Bustle's 2025 Beauty Icon Awards: The Fragrance Innovators

A decade ago, fragrance was dominated by a handful of major houses sold in department stores. Most women pledged loyalty to a single signature scent, and there was a clear divide between what you got in a $30 bottle versus one that cost $150.

Flash forward to today, and the landscape couldn’t look more different. For starters, thanks to accessible education and unfiltered reviews, social media has democratized the industry. Niche names now rival (and often replace) the big players, formulas have gotten cleaner and more sustainable, and new formats — lotions, solids, and more — share shelf space with traditional spritzes and sprays.

Functional fragrances have proved that scent can shift your mood as much as it changes your odor; storytelling and sensory experience now matter as much as the notes themselves; and gourmand, boozy, and food-inspired blends stand shoulder-to-shoulder with timeless woods and florals.

All of which is to say: there’s never been a more exciting — or more innovative — moment in perfume. Here are the brains (and the noses) leading the charge, each earning a spot in Bustle’s 2025 Beauty Icon Awards.

The Biotech Whiz: Jasmina Aganovic

Certain floral notes — like rose, jasmine, and lavender — are so popular in fragrance, you can recognize them with one sniff. When Jasmina Agnovic launched Future Society, she wanted to introduce the world to aromas they’d never smelled before, and turned to extinct plants to make it happen. Using biotechnology and DNA sequencing that feels straight out of a Jurassic Park film, Agnovic and her team formulate with florals that no longer exist in the natural world.

“We’ve started to see a sea of sameness in beauty, and I believe that’s because we’ve been working with the same tools for a really long time,” she previously told Bustle. “Biology presents new tools that we can work with, and therefore new stories, formulas, and product experiences.”

The Sensory Specialist: Joyce Kim

Scent and emotion are closely linked, and considering Rare Beauty’s focus on mental well-being, Selena Gomez wanted the brand’s first fragrance to feel personal — something that would hold scent memory for the wearer’s favorite moments. Formulator Joyce Kim (the brain behind Rare’s products) partnered with perfumer Jérôme Epinette to bring it to life.

“Fragrance felt like the next natural extension of our mission: not just helping people look good but helping them feel good,” Kim tells Bustle. “We thought deeply about how scent plays into someone’s memories and day-to-day routine. We hope it gives people a tool to express their mood in a sensory, lasting way.”

In addition to nailing the scent, it was a priority to make the packaging easy to use for those with limited dexterity, who often struggle with standard perfume pumps. “The accessible design helps people who are often left out of the beauty conversation feel included,” says Kim.

The Scent Storyteller: David Seth Moltz

David Seth Moltz — the nose behind D.S. and Durga — has an entirely different approach to scent than the perfumers who came before him. He and his wife founded the brand in 2008 and were among the first in the industry to use fragrance to tell a story.

Each perfume is tied to a specific place and moment in time, like Debaser, which is meant to evoke feelings of “the wild shrill of Indie rock coming through the college radio station in hot August heat,” or Burning Barbershop, an aroma inspired by the smell of a 1981 barbershop fire. Considering scent is the sense most closely linked to memory and emotion, Moltz’s creations do more than just make you smell good — they make you feel something in the process.

The Category Disruptor: Andrea Lisbona

It’s incredible to think that Andrea Lisbona launched Touchland a full two years before the COVID-19 pandemic made hand sanitizer beauty’s most coveted (and necessary) product. The brand began in 2018 with colorful sanitizer sprays infused with mood-boosting scents and skin-friendly ingredients that made you actually want to use them — a stark contrast to the sticky, drying, alcohol-based products that had previously defined the category.

Since then, she and her team have continued to innovate, partnering with Disney and Hello Kitty and expanding into skin and hair mists that reimagine their perfume-worthy formulas as everyday accessories. This year, Touchland was acquired for $880 million and named one of Time’s most influential companies, solidifying its status as both a beauty staple and a cultural phenomenon.

The #Perfumetok Trendsetter: Emma D’arcy

It’s undeniable that PerfumeTok has changed the fragrance industry, and Emma D’Arcy — otherwise known as @perfumerism — is one of the creators leading the charge. Her authoritative yet approachable content helps shoppers navigate the vast fragrance world with informative videos about notes, scent association, and nose blindness, along with plenty of product reviews. D’Arcy doesn’t just report on trends — she creates them. Case in point? She’s credited with sparking the milky perfumes trend.

Now, D’Arcy is making the leap from reviewer to creator. On Sept. 2, she’ll launch her debut fragrance in partnership with Commodity: a milky scent (of course) called Milk Orchid.

The Scent Demystifier: Emelia O’Toole

If you’ve ever wondered what Travis Kelce (or any celebrity, really) smells like, you’ll want to find your way over to Emelia O’Toole’s TikTok page. Known to her 400,000 followers as @professorperfume, she makes fragrance education feel fun, accessible, and unpretentious. The creator dedicates the same thoughtful attention to a new drugstore body wash as she does to the latest niche perfume launch, and she explains scents in plain language — even if that means calling something out as smelling like Sour Patch Kids or “Claire’s in the early 2000s.”

In a category that can often feel gatekept or overwhelming, O’Toole positions herself as a guide who makes fragrance feel like it’s for everyone.

The Mood-Boosting Bodycare Maker: Maekaeda Gibbons

With Brown Sugar Babe, Maekaeda Gibbons set out to elevate those fleeting moments of “me time” through aromatherapy-powered body care. Seven years after crafting formulas in her kitchen, the brand is on track to bring in $20 million in revenue with its line of body and perfume oils.

Many of the line’s scents are inspired by high-end perfumes — like Byredo’s Mojave Ghost and Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry — but for a fraction of the cost. That approach, paired with savvy storytelling, has helped the brand go viral on TikTok multiple times and foster a fiercely loyal community that’s often tapped for input on new launches. Gibbons also founded the Black Fragrance Association, offering education, scholarships, and grants to amplify Black voices historically left out of the fragrance conversation.

The Home Fragrance Innovator: Mara Domski

In 2018, Pura redefined home scenting with the launch of its chic, app-controlled diffuser that lets you swap between scents, adjust intensity, and schedule fragrance right from your phone. A year later, industry veteran Mara Domski joined as Pura’s chief fragrance experience officer, bringing more than 25 years of expertise to the brand’s cutting-edge technology and sustainable formulations.

Under her leadership, Pura regularly partners with celebrated names like NEST New York, LAFCO, and Anthropologie, as well as cultural institutions like The Met and Pantone, to design immersive olfactory journeys through scents inspired by color, sound, texture, light, and emotion — elevating everyday moments at the push of a button.

The Perfumer On A Mission Of Empowerment: Barb Stegemann

Barb Stegemann sees scent as a vehicle for peace and female empowerment. In 2009, she launched fragrance brand 7 Virtues, sourcing orange blossom and rose essential oils from farmers in Afghanistan as an alternative to the poppy trade — which has historically funded violence in the region. Since then, she’s expanded globally, harvesting ingredients from communities around the world recovering from conflict. As Stegemann herself puts it: “My real job is to make rebuilding sexier than destruction. I do this through perfume.” The brand’s scent lineup runs the gamut from juicy, fruity florals (like Lotus Pear) to elevated, woodsy gourmands (like Vanilla Woods), and proves that doing good can smell downright irresistible.