Hello, Fragrant Friend 👋,

last December we quietly said we would return. Today, we finally do. The pause was not empty. It was filled with building New Niche, our fragrance publishing house, and with thinking carefully about what Scently Speaking should remain.

One small change has emerged from that period. Alongside this newsletter, Scently Speaking Lab now exists as a separate space. The Lab is my personal journal, documenting the weekly highs and lows of building a fragrance publisher from the inside. This newsletter stays exactly where it belongs: independent, opinionated, and calm.

Thank you for waiting. Thank you for staying. It feels good to write to you again.

If you want to follow that journey more closely, you can read Scently Speaking LAB here: scentlyspeakinglab (DOT) com 

🗓️ Contents of this Issue

1. Note Worthy: Packaging Revolution, Slow Perfumery, Digital Olfaction

2. Niche Newcomers: Milky Mango Wood, Meant to Be Seen, Fleur Danger

3. Quiz: Launch Count for 2025

4. Scent MythBusters: Perfume trends that have been never come back

Note-Worthy 🔎🌸

#PACKAGINGREVOLUTION: It’s Not About Bottles Anymore. Innovation is shifting away from scent alone. Precision applicators turn perfume from a sprayed aura into an intentional, tactile act. Refillable formats make packaging part of the experience, not waste. Water-based systems question alcohol’s dominance, skin analysis questions subjective testing. The real change isn’t a new ingredient. It’s a redefinition of how perfume meets skin. Packaging is no longer secondary. It shapes the perfume itself.

#SLOWPERFUMERY: The Bifurcation of 2026. Fragrance is splitting in two directions: fast and cheap, or slow and considered. Sampling is questioned, sweetness matures, identity replaces mood. Time returns as a value — in maceration, in storytelling, in restraint. The signature scent fades; wardrobes take its place. This is not decline. It’s a market correcting itself. Less output, more intent. Brands must decide what they are willing to stand for.

#DIGITALOLFACTION: Capital Wants to Smell. Osmo’s $70 million Series B is not about novelty, but acceleration. The funding is meant to scale digital olfaction from experiment to infrastructure: faster formulation, lower costs, broader access. Investors are betting that scent can be modelled, stored and deployed like data. The promise is efficiency and reach, not artistry. Osmo doesn’t replace perfumers; it reorganises power around speed, scale and capital. That shift matters more than the technology itself.

Niche Newcomers 🎨 🌟 

Quiz 🎲 

A brief disclosure.

Scently Speaking runs without ads and without paid placements.
It exists because New Niche exists.

New Niche is the fragrance publishing house we’re building in parallel.
Obtaining one of its perfumes is not merchandise.
It’s how this work stays independent.

Scent MythBusters 🎭️ 

TL;DR

Fragrance trends are cyclical rather than terminal. Styles that fade from view often return when cultural moods shift. The industry’s archives and the revival of heritage houses show that the past continually resurfaces.

Misconception

There is a persistent belief that when a perfume style falls out of fashion it disappears forever. Minimalist skin scents, fruity gourmands or aquatic notes seem to dominate at different times, leading some to conclude that oakmoss chypres or aldehydic florals are dead. The rapid turnover of releases and the relentless chase for novelty reinforce this illusion. But perfume, like fashion and music, operates in cycles. To think otherwise is to ignore the gravitational pull of history.

Reality Check

Fragrance does not move in a straight line. While social media accelerates micro-trends, many brands are now looking backward as much as forward. Recent years have seen a wave of revivals: The 7 Virtues brought back Blackberry Lily when jammy berries returned to favour; Jo Malone reissued Bronze Wood & Leather from its archive; Byredo reframed its 2016 release Rodeo to align with the cowboy aesthetic. Kilian’s Sunkissed Goddess began life under a different name and found wider relevance years later. Maison Crivelli’s Safran Secret originated as an earlier, limited formula. These cases show that perfumes often precede their moment, waiting quietly until culture catches up.

Historical fragrance families follow similar arcs. Chypres emerged in the early twentieth century, resurfaced after the Second World War when society craved assertive green scents, reappeared in the 1980s alongside women entering corporate spaces, and are once again relevant today as consumers seek rich, empowering compositions. Heritage houses mirror this cycle. Centuries-old brands are being revived because authenticity now carries cultural and economic weight. Relaunching an archive scent makes financial sense: the formula exists, the story resonates, and memory does the marketing. Fragrance rewards emotion more than novelty. It speaks to feeling rather than rational need.

Final Judgment

Perfume trends do not disappear. They pause. They wait. Consumer taste shifts with economics, culture and nostalgia, and when conditions align, old styles return, sometimes unchanged, sometimes reinterpreted. The idea that trends never come back ignores both the industry’s archive and the human impulse to revisit what once moved us. In fragrance, as in music or fashion, the past is never finished. It simply waits for the right moment to be heard again.