EXCLUSIVE: Merit Wants to Be a Fragrance Brand, Too

Merit is staking its claim in a new category.

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The minimalist beauty brand, launched in 2021 by industry veteran Katherine Power — who also cofounded WhoWhatWear and launched mass market skin care brand Versed — is introducing its first fragrance.

Called Retrospect Extrait de Parfum, the $92 “vintage-inspired” scent features notes of vanilla, aldehydes, pear and jasmine and was developed alongside IFF perfumer Fanny Bal, a mentee of master perfumer Dominique Ropion and a nose behind more than 80 fragrances, including Valentino’s newest Anatomy of Dreams collection.

She’s also, as Power put it, “a quintessential Merit woman.”

“ Fragrance was always a category I was interested in,” said the founder, adding that a 2022 customer survey revealed fragrance was the number-one category consumers wanted Merit to enter, with “more than half of respondents putting fragrance as their top choice.”

The survey affirmed demand, too, for Merit’s then-underway first foray beyond color cosmetics with the launch of its Great Skin Instant Glow Serum, which debuted that winter and was joined in August by a moisturizer counterpart.

“We’re very data-driven in the way we think about putting products out into the world,” said Power, adding that no Merit product comprises more than 20 percent of the brand’s sales, which surpassed $100 million in 2023. “First we get conviction around the category to make sure we have a sizable opportunity, then we build trust with the consumer, who we know is buying into the brand of Merit and looking to us to kind of curate her products for her.”

While the brand’s core consumers are women between the ages of 35 and 45, Retrospect, which features a 30 percent fragrance oil concentration, aims to offer “a nuanced fragrance that doesn’t feel trend-driven, or like we were designing into the gourmands or the ouds or whatever’s popular at the moment — we wanted a classic fragrance that could span generations for decades to come,” said Power.

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After two-and-a-half years and more than 100 iterations, the fragrance launches direct-to-consumer and in all Sephora doors on Oct. 22, aiming to “evoke personal memories and nostalgia, while still feeling modern,” via unexpected note pairings of modern musks with powdery aldehydes and “a very youthful pear,” said Power.

Though the founder did not comment on sales expectations for Retrospect, industry sources estimate the fragrance could do around $5 million in first-year sales.

Despite reports earlier this year that Merit hired Goldman Sachs to explore potential deal options, Power, who also joined seed-to-growth venture capital firm Greycroft as partner last year, said the brand is not in a sale process. “All of my businesses work closely with bankers years ahead of going to market; we see them as strategic partners…we’re not on the market, and we’re quite focused on the business.”

Complementing the fragrance’s old-school inspirations, marketing for Retrospect will include scent strips in Vogue and Real Simple print issues, and the brand has teamed with London-based magazine The Gentlewoman to create a limited-edition book about Retrospect and its development.

“We wanted to bring advertising tactics that you haven’t seen in a very long time,” said Power, who tapped Martha Stewart earlier this month to share her take on the brand’s signature “Five Minute Morning” makeup routine while detailing her famed friendship with Snoop Dogg and farm upbringing.

“In targeting the 35- to 45-year-old woman, we also get her mother and we get her daughter,” said Power. “We look at Merit as a routine, and that has been our success.”

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