Because the chief executive officer of L’Oréal who has overseen record growth at the corporate during exceedingly tough times, Nicolas Hieronimus isn’t any stranger to accolades. But being inducted into the Fragrance Foundation Hall of Fame hits a distinct note.

Perfume is a category that Hieronimus has a deep affinity for and has worked closely on during his profession, particularly during his time as president of L’Oréal Luxe, where he oversaw the event of fragrances that reman bestsellers today in the worldwide top 10 rankings, including Lancôme’s La Vie Est Belle, Giorgio Armani’s Sì, and Yves Saint Laurent’s Black Opium and Libre.

It’s particularly fitting that Hieronimus accepted the award at Alice Tully Hall in Recent York City’s Lincoln Center from Sì ambassador Cate Blanchett, who was nominated for an Academy Award last yr for her role as a conductor within the film “Tár.” Hieronimus is a music aficionado, who makes some extent of attending as many live shows as he can, including, most recently, Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in Paris.

“I’m very enthusiastic about music, and I see a number of similarities between music and fragrance,” said Hieronimus, during an exclusive interview with Beauty Inc before being presented with the dignity. “We speak about notes, accords, composition. There’s a number of commonality, and what makes it great is that just as what differs successful song from a tune that can remain forgotten is that this incredible alchemy between experience and know-how  and science, and, at the identical time, creative flair and the capability to invent something recent with ingredients which are already there.

“Fragrance is a really unique category, and, like music, fragrance creates emotions, and there may be nothing more wonderful than that,” he added.

L’Oréal’s fine-tuned approach to the category is obvious in its results. In 2022, while the worldwide fragrance market’s sales increased 15 percent, L’Oréal saw a 25 percent jump.

Circana reports that prestige fragrance generated $20 billion globally across Europe, North America and Latin America for the 12 months ending in March, with double-digit growth sustaining in all markets aside from China.

For its part, L’Oréal outperformed the overall fragrance market within the U.S., Canada, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Peru and China, and in the primary quarter alone, its fragrance growth rates have outpaced the rates for total growth in Europe, the U.S. and Canada.

Here, Hieronimus shares the strategy behind the success, and the way the group plans to proceed the momentum within the yr ahead.

What does being inducted into the Fragrance Foundation Hall of Fame mean to you?

Nicolas Hieronimus: It’s an incredible honor and I’m truly grateful to the Fragrance Foundation for giving me this award. I’m grateful for me, but more importantly for the teams and the popularity of L’Oréal, because in point of fact, I feel that my role is more just like the conductor of an incredible creative orchestra. Our teams encompass the brand creative people; our olfactory department; our fragrance creation led by Karine Lebret, global vice chairman of scent science and fragrance design; our packaging department —  because fragrance can be about creating objects of desire, almost pieces of art — and, in fact, our external brand partners and the fragrance houses with whom we’re working — IFF, Firmenich, Givaudan, Mane — who’re our biggest partners. They’re all included within the award. It’s great.

Fragrance has played a vital role in your profession trajectory — what’s it in regards to the category that you just like a lot?

N.H.: Beauty all the time has to play on two levels — the rational level, meaning performance, and on the emotional level. Fragrance actually plays on either side.

While you speak about importance of fragrance on my profession — in fact it’s true for wonderful fragrance, but other products as well. After I developed with my teams Garnier Fructis, we selected to have very unique fragrances that were very different from what was in the marketplace, supporting the brand’s claims and positioning.

In beauty basically, fragrance plays that extra role within the emotion provided by the products. It’s fascinating to work on fragrance because there may be a component of alchemy, magic — there are lots of launches annually, but not many successes. I just like the emotional side, but additionally the uncertainty of it. I really like the magic and I really like that it could enhance the performance and make people be ok with themselves.

But you may have to be very humble with fragrance. After all, we have fun our successes, but there are fragrances that don’t work as well. There are a number of intangibles.

During your time heading L’Oreal Luxe, the division launched a variety of blockbusters, which remain bestsellers today — what were the important thing takeaways out of your repeated wins, and what does it take to create a long-term success within the category?

N.H.: The number-one decision and key factor is to bet on quality — the standard of ingredients, the concentration, the naturalness. The standard doesn’t stop on the juice. It includes the packaging. Take La Vie Est Belle from Lancôme. The bottle with a smile was based on an old Lancôme fragrance drawn by the nice Armand Petitjean. For Pochet, it was an achievement to realize that design on an industrial scale.  

Overall, success is about quality and this mix of getting something very unique and inventive, and at the identical time broad enough in its appeal to be a business success. Ultimately, a world leader in fragrance is a few points in market share, so that you don’t have to please everyone, but a fragrance must have a powerful personality that ideally matches with the brand personality.

La Vie is a blissful fragrance within the name, in the colour of the juice, within the juice itself, which embodies the positive positioning of Lancôme. Lancôme is about happiness, and La Vie is the epitome of happiness.

YSL’s Black Opium can be an innovation. It’s one in all the primary coffee accords — that was disruptive and provocative, and let’s imagine the identical about YSL’s Libre or Paradoxe from Prada.

It’s creativity, a little bit of testing to be certain that it pleases at the very least a couple of people and good alignment with the brand culture.

My number-one fear once I’m presented with a project is that this recent juice or fragrance won’t bring anything to the market, that it’s déjà vu, as we are saying in France. After I was presented Black Opium, I loved it because I had never smelled it before and my teams were saying, at the very least some consumers prefer it and find it has an incredible personality. That was the the best equation — recent, different, disruptive, that may find its goal. And I really like coffee personally — I drink 5 or 6 espressos a day.

How do you consider the balance between instinct/gut and analytics/testing within the category?

