Fragrance has emerged as a particular loser within the beauty category :: Now Smell This

Jean Madar, the chief executive and chairman of global fragrance firm Interparfums, admits that he hadn’t thought much about freight and duty — until this year, when his company began having meetings on them weekly.

While US tariffs have impacted products from all categories, fragrance has emerged as a particular loser within the beauty category. “We are in an industry where a lot of components are coming from different places in the world,” Madar told The Business of Beauty, citing components like glass caps, pumps and cartons, or even finished goods. Though tariffs have been notoriously volatile — with the US president utilising fluctuating rates and reciprocal charges as political weapons — Madar’s team has determined “basically everything” that the brand receives from abroad is now taxed at a rate of 15 percent. Before Aug. 1, when EU-America tariffs came into effect, that number was zero.

— Read more in How Tariffs Are Reshaping the Fragrance Boom at Business of Fashion.