A buyer at a major retailer recently told 3B International CEO Brad Horowitz that her team kept working with the same cast of companies and was "getting stale and tired." Would he come see them? Horowitz agreed, and he led with design, which he said is the company's largest department. 3B International designs, develops, and delivers fragrance, home fragrance, and bath & body items for the retailers that want a signature scent of their own.
The exchange points to a shift in how retailers think about scent. For retailers, Horowitz explained, fragrance is no longer just about adding another product category. Better margins, more creative control, and faster launches are inspiring retailers to build their own fragrance brands. New Jersey-based 3B International has created retailer-exclusive and private-label lines for some of the world’s largest retailers, including Walmart and TJ Maxx, as well as subscription services like IPSY. The company also produces personal fragrance under license for BCBG, and home fragrance under license for Nautica and Juicy Couture.
Shoppers are spending more on fragrance in two ways. In the first half of 2026, US prestige fragrance sales rose 6% even though unit sales held flat, according to Circana data. The gain came from price: Average prices rose 5% as shoppers traded up to richer formulas such as eau de parfum and perfume. At mass retail, the story was volume. Fragrance was the fastest-growing beauty category there, with sales up 15% and units up 7%.
The climb is global. McKinsey & Company’s June 2026 State of Beauty Report said fragrance has passed color cosmetics to become the third-largest beauty category. In 2023, a 2024 McKinsey analysis found it was still the smallest of the four core categories, at 17% of the market, though it already led in growth at 14%. For retailers, that momentum raises a question: Why rent a name when you can build one?
A house brand lets a retailer put its own point of view into something shoppers reach for every day. “Fragrance offers a unique opportunity to extend their brand identity into something personal and emotional, creating an experience customers can truly connect with,” Horowitz explained.
Margin is part of the case, but the pull runs deeper. No one knows a retailer's shoppers better than the retailer: what they reach for, what they pass over, and what the shelf is missing. Owning the brand lets that knowledge shape the scent itself, from the notes to the name to the bottle, without having to work within an existing brand's guidelines and intellectual property restrictions, Horowitz said, and they face fewer approval steps, letting products reach the market faster. Simply put, a licensed name comes with a rulebook and a royalty bill