty anti-capitalist.” Swapping replaces selling, allowing people to barter their personal bounties through the process of exchange.
Sometimes, the swaps are just that—a bottle for bottle exchange—but at others, money does change hands. (Organizers don’t typically profit from sales, though tickets are sometimes sold to cover the cost of putting together an event.) Small, sample-size vials of perfume—decanted from their original bottles—typically range from $1 to around $20 at swaps depending on the initial cost of the scent, according to Weinberg. (Though the price of an exceedingly rare, hard-to-find sample could fall in the hundreds.)
When selling partially-used full-sized bottles, fraghags will often determine the price by calculating the cost per milliliter and then charging for what's remaining. “For example, if a 50ml bottle originally costs $150, that’s $3 per ml,” says May K. Kanti, the founder of “DC Maryland Virginia Fragrance Lovers,” a Facebook group. “So if [someone is] selling a 25ml partial bottle, they [might] charge $75.”
Kanti, a family therapist who has spent somewhere between $1,000 and $3,000 on her collection since she started it a few years ago, often observes the 137 members of her group asking each other if there are perfumes they’re looking to offload. Her group is a place for sharing knowledge and preferences, along with an opportunity to declutter and stock one’s collection with fragrances that are truly loved.
After all, more isn’t always better. “So much of the content on #FragranceTok is people showing off 200 bottle collections,” says Alexandra Pauly, beauty editor at Highsnobiety and a fragrance fan who recently hosted a swap at Susan Alexandra’s store in collaboration with podcasts Perfume Room Pod and Fat Mascara and perfume photography project Basenote Bitch. “I think so much of fragrance content has become about consumption and over consumption.”
No one needs to have an entire room filled with fragrance, Pauly says—in this way, swapping naturally brings intentionality to perfume-buying while also making it more accessible. Sustainability, too, is a growing concern. After a few years, most fragrances will eventually “turn” and take on a smell different from the original scent, often rendering them unusable.
With around 40 bottles, “I have what's considered a small collection in the community, but I will never, ever, ever, ever get through all of my perfumes,” Kanti says, adding that a large collection could include upwards of 150 bottles and bookshelves full of scents. “With the fragrance hobby, what happens is you end up buying stuff, you're trying stuff, and then oftentimes things don't suit your taste,” she says. In addition to the virtual swaps that happen year ‘round, Kanti hosts around three in-person meetups per year during which members of her group swap, sell, split, and decant fragrances they no longer want in their collections.
They often walk away with more than just a few new scents: Kanti says members have built friendships with each other that extend beyond the confines of Facebook. “When people are going through hard things, we get together and send them gift cards,” says Kanti.
At a time when loneliness is increasingly on the rise, fragrance swaps are a low-stakes way of meeting new people—and ones with at least one common interest.
“The social aspect is really important,” says Pauly. “Since Covid, people want to find moments of in-person human connection.” It’s not unusual for attendees to exchange contact information and stay in touch post-swap, she says, adding the events are a “foolproof way to meet new people because you have perfume to talk about.”
“Sometimes you even wind up passing a bottle onto someone that’s their ‘perfect’ fragrance—one they might have been waiting their whole life to smell like,” says Weinberg of the exchanges that happen at swaps.
At Chen’s event, 26-year-old Ishan McCarthy fell in love with that bottle of A Scent by Issey Miyake. Ironically, they realized the green, citrus-y fragrance was very similar to the one they’d brought along to replace. Though McCarthy, a college admissions counselor, didn’t take that scent home, they discovered several milky fragrances that “shocked” their senses in the best of ways, opening up fragrance doors they would’ve never explored otherwise.
But it was the opportunity to be in community with other fragrance lovers that was the highlight of the day, they say: “To be in communion with unexpected communities is one of the greatest gifts we have.”
Read more about fragrance:
These Fragrances Want You to Forget Everything You Thought You Knew About Rose
I Own Every Single Sol de Janeiro Perfume Mist But These 3 Are My Favorites
Watch Ariana Greenblatt's contouring routine:
Follow Allure on Instagram and TikTok, or subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on all things beauty.
Originally Appeared on Allure
