Marketing Perfumes by the Batch

The thing about having a signature scent is that you buy your favorite one, and the bottle can last years. Brands love loyalty—but not that you purchase their product only once or twice a presidential term. For years they’ve solved this problem by flanking “pillar” perfumes with formulas reworked for intensity or seasonality: Calvin Klein’s Eternity has been spun off into Eternity Summer, Eternity Now, and Eternity Aqua for Her.

Now perfumers are dropping multiple bottles at once, pushing a concept called scent “wardrobing.” The hope: Customers will mix colognes to create a more distinctive trademark, much like you’d mix pieces of clothing to form a one-of-a-kind ensemble. And by “customers,” we mean millennials, who “like to change their fragrances to suit particular moods and occasions,” says Elizabeth Musmanno, president of the Fragrance Foundation.