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Leveraging established products is easier. Lauder has just released its second limited-edition scent, Honeysuckle Splash, in a bottle that has the same shape as the company's 1953 Youth Dew. Lauder's first limited-edition fragrance release was A Garden of Pleasures--three scents that highlighted different notes from the perfume Pleasures, launched in 1995. Says Khoury: "We saw double-digit increases in sales of the core Pleasures fragrance while A Garden of Pleasures was on counter." Dior positioned Lily, its 1999 limited-edition release, as a modern interpretation of the 1956 classic Diorissimo. Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Lancome have all put limited-edition scents into the marketplace. Escada has launched its eighth annual limited-edition scent, called Lily Chic.
Despite the increased competition, the heady saturation has its pluses. Fragrance houses have found that pitching to a more aware marketplace means they can push such concepts as "fragrance layering," which means marketing scented body lotions, perfumed hair gels and other bath-line products as well as perfumes. At LVMH, such products now account for about 15% of all fragrance-line sales. But a more discriminating customer may also demand more unusual products. "We're attracting people who are fed up with buying just because they've been told to buy," says Anne Schneider, managing director in Britain of French niche house L'Artisan Parfumeur, whose scents include Mure et Musc and Mimosa pour Moi.
Even in a growing bouquet of scents, the direct impact of a successful fragrance on a house's bottom line can be significant. LVMH reports that in the last quarter of 1999 alone, J'Adore, a Dior perfume released in September, generated $53 million in European sales. The larger houses, which frequently sell cosmetics and skin-care lines as well as perfumes, especially value fragrances for their ability to entice shoppers to other products in the franchise. "When you can bring a customer to the counter because of a scent," says Lauder's Khoury, "she's much more open to considering treatment or makeup products." All the more reason for the perfume counter to grow even more crowded.