Launching a Hair Perfume: Insights from Sephora

Growing 65% faster than perfume and haircare categories hair perfume is one of the most dynamic beauty segments sustained by:

• Increasing demand for personal care and grooming
• A post-pandemic boom in fragrances with Gen Z treating fragrances as part of their daily grooming routine and layering different scents as part of personal expression
• Multifunctionality, with dual benefits of scent and hair health thanks to new formulations
• Accessibility with most hair perfume being more affordable than traditional perfume

Yet, hair perfume offer remains very fragmented with no clear leader in the category.

To help you better understand this new market opportunity we analysed the hair product assortment of Sephora and customers reviews. All was collected from Sephora France website in January 2025.

Key Analytics

Product Assortment and Price Positioning

Demographic of Customers

• A category appealing to Gen Alpha, Gen Z and Millenials: 46% of reviewers are under 24 years old and 76% are under 34 years old. Estimated average age of reviewers is 29 years old
• Rare Beauty (Gen Z/Millenials) and Sol de Janeiro (Gen Alpha) appear to have the younger audience while Gisou and Rituals have more older Millenials and Gen Y as customers
• 99%+ of reviewers are female

Hair Perfume Customer Reviews Analysis

Takeaways from Customer Reviews

• Price: Customers tend to like the scent of existing products. Yet, scent duration is disappointing for all brands except Dior
• Effects on Hair: If customers can see some benefits to their hair they complain of a) potential dryness notably due to alcohol content (100% of products sold on Sephora website list alcohol as an ingredient) and b) greasy/oily effect
• Price: Customers tend to find products expensive given container size and/or products effectiveness (scent duration and benefits)
• Bottom line for your brand: Get inspiration from existing scent profiles. Develop a formula with a) long lasting scent, b) with hair friendly ingredients that do not affect the aspect of the hair adversely and c) can even improve hair health

Interested in knowing more? Get in touch with us at contact@playbookofbeauty.com