Data from Perfumist, an app tracking perfume preferences of more than 3 million consumers worldwide, shows which were the favourite niche fragrance brands of its users last year. Parfums de Marly leads at an index of 100, well ahead of Creed (74), Maison Francis Kurkdjian (73), Xerjoff (71) and Kilian (67), and the gap is telling.
The ranking maps almost precisely onto commercial momentum. Parfums de Marly surpassed $780m in retail sales in its FY25, up 42%, making it one of the fastest-scaling houses in the history of haute parfumerie. The brand does not advertise in the conventional sense, its growth is built on word-of-mouth, selective distribution and storytelling rooted in the court of Louis XV.
The second trend worth noting is the presence of two Middle Eastern-rooted brands in a top fifteen historically dominated by French and Anglo-Saxon names. Amouage, the Omani house sitting 11th in the ranking, is arguably the more commercially explosive story: global retail sales exceeded $430m in 2025, up 66%, with its business having quadrupled over five years. Kayali, the brand founded by Mona Kattan and steeped in the oud and gourmand traditions of Gulf perfumery, ranks 7th, higher than Byredo, Jo Malone, Mancera and Le Labo. Together they signal a structural shift: Middle Eastern olfactory codes, built around longevity, sillage and layering, are now setting the agenda globally rather than simply serving a regional market.
A third pattern runs quietly through the ranking: of the 15 brands listed, the majority have been acquired by a major group. Creed by L’Oréal (via Kering Beauté), MFK by LVMH, Kilian and Le Labo by Estée Lauder, Byredo and Penhaligon’s by Puig. Consumer desire for these houses has not diminished with corporate ownership, but the window for independent scaling (the path Parfums de Marly is still on) may be narrowing.
What the Perfumist ranking ultimately captures is a market where consumer sophistication is outpacing the traditional luxury hierarchy and where the next dominant house may come from Muscat or Dubai as readily as from Paris.