From status symbol to ‘smellmaxxing’: Why teen boys are spending on designer perfume

UNITED STATES – On a recent trip to Sephora, 11-year-old Lincoln Rivera asked his mother for a US$125 (S$168) atomiser of Yves Saint Laurent eau de parfum.

He also covets scents from Jean Paul Gaultier, which he learnt about from the animated movie Megamind (2010), and Paco Rabanne (some of its cologne bottles are shaped like robots).

“I feel fine about how I smell,” said Lincoln, a fifth-grader in Westchester County, New York, whose olfactory experimentation has so far been limited to deodorant. “But I could smell even better.”

Ms Abby Rivera, Lincoln’s mother, first thought the designer scents seemed like overkill for her son to wear to elementary school. She was surprised by his sudden interest until she heard that some of his hockey teammates had also been asking their parents for high-end cologne.

“It’s like a status thing right now – they all want it,” she said. “Just like the girls want this high-end skincare and body care, this is like the boys’ version.”

Teenage boys have long turned to mists and sprays to drown out the first whiffs of puberty, but some even younger adolescents – whose parents have the cash, that is – are now becoming infatuated by designer colognes with price tags in the hundreds of dollars.

Teenage boys’ annual spending on fragrances rose 26 per cent in the year ending in March, according to a semi-annual survey of youth spending patterns by investment bank Piper Sandler.

Axe, Old Spice and Bath & Body Works fell in the bank’s rankings of teenage boys’ favourite fragrance brands, while luxury brands, including Valentino and Jean Paul Gaultier, rose.

It is not just about showing off a cologne’s high price tag. Young enthusiasts say cultivating an air of sophistication is what separates the boys from the slightly older boys. Using terminology they absorb online, middle-schoolers at sleepovers are discussing high-end fragrances the way that sommeliers might analyse wine.

The scent Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier has “a really good honey note”, said Luke Benson, a 14-year-old who lives in Orlando, Florida. Tom Ford Noir Extreme, on the other hand, is “a lot spicier and a little bit darker”.

Developing younger customers

Tween hygiene has become much more elaborate than swiping on deodorant before gym class.

Pre-teen girls recently made headlines for seeking out high-end skin creams and serums, sometimes with anti-ageing ingredients that are intended for adults.

Ms Hannah Glover, a middle-school physical fitness teacher in Bluffton, South Carolina, has been shocked by how early the cosmetic products of adulthood have been gaining a foothold with her 11- to 15-year-old students.

Boys in her class take along bottles of Gucci, Dior and Yves Saint Laurent cologne to school and show them off to their classmates, she said, while girls are obsessed with lip products and Sol de Janeiro moisturisers.

“To give an 11-year-old a US$160 bottle of cologne or a US$40 lip gloss, it just blows my mind,” Ms Glover, 27, said. “When I was in middle school, we had Sweet Pea and Cucumber from Bath & Body Works.”

Young cologne customers are trying free samples in stores such as Macy’s, Ulta and Sephora, or siphoning spritzes from parents. Those who can afford it are spending their allowances on cologne or asking for bottles as birthday gifts from relatives.

Logan Ayers, a 14-year-old in Chicago, started putting his bar mitzvah money towards a cologne collection about six months ago. The fragrances boost his self-esteem, he said, especially a nearly US$300 bottle of Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille, which he considers his signature scent.

He does not mind dupes of designer scents, but he is not exactly drawn to the mass-market brands that have captivated previous generations.

“I don’t think I’ve ever smelled Axe,” said Logan, who has a swoop of brown hair and braces.

The fragrance category, which pulled in about US$70 billion in sales in 2022, according to a McKinsey report, is full of designer as well as niche brands competing for the nostrils of ever-younger customers.

While men once stuck to a preferred fragrance for years or even decades, Gen Z customers are more likely to shop around, said Ms Korinne Wolfmeyer, a senior research analyst for Piper Sandler and an author of its teen spending report.

That may make brands even more eager to get on the radar of potential customers as soon as possible. “If that brand can get in early, even develop a little bit of loyalty, it’s easier for them than if they were trying to capture that consumer when they are maybe 20 years old,” Ms Wolfmeyer said.

Men’s fragrance was a relatively unshowy hygienic product until the 1970s, when Paco Rabanne’s Pour Homme helped reframe cologne as a fashion statement, said Mr Paul Austin, founder of a fragrance and branding agency, Austin Advisory Group.

The trendy colognes that followed – Davidoff Cool Water and Drakkar Noir in the 1980s, Acqua di Gio and CK One in the 1990s – were still mostly targeted towards customers in their 20s and 30s, added Mr Austin.

The introduction of Axe body spray in 2002 brought even younger customers into the category, and soon teenagers were spritzing themselves with products from Bath & Body Works and Victoria’s Secret, and a particularly potent scent from Abercrombie & Fitch.

“What we’re seeing now is, I’m sure, in part formed by what Axe did to open the door,” Mr Austin said.

Now, teenage shoppers seem to be developing more expensive tastes.

At Sephora and Ulta, high-end fragrances are swelling in popularity among young shoppers, according to executives for both companies. Ms Quincy Dickerson, fragrance department manager at Nordstrom in Manhattan, said she had never seen so many prepubescent boys swarm the designer fragrance display before 2024.

‘Smellmaxxing’

Asked why middle-schoolers have suddenly developed a nose for Dior, almost every teenager, researcher and merchandising expert offered the same answer – TikTok.

On the platform, influencers offer tips for “smellmaxxing”, or improving one’s musk, and recommend scents for working out, date night and middle school.

Young shoppers are taking cues from influencers like Jeremy Fragrance, a buff German man with 8.8 million followers on the platform. Usually wearing an all-white outfit and a Rolex, he shows off his Ferrari and sniffs his fans to guess which scents they are wearing.

Other fragrance influencers are teenagers themselves.

Tristan Rodriguez, a 15-year-old in Litchfield Park, Arizona, recommends citrus scents when his followers have mathematics tests, and peppery scents when they have dates. He was inspired to get into cologne by Jeremy Fragrance, he said in an interview, and is now known for posting over-the-top, sometimes emotional, responses to certain scents.

Matt Martocci, who lives in Parsippany, New Jersey, asked for a bottle of Dior Sauvage as a Christmas present when he was 12. Now 15, he shares spritzes of the niche cologne Xerjoff Erba Gold with his friends.

“If you smell really good or bad, it can make or break a situation,” Matt said. “Like, talking to a girl, or something.” NYTIMES