Bath & Body Works Needs Holiday Shoppers. Do New Scents Draw Them In?

On a Thursday evening just before Christmas, as tourists and the after-work crowd began filling a Bath & Body Works store near Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, a woman approached a table overflowing with products labeled “Perfect in Pink.” She applied some lotion to her hands, sprayed a mist into the air, and called to the man accompanying her to take a sniff. After grabbing several bottles of the “Perfect in Pink” body cream and tucking a pink, bow-shaped makeup bag under her arm, she made her way to the checkout.

This was a small data point for Bath & Body Works’ big holiday strategy.

Each year, Bath & Body Works introduces 250 new fragrances, but it focuses significant efforts on just a few, like “Perfect in Pink,” that it anticipates will drive sales during the holiday season.

The holiday period is crucial for most retailers, but especially for Bath & Body Works, which generates around $7.4 billion annually from lotions, perfumes, and candles. During this time, the company benefits from the gift-giving aspect of the season, with 66 percent of its total net income coming in the final months of the year. Many of its customers visit only during the holidays.https://wordpress.com/

“People come in not because they’ve run out of their scent,” explained Simeon Siegel, a retail analyst at BMO Capital Markets, “but because it’s time for ‘Tis the Season.’ It’s like how people go for a pumpkin spice latte.”

Launched in October, “Perfect in Pink” is a fruity gourmand fragrance with a cherry base note. The scent is available in various products, including three-wick candles, hand creams, glossy lip oils, pocket-sized sanitizers, and a $69.95 eau de parfum in a hot-pink bow-shaped box—29 products in total.

Bath & Body Works hopes “Perfect in Pink” will keep customers coming back even after the holiday season ends, similar to how the fragrance “Champagne Toast,” introduced in 2018, remains a best-seller year-round.

But the holiday season marks its critical debut.

When it comes to scents, preferences are subjective. For a company like Bath & Body Works, the challenge is capturing attention with something new. “It’s an art and a science,” said Kristie Lewis, senior vice president of merchandising.

“We focus on making the new product the star of the show,” Lewis explained. “It’s like: ‘This is your beacon in the store. Come here, try me.’”

The development of “Perfect in Pink” began a year ago. The merchandising team scoured social media, studied fashion trends, and drew inspiration from the zeitgeist. The movie Barbie had elevated pink to new heights, while Tom Ford’s 2018 fragrance Lost Cherry popularized the cherry scent. Meanwhile, cherries were becoming more common on restaurant and bar menus, and TikTok trends were showing off pink ribbons wrapped around unusual items like pickles.

Kristie Lewis had a lightbulb moment during a trip with her team to Copenhagen, Paris, and London last holiday season.

“We walked into a department store and saw a 30-foot tree made entirely of bows in every shade of pink,” she recalled. “That was the inspiration we needed.”

The marketing concept was set—pink, cherry, bows. The next step: creating the fragrance.

The Smell of Creation

Once the concept for a new scent is finalized, Mary Testa Gough takes over. As the associate vice president of product and fragrance development, Gough is the nose behind the new scent’s creation.

In December, Gough walked me through the process at Givaudan’s New York office. The Swiss-based fragrance house has developed scents for brands like Carolina Herrera and Thierry Mugler.

Bath & Body Works works with five fragrance houses, and Givaudan has helped create scents such as “Cucumber Melon,” “Vanilla Bean Noel,” and “Winter Candy Apple.”

For “Perfect in Pink,” Gough and her team were drawn to Givaudan’s “Cherry Yum Yum” scent as a starting point. More refined than the typical cherry ChapStick, this aroma was associated with luxury and gift-giving.

Louise Turner, a perfumer at Givaudan with over 30 years of experience, crafted the formula. Turner explained that she considers how the top, middle, and base notes blend together. Perfume schools, including Givaudan’s five-year program, teach students to instantly recognize over 800 raw materials.

“We really wanted the cherry to integrate into the heart and base notes of the fragrance,” Turner explained. “That’s tricky because fruity notes are usually volatile, top notes.”

While speaking, Turner sprayed the “Perfect in Pink” perfume onto a paper tester to evaluate the scent.

“You can’t talk about it without smelling it,” she said.

Once the formula is finalized, it’s sent to Givaudan’s lab in New York, where a mix of robots and workers blend the ingredients. The lab has a unique scent—one that’s hard to pinpoint, but Gough describes as the “smell of production,” the result of so many fragrances being created simultaneously.

The Bath & Body Works team tests the scent, or “mod,” over a weekend to gauge how well it works on different people and in various forms, from candles to body washes. After 150 different tests, “Perfect in Pink” finally reached its ideal blend of cherry, pink camellia, and whipped almond crème, resulting in 74 ingredients for the eau de parfum.

Creating fragrances is often a tactile process. During the tour, Gough and others gestured with their hands or leaned forward, as if trying to convey the experience of a particular aroma. When discussing gourmand scents—ones so appealing you could almost eat them—Gough mimed the shape of a cherry with her hand as though about to take a bite.

Fragrance for Everyone

The tradition of buying and giving fragrances rose in the late 1800s, coinciding with the popularization of Christmas rituals, such as decorating trees, wrapping gifts, and sending cards, all fueled by new production methods and marketing through magazines and department stores, according to Jessica Murphy, an art historian at the Brooklyn Museum.

Before the late 19th century, perfumes were made from expensive, imported natural ingredients like flowers, spices, and deer musks. The creation of synthetic ingredients, however, made perfume more affordable and accessible.

Bath & Body Works helped bring fragrances into the mainstream when it debuted in 1990. Its widespread presence in American malls introduced shoppers, who were accustomed to simple soap bars, to fruity body washes and sprays.

In naming their products, the merchandising team strives to resonate with a wide audience, often using relatable themes like New Year’s Eve (“Cue the Confetti”) or cozy moments like curling up with a book (“Book Loft”).

“We try to create something for everyone,” said Lewis, noting that their approach contrasts with high-end fragrances, which may seem elusive or aspirational. “Our names are more comforting.”

After narrowing down a list of 20 names, focus groups help choose the final product name. Alternatives to “Perfect in Pink” included “Perfectly Pink,” “Pink,” and “Cherry Pink Fizz.”

While sales for mass-market candles have been flat recently, mass-market fragrances have grown by 15 percent, according to data firm Circana. The prestige fragrance market has also expanded at a similar rate.

In the store near Grand Central Terminal, Lewis observed how customers explored the displays of candles, body lotions, and lip glosses. She watched as shoppers spritzed themselves with “Vanilla Bean Noel” and added “Perfect in Pink” to their baskets. While she didn’t share specific sales data, Lewis noted the strong customer interest in the new fragrance.

Lewis struck up casual conversations with customers, asking what scents they liked, who they were shopping for, and why they thought the recipient would appreciate that particular gift.

One customer, 23-year-old Jessica Facey, had come in to return an item but was drawn to the candle display. After sniffing a few, Lewis suggested she try “Cookie Butter Truffle,” but it was too much. “Caramel and Vanilla” was a better fit.

Though Facey had initially liked “Perfect in Pink,” she hadn’t been tempted to buy it for her home. But a few minutes later, she circled back, took another deep breath, and reconsidered. Maybe it was worth purchasing after all.