The fragrance industry is gaining its own perfumers’ union.
Michael Nordstrand, the New York-based perfumer behind scents including Orange Grove from Troye Sivan’s Tsu Lang Yor and a number of Tom Ford and Jo Malone London scents from the 2010s, is launching an inaugural union for independent perfumers and their counterparts in the fragrance ecosystem called The Perfumers’ Union.
Set to officially launch in September, the organization aims to help establish — and ultimately, standardize — fair practices in terms of how the fragrance industry utilizes, compensates and credits independent perfumers. Membership and involvement will also be open to adjacent professionals including brand founders, suppliers, content creators and more.
“It’s an interesting time to be an independent perfumer, because independent perfumery is growing exponentially, but that’s also why now is the right moment to start having this conversation and say, ‘Can we organize? Can we think about this in a different way?’” said Nordstrand, who founded the independent perfume atelier Mythologist Studio and has obtained multiple fragrance certifications including an International Technical Degree in Fragrance Creation and Sensory Evaluation from the Grasse Institute of Perfumery.
Indie fragrance sales are indeed soaring, growing 46 percent in 2025 versus conglomerate-owned fragrance brands’ 11.4 percent dollar sales growth during the period, data from NIQ shows.
As such, key tenets of the union include that perfumers should be credited for their creations in public contexts — for instance, via brand websites and social media posts; that development fees should become standard practice, ensuring independent perfumers are compensated for time spent on a creation, regardless of outcome, and that the use of AI in perfume creation should be rejected.
“I use the analogy that you would never say, ‘I read this amazing novel called “The Lord of the Rings” by Allen & Unwin,’ who were the original publishers of the book — J.R.R. Tolkien’s name is always on it,” said Nordstrand, adding that he hopes to create via the union a perfumer’s equivalent to the Graphic Artist Guild Handbook, which serves as a frequently updated guide to pricing, licensing, contract negotiation and more for working multimedia artists.
Rite of Way’s Outer Realm eau de parfum, crafted by Nordstrand.
Courtesy of Michael Nordstrand
“I’d love to be able to create some kind of reference point, where if a perfumer is having a conversation with a brand and the brand says it doesn’t want to pay a development fee, there’s a resource the perfumer can point to and say that [it’s standard] for independent perfumers to charge a fee.”
A website detailing the group’s tenets and more is in development to debut by September, and the union can also be found via Instagram at @perfumersunion.
The first Perfumers’ Union community event will be hosted in August at the New York niche fragrance shop Stéle, whose founders Jake Levy and Matt Belanger are part of the union’s advisory committee alongside Pia Long, cofounder of U.K.-based independent perfume lab Olfiction, and Saman Elyass, cofounder of Swedish fragrance expo Polaris Olfactive.
“There’s a lot of good happening in [perfumery], and I would love to grow the good,” said Nordstrand, adding that in addition to supporting independent perfumers, the union’s goal is to more broadly “further perfumery as an art form and mode of expression.”
Fragrance has been beauty’s fastest-growing category for more than four consecutive years, with sales most recently up 16 percent in the mass market and 7 percent in the prestige market during the first quarter of 2026, according to Circana. Earlier this month, industry executives and creatives gathered at the annual Fragrance Foundation Awards to celebrate the category and honor those moving it forward, including perfumer DSM-Firmenich Master Perfumer Honorine Blanc and many more.
Following the Perfumers’ Union’s inaugural event in August, community meetings will be hosted multiple times a year via hybrid and digital formats, to “shape and form the core of the movement and its goals for the future,” said Nordstrand.
