Five Western European markets, five different leading niche perfume brands. Kilian tops France. Montale leads Italy. Xerjoff ties for first place in both Spain and Germany. Maison Margiela is the most-liked brand in the UK. Data Perfumist, an app that tracks the preferences of more than 3 million perfume users worldwide shows us how fragmented is niche perfume in Europe.
Parfums de Marly is the closest to a pan-European leader: third in France, second in Germany, the UK and Spain but ninth in Italy, its weakest market by a wide margin. Xerjoff is also strong across Western Europe coming first in Spain and Germany and ranking in the lower top ten in France, UK and Italy while Kilian is first in France, third in Germany, fifth in the UK, sixth in Spain but not in the top 10 in Italy.
Italy is the real outlier. Its top four brands, Montale, Giardini di Toscana, Mancera, Orto Parisi barely register anywhere else. Interestingly only Giardini di Toscana and Orto Parisi are Italian while Montale and Mancera are French brands.
When looking at individual perfumes Kilian’s Angels’ Share is France’s most-liked niche fragrance. It ranks second in Germany, third in the UK, ninth in Spain and eighteenth in Italy. Xerjoff’s Erba Pura is the most evenly liked single fragrance on the continent: number one in Spain, fourth in Germany, seventh in Italy, twelfth in the and fourteenth in France. Giardini di Toscana’s Bianco Latte is Italy’s number one and still places in Spain, France and the UK but it doesn’t appear in Germany’s top twenty at all.
Scent preference is where European finally agrees, mostly. Across all five countries, the top three families are always some mixes of woody, floral and oriental, while ambery is fourth everywhere without exception. What changes is their ranking: woody leads in German, Spain and the UK while loral leads in France and oriental is first only in Italy. At the note level, vanilla, musk, bergamot and jasmine occupy the top four spots everywhere, with vanilla beating musk in France, Spain and the UK and musk beating out vanilla in Germany and Italy.
Ultimately Europeans have relatively similar perfume tastes but the niche brands they prefer vary widely.