How US tariffs are driving up perfume prices, disrupting supply chains and forcing fragrance brands to make painful decisions
By Ali Bokhari
They huff and puff and blow apart the best-laid plans of perfume companies selling in the United States, resulting in higher prices for fragrance fans across America. Yes, I’m talking about the US tariffs. There’s nothing theoretical about them, and they’re already biting hard.
What tariffs really mean
Starting in early 2025, the US government expanded the scope and classification of certain imports, including luxury goods like fragrances and even bottle components, under the banner of economic fairness, trade leverage or good old-fashioned protectionism.
Tariffs, for anyone who snoozed through high school econ (I know I did!), are taxes slapped on imported goods by the government. In theory, they’re supposed to protect domestic industries or act as bargaining chips in trade disputes. In practice? At least in the short- and medium-term, they’re a financial body slam.
Look, having grown up in a small town in the American Midwest that suffered mightily when its factories closed up and moved away, I would love nothing more than to see American businesses do well domestically, but the way the tariffs are being done is broadly counter-productive. It hits especially hard for industries in the beauty space, like fragrance which depend almost entirely on delicate and long-established global supply chains. These costs land long before a bottle hits a shelf. New chains cannot easily replace old ones, especially with complex products like fragrances that often require ingredients from far-flung locations around the world with no American alternative.
US Customs doesn’t care how beautiful the juice is or how lovingly crafted the cap—if it crosses a US border, it is likely to get taxed, and heavily at that. Fragrances, especially those with often imported ingredients like jasmine, rose, patchouli and benzoin are already seeing price hikes, and both international and domestic perfume makers relying on these materials are feeling the pinch.
What makes it worse? The US tariffs have been incredibly erratic. One day China and Vietnam are hit with 50 percent tariffs. A week later, China’s rate jumps to 145 percent, rocking global markets and wiping out billions from American 401(k)s heavily dependent upon tech stocks that until that point were seemingly on a relentless upward trajectory. Then suddenly, rates drop to 30 percent for 90 days. There is no explanation for what is happening and no plan that anyone can see. It's just chaos, the bane of businesses requiring stability and a clear path forward.
Without any reasoning shared by the government or a roadmap for how countries can avoid these tariffs—businesses of all sizes are left scrambling, trying to guess how much they’ll pay next quarter just to get their supplies in the door. And as we will see, fragrance companies are particularly vulnerable.
A CEO spells it out
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| Alex Wiltschko, CEO and founder of Osmo |
regularly restocked, that go into tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of customer SKUs, and these ingredients can cross multiple borders before arriving in customers' hands,” said Alex Wiltschko, CEO and founder of fragrance research company Osmo, in an April 8 article in Glossy.
French fragrance manufacturer Interparfums, which manages brands like Coach, Jimmy Choo, Montblanc, and Lacoste, is raising US prices by 6 to 7 percent starting August 1 due to 10 percent US tariffs on imported goods. The US makes up 38 percent of Interparfums’ revenue, their single largest market. The company says it can weather the storm, but those unexpected and extra costs could stretch well into 2025, totaling millions of euros.
Fragrance fans may hate to hear the r-word, but reformulation is the quiet storm brewing on the horizon. When companies are squeezed, they don’t just eat the cost, they are forced to get creative. That can mean swapping premium ingredients for cheaper alternatives. Perfume is a business, after all. If it stops making money, reformulation is always an option. This means fragrances that can be thinner, perform worse and just plain smell different than they once did.
For indie creators, the situation is even worse. These are the people who sparked the modern niche fragrance boom—artists, risk-takers, and visionaries. But now they’re stuck. Raise prices and risk losing customers or cut corners and risk losing your identity. Some are even looking into moving production overseas just to sidestep US entry taxes, but that comes with a whole new set of risks.
Tariffs hit an American fragrance company
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| George Zaharoff, owner of Zaharoff Fragrances |
American businesses. “I have tried everything in my power so I wouldn’t write this message, but there’s nothing more I can do,” he wrote on May 6 to members of the ZED Lounge, a Facebook group for fans of his brand.
