Yazhini ManimudiThe end of a year and the beginning of a new one is a time ripe for nostalgia. Looking back at 2025’s perfumes, we know we have been wearing a lot of sweet gourmands. All brands have fallen in line with the trend from designer and niche brands to smaller local brands. But as the market grows tired of the sweetest sweet perfumes, analysts have predicted a shift from the gourmands that feel like entering a bakery to other kinds of gourmands.
The focus has been on savory gourmands– salt, rice, fig, nuts, carrot, etc. I think fruity perfumes should have a bigger place in this conversation about the shift in gourmands. As we look at some popular upcoming releases of 2026, there’s quite the number of fruity perfumes. It makes sense why. Rather than an abrupt change from gourmands, it feels like a transitional phase for the sweetness to come from a more natural feeling source rather than baked goods.
Berry Perfumes Coming Out in 2026
Yves Saint Laurent Libre Berry Crush
We just had a look at YSL’s new Libre flanker, and the fruit is right in the name. It’s going to be a raspberry forward fragrance, the juice dyed red to reflect it. The coconut accord feels like a bridge to the more popular gourmand of the day, the fruit making the raspberry soft and creamy.
Jean Paul Gaultier Scandal Elixir
Jean Paul Gaultier is set to release two new perfumes in the Scandal line, the Scandal Elixir for women and Scandal Pour Homme Elixir for men. The women’s will be a fruity chypre that uses blackberry and men’s will be a fruity amber with the mysterious black cherry. The choice of fruits is interesting, too.
Blackberry (which are apparently not technically berries, but aggregate fruits) usually brings an exciting tanginess and makes chypre perfumes so much more interesting, especially in collaborating with a note like patchouli.
Black cherry (a stone fruit, not a berry, though some consider it one) has a rich fruity character, not the sweetest but still sweet with a dark depth to it. Usually added for sensuality in perfumes, it is right for a bottle marketed as an elixir.
Paco Rabanne Fame in Love & Phantom in Red
The details we have for the upcoming red versions of Paco Rabanne’s popular women’s and men’s collections Fame and Phantom is scant so far. But the promotional pictures clue us in to fruity additions to the formula.
Paco Rabanne Fame in Love uses strawberry and what looks like redcurrant (I checked and they are berries, the first image on the berries wikipedia entry) in the promotional material. They don’t address the redcurrant, but describe the strawberry as turning “the intense woody fruity floral scent into a new, playful love language for the ultimate Parisian It-girl”.
Paco Rabanne Phantom in Red doesn’t indicate with words, at least, any fruity elements to the perfume, sticking to strictly masculine imagery of woods and lavender. But a promotional image prominently features a martini glass brimming with maraschino cherries– sweetened, preserved cherries used as garnishes on baked goods and cocktails. I’m hoping for a boozy, syrupy sweet, cherry accord at least in the opening if not throughout the hours of wearing the perfume.
Mugler Alien Pulp
The upcoming Mugler Alien Pulp flanker features raspberry at the top, Pulp indicating a rich juiciness blending with the signature jasmine of the Alien line. It’s by no means the first alien with a fruity touch (Hypersense had pear, Sunessence Edition Limitee 2011 Or d’Ambre had kiwi, and many others feature citrus fruits) but it is the first to have such a prominent fruity presence.
Fruity Perfumes Coming Out in 2026
Valentino Donna Born in Roma Purple Melancholia
The women’s perfume set to be added to the Valentino Donna Born in Roma collection is not a berry fragrance, but it is fruity with a plum opening. Plum has a rather interesting smell, with tangy, tarty nuances contrasting its honeyed sweetness. It is a synthetic note, often coming with floral and even liquor-like characteristics.
Giorgio Armani My Way Sunny Vanilla
My Way goes tropical for this flanker, using pineapple to bring a bright sense of sunshine and joy to the line’s signature white florals. Underneath is creamy vanilla bringing it all together. This is not the first fruity My Way, not even the first tropical fruity one. That was My Way Ylang with its mango and coconut and the banana (and weirdly, banana is a berry) nuances of ylang ylang.
Fun fact: pineapple ovaries develop into berries, which later come together to form what is called a multiple fruity. The world of berries is stranger than I thought.
Eau de Parfum Fruitée, A New Category?
Both YSL Libre Berry Crush and Mugler Alien Pulp use the term ‘Eau de Parfum Fruitée’ to describe the concentration. The name is new to me, but I was able to find another Eau de Parfum Fruitée– Mugler Angel Nova Eau de Parfum Fruitée all the way back in 2020. It shows an attempt to bring fruit notes to the forefront, and indicate that a fragrance is bright and juicy.
We Saw it Coming
Nothing revolutionary about fruity fragrances. We’ve had it before. Britney Fantasy was a fruity floral with a delicious cupcake – white chocolate heart. That was a whole 20 years ago. But 2025 also had prominent fruity perfumes:
- Fig in Guerlain Vétiver Fauve
- Peach in Guerlain Pêche Mirage
- Ajwa Date in Nishane A Date with Oud
- Peach and raspberry in Versace Crystal Emerald
- Jammy blackberry in Dior Miss Dior Essence
- Raspberry in Chanel Chance Eau Splendide
Fruity-forward fragrances were in the fray in 2025, but might actually dominate the 2026 market. Stay turned on Perfume Mag to find out if our prediction is true.
Yazhini Manimudi
