Nearly a year after fragrance brand Phlur — relaunched by Ben Bennett of The Center alongside mega-influencer Chriselle Lim — was acquired by TSG Consumer Partners, the company is rolling out its most ambitious marketing campaign to date.
To do so, it has introduced Olympic gymnast Sunisa (Suni) Lee as its first-ever celebrity ambassador. Lee is a noted beauty enthusiast. She was the face of Tatcha’s campaign for its Dewy Milk Moisturizer last June and has previously served as a global brand ambassador for KISS nails, specifically its Salon X-tend LED Soft Gel System. She also frequently posts about beauty favorites on her social media accounts, where she has 3.5 million Instagram followers and 3.8 million TikTok followers.
In 2022, Phlur re-launched under The Center’s ownership with a new look and a single scent, Missing Person, which sold out three times after going viral on social media. At the time, it sold over $1 million worth of Missing Person in one day, CMO Erica Dunivan shared.
Since then, Phlur has pumped out a steady stream of new launches, with scents featuring buzzy notes like cherry, honey, matcha and more. It has also expanded via a robust body spray collection, through which it can both attract younger shoppers and encourage scent layering, a pivotal piece of fragrance shopping — and marketing — today.
But for its first-ever celebrity-fronted campaign, which is launching alongside a New York City pop-up running from June 5 to June 6, the company chose to focus on its three best-selling scents: Missing Person, Father Figure and Vanilla Skin. The campaign featuring Lee is called “Icons with an Icon.” Each of the three fragrances occupies a significant place in the Phlur universe, particularly the first two, which Lim launched alongside personal narratives about her separation and subsequent divorce.
With Missing Person, Dunivan said, Lim shared “a very vulnerable story of this feeling of longing that she was trying to bottle.” That narrative resonated because it offered something different from the typical fragrance marketing playbook, prompting consumers to reflect on and share their own experiences of longing — whether for “a best friend, a grandmother or even a past version of themselves.” Father Figure launched at the time of Lim’s divorce and spoke to “this need to be both mother and father figure, and that duality of the masculine and the feminine,” Dunivan said, while Vanilla Skin “really comes from the universal truth of [wanting to] feel desired, and to feel confident.” Vanilla Skin sold out six times throughout 2024 (the year it launched) and 2025, and nearly six in 10 Phlur DTC customers have bought Vanilla Skin. These three hero SKUs, together, represent 40% of Phlur’s sales.
“We wanted to [go back to the] foundation of why people fell in love with Phlur. We’ve had really strong newness, and we’ve had exciting launches, but we wanted to bring it back to these three iconic fragrances that started it all and give an opportunity to tell that story in a bigger way,” Dunivan said, noting that, at the pop-up, each of the brand’s best-selling scents will come to life in its own room.
By spotlighting these three hero fragrances, the brand aims not only to reinforce awareness of its most iconic scents but also to promote the concept of fragrance wardrobing — the idea that people are too multifaceted to be defined by a single signature scent. After all, different fragrances may match different parts of ourselves and our lives. Lee was introduced to Phlur via Father Figure, by her coach, so that scent carries a strong memory for her, the Gold Medalist told Glossy — but she also likes it for a power moment. “[I wear Father Figure when I want to feel] like a boss lady, when I’m stepping up to do an interview, or when I am [giving a] speech. … But Missing Person is a scent I would wear on a chill night with my girls — it feels so like nostalgic and cozy. Vanilla Skin would be the one I spray all over that makes me feel the most confident,” Lee said.
On set for the campaign, Lee was joined by Lim for “interview moments,” Dunivan said, noting that “the chemistry [between Lee and Lim] was so strong, you could really feel the energy in the room.” Lee confirmed this, noting that Lim made her feel comfortable, allowing her to speak more openly [in the campaign assets] than she usually does. “[In] the video interviews, it got pretty vulnerable — I talked a lot about growing up, and all the different relationships I’ve had with everyone else and myself, really stepping up to the plate, and embracing and finding myself,” she said.
When asked if she envisions Lim will always be a part of Phlur’s larger campaigns, Dunivan noted that the brand has “talked a lot about the importance of being able to pass the mic to our community.” Ultimately, she said, “I don’t know that she’ll always need to be in the room, but she’ll always be a crucial part of those stories — sometimes her voice will be the loudest, but sometimes, our community’s voice, or somebody else’s voice will be the loudest based on whoever the story is most authentic to.”