Having spoken with Zaharoff personally, I’ve seen how much care he puts into every detail of his fragrances. Customers don’t just love his scents—they rave about the man behind them. So, when Zaharoff says he’s out of options, trust me: it’s not marketing spin. It’s a mayday.
“There’s one very special company that makes metal caps and plates [for Zaharoff bottles], each made individually by hand using a method practiced for centuries involving applying colored enamel paints to the metal surface of our plates using a delicate brush,” he explained. “When we were about to ship the components to us here in the States, I was hit with an additional 145 percent duty in the low six figures.”
Yes, you read that right: 145 percent. Imagine budgeting for a shipment and then getting slapped with more than double the expected cost, all because someone in a Washington back office reclassified your perfume cap as a “decorative metal item of significant import value”. Next week, it could be something else entirely. It is not clear exactly who is calling the shots or what their reasoning is in levying tariffs.
The blow wasn’t just financial. Zaharoff said the surprise tariff threw off production for both existing and upcoming releases, jeopardizing Mother’s Day deliveries. “It was heartbreaking for me,” he confided.
"If the goods are on their way to me and then the tariff changes higher, I have to pay that," said Zaharoff on May 20 in response to a request for an update. "If it goes away, then I get the credit ... [but] only before it clears through customs."
Zaharoff's brand, like millions of other small companies, is facing a major reckoning, but it has a lot going for it, including loyal fans and strong momentum from years of careful planning. Not everyone is so lucky, even if they have done their homework to date, and plenty of American companies are watching their delicate supply chains unravel.
To my mind, the tarrifs are a lot like getting your luggage tossed around by airport security; only instead of a busted zipper, you’re left with a six-figure bill. Who do you complain to when it happens? Where do you go for help? And what's the alternative when foreign supplies are needed and there is no American alternative at hand?
What all this means for you and me
Tariffs aren’t just supplier markups. They’re sudden, stiff and non-negotiable. Imagine yourself getting blindsided with a bill you didn’t know was coming, right at the border. Economists have long warned that tariffs are a blunt and dangerous financial instrument, and for good reason. Now tariffs have made a major and unexpected comeback, a sucker punch that knocks the wind out of you the next time you go to buy your favorite fragrance that was impacted.
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| Qazi Faisal, Perfume Sales Associate |
percent more now than we did before,” said Qazi Faisal, a perfume sales associate at Chicago Fragrances, which has two shops at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. “So, we’ve also been forced to raise fragrance retail prices by 25 percent.”
I asked Faisal if his suppliers, clients, or retail partners had mentioned the tariffs to him.
“Yes,” he said. “All of them.”
Customers are hesitant now. They’re not complaining about the quality of the fragrance—in fact it’s not about the juice at all. When prices jump 25 percent overnight, especially with luxury goods like fragrances, people notice. Faisal explained that he saw fewer customers buying and deciding to wait for things to settle.
In an industry driven by impulse and emotion, hesitation is poison, but Faisal said that while the situation was cloudy, he could see a silver lining.
"We are actually making more money on the weekends. In department stores the average cost of a men's fragrance is $180 and well above $220 for women. In our stores the average prices of designer fragrances, for example with Valentino, is $120-140," he explained.
"People do not want to pay crazy amounts like in the department stores, so because of how tariffs are impacting the department stores while we are seeing less business on weekdays, we are actually seeing more business on weekends."
Holding our breath
The next time you see a price hike on your favorite fragrance or find that a beloved bottle is suddenly and unexpectedly out of stock with no end in sight, remember all that huffing and puffing might not be the brand’s fault: Uncle Sam could be breathing down their neck, forcing them to pay up.
Tariffs aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet or political talking points. They’re real, messy and landing squarely in the middle of an industry built on beauty, precision and passion. For fragrance lovers, the scent of the times isn’t rose or oud, it’s uncertainty.
Until there's a clear path forward to get us out of this mess, we'll all just be holding our collective breath.
