Big beauty brands make fragrance pop-ups a trend

By

Sarah Ahssen

Translated by
Benjamin Fitzgerald

Published
Jan 3, 2018

Terminal 2 at London Heathrow international airport, the heart of Europe's busiest airport, is currently home to a 20-square-metre Yves Saint Laurent Beauté pop-up store. As reported by FashionNetwork.com earlier this week, the new space is dedicated to just three products: the Black Opium and Y fragrances, and the lip stain, Tatouage Couture.

From virtual tutorials to augmented reality, the new YSL space focuses on the 'customer experience'. It is the latest in a series of big name beauty brand pop-ups with a micro-focus on new products or bestsellers, a trend that skips over increasingly struggling conventional beauty retail formats and their typical overabundance of product.

In November and December, LVMH-owned Bulgari opened a perfume pop-up inside Paris' Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport, in terminal 2.

However, brands aren't just investing in high-earning travel retail venues. They are popping up in city centres too. Running until January 27, L’Oréal (also the owner of 'Yves Saint Laurent Beauté) has launched a 200-metre Paris pop-up store for its La Vie Est Belle, the best-selling fragrance from Lancôme. Launched in 2012, the fragrance is reportedly purchased every five seconds globally. Located at 14 de la rue Royale, this new store takes visitors on a olfactory journey and offers a service for personalising fragrance bottles. 

Back in October, Tiffany & Co. opened a pop-up store showcasing its new fragrance. Inside the space located at 21 rue du Bourg-Tibourg in Paris' Marais district, the New York jeweller offered visitors a fully immersive experience of its signature scent. Dior also created a similar set up in 2016 with a pop-up at 326 rue Saint-Honoré, in Paris' first arrondissement, offering fragrances exclusive to its 'La Collection Privée Christian Dior' collection.

But brands are offering more than just perfume at niche pop-up spaces. More main-stream cosmetics brands such as Nuxe, and more recently, Dove in 2016, have also tried the pop-up store format, offering customers a new experience in the process.