N.H.: Testing is barely a reassurance. Ultimately, it’s about creativity and trusting the experts, and admittedly, I even have total trust and immense respect for our olfactory team, in addition to for the brand presidents who work on the fragrance brands. Ultimately, it’s about having a vision and desire to create something recent, an inspiration. The testing part is a reassurance that the fragrance will last, not in your skin, but as successful over time. The one thing you could measure just isn’t whether people prefer it or not, but whether or not they wish to wear it an increasing number of. We also check that the fragrance may work in numerous parts of the world. Fragrance tastes are influenced by where you reside and what you smelled in your childhood. It is extremely cultural, so you may have to ascertain that a given fragrance can appeal to American, French and now Chinese consumers.

Fragrance was an impressive performer for the group in 2022 — up 25 percent. Are you able to drill down into a number of the key drivers and whether you see the momentum continuing this yr?

N.H.: During COVID[-19], people discovered the necessity to pamper themselves, to be ok with themselves, and fragrance moved from being about smelling good to feeling good. It is that this addition that led to the explosion of this category, where you saw people going back to fragrance and multiplying the variety of fragrances they wear. The opposite thing that happened is that today people want to precise different facets of their personality through scent, so that they wear a distinct fragrance after they exit on a date, go to a family dinner, to work. Like your clothes — I don’t wear the identical thing to a board meeting that I wear on the weekend. All of that has increased consumption, and we see it continuing in the primary quarter.

How are you seeing fragrance usage evolve in China? Young consumers are helping drive growth there — what’s most resonant to them?

N.H.: It has been growing for some time. The Chinese market is actually accelerating, but still quite small — fragrance is barely 10 percent of the selective market in China when it’s 30 percent at the worldwide level. But it surely is growing fast and the young generation may be very interested in this category. For Gen Z, fragrance has change into a beauty must, which it wasn’t for his or her parents, and so they particularly like premium fragrances, each because they’re premium, but additionally because these collections are a bit more descriptive about olfaction. Take Maison Margiela, which is very talked-about in China. The products are describing memories, and so they are very descriptive about what it smells like — A Lazy Sunday Morning smells of white linen and flowers. For consumers who’re still early of their discovery of the fragrance market, it helps them make a selection. We now have been very successful with the Armani Privé Pivoine Suzhou, since it helps the Chinese consumers understand what they will be smelling. But because the years go by, they’re getting more interested in blockbuster fragrances — less descriptive. Prada’s Paradoxe just entered the market with a number of success.

It’s the start there, which is great. That’s the reason we’ve also taken a small indirect investment in Documents, very appealing to Chinese consumers and really relevant culturally. There’s a cultural dimension in fragrance and, in fact, we include our own vision of fragrance and smells. Documents is super premium, and really taps into scents which are unique and specific to the Chinese culture.

One data point — when you have a look at the penetration of fragrance for Chinese women below 55, it was 47 percent in 2019 and has moved to 54 percent. That is important.

On the WWD Beauty CEO Summit, chief digital and marketing officer Asmita Dubey spoke in regards to the increased level of sophistication on the a part of Chinese consumers around skincare. Are you seeing the identical level of data within the fragrance category?

N.H.: Yes, definitely. The speed at which Chinese consumers are sophisticated and demanding is a positive sign for the long run, since it means they need higher quality, and that’s what we try to supply.

Are you blissful with the portfolio? How are you trying to play within the ultra-luxe area of interest segment?

N.H.: I’m very blissful with it. We now have a fairly essential brand portfolio, and our pledge is to grow all of them. We just made a recent acquisition with Aesop, which is one other option to play in fragrance and scent.

We’re investing in ultra-premium, but we do it more through our big brands — Armani Privé, YSL’s Le Vestiaire collection, Prada’s Infusion and Maison Lancôme and Margiela. We even have Atelier Cologne, which we’re premiumizing for essentially the most sophisticated Chinese consumer. We’re also strong in accessible lifestyle fragrances, that are also essential, with Diesel, Azzaro, Polo Ralph Lauren. The portfolio allows us to cover a broad spectrum and to supply beauty to all.

How are you excited about sustainability vis-à-vis the fragrance category?

N.H.: It is vital that fragrance plays its part in sustainability, particularly with packaging. We now have invested quite a bit in refillable bottles that are lighter in packaging and cheaper for the buyer, which is significant because you could give a motivation beyond sustainability for them to purchase.

To return to the natural side, we’ve to guard the standard of our fragrance and biodiversity and that’s the reason we’ve invested for Lancôme in Grasse the Domaine de la Rose, using regenerative agriculture. We’re producing a number of the Lancôme roses on this Domaine, and it’s each beautiful and sustainable. When we will not manufacture it ourselves, our brands and funds put money into reforestation projects. For instance, Armani is investing in reforestation in Madagascar.

Earlier this yr we reported on YSL’s Scent-Sations brain wave tracker — how do you see the worlds of technology and fragrance intersecting?

N.H.: We now have been pioneering in that domain — we created the YSL Scent-Sation. Working with internal expertise and experts in neuroscience, we designed a scarf that measures emotions once you smell different accords. That’s complementing a questionnaire which allows consumers to seek out the best fragrance for them. That’s an excellent example of providing consumers with support using technology.

How are you excited about the link between fragrance and well-being?

N.H.: One among the drivers of the event of fragrance is it has moved from smelling good to feeling good and we’ve data that demonstrates the facility of fragrance on one’s well-being. There’s a Givaudan study that showed 89 percent of individuals imagine a fragrance or flavor can impact their well-being.

There’s this incredible creativity in fragrance and it is that this category where there may be an ideal mix of intuition, pure creativity and science…That’s the reason I take advantage of the word magic — it’s a really unique category and like music, fragrance creates emotions and there may be nothing more wonderful than that.