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In Latin America, Fragrance Trends Affecting Several Beauty Categories

Along with incomes, social aspirations are growing in Latin America. Consumers are becoming more concerned about their image. And, of course, they want that image to be at its best according to their financial resources. Thus, demand for sophisticated products is increasing. In order to stop consumers from trading up and switching brands, manufacturers of hair care and deodorants are reformulating or expanding their product ranges to incorporate ‘luxury-feel’ fragrances. With       haircare and deodorants becoming the main beneficiaries of consumption, fragrance manufacturers should increasingly focus on these customers and boost demand by offering low-cost complex scent blends.

In Latin America,   the strategy of adding fragrance to improve value perception  is particularly notable in hair care products, which suffer from weak consumer loyalty. Products with concentrated or extra fragrance are finding space. But, in addition, as exposure to imported fine fragrances is growing, hair care manufacturers are responding to the changing sensibilities of consumers by migrating toward more complex scent blends. Health and wellness and fine fragrances are the main areas being explored to increase the ‘sophistication feeling’ among consumers.

  The health and wellness trend in hair care is largely focused on the scents of botanicals, plant-based ingredients and their functions. The scents mirror and enhance the properties of the extracts by producing a sensory effect on consumers. Essences of antioxidant superfruits with a high vitamin content, such as acerola or açaí, are attractive as consumers readily associate them with health. Moreover, from the scents of fresh herbs, hair care products are moving toward functional aromatic herbs such as basil and rosemary, which are associated with astringency and shine. The fine scents trend inspired by premium fragrances is bringing oriental spices such as ginger and amber and sophisticated citrus notes such as bergamot and verbena to Latin American hair care.

Consequently, as fragrances with character are approved by a large number of consumers and hair care is the largest growing category in beauty and personal care, consumption of fragrances in hair care in Latin America is expected to overtake that in bath and shower shortly after 2017.

The increased price accessibility of intensely fragranced body sprays, as well as greater line extensions, has made them an attractive and affordable substitute for fragrances among lower-income consumers. Because, even though the purchasing power of Latin Americans is increasing, annual disposable income per household is still three and a half times lower than in developed countries.

So how will this affect the deodorant category performance in Latin America moving forward? The growing popularity of deodorants with a high fragrance content is particularly apparent among men as men’s deodorants contain on average more fragrance and less antiperspirant than in the wider deodorants category (men’s, women’s and unisex). The strategy of deodorant manufacturers to involve famous perfumers in the development of their products is proving particularly fruitful in men’s grooming. Indeed, mass fragrance manufacturers are trying to counter it by lowering their unit prices,Recently, several major deodorant companies have launched lines of body splashes, described as refreshing fragrances, in North and Latin America. The introduction of this new kind of product will blur even further the lines between deodorants and mass fragrances and sustain the use of growing volumes of sophisticated scents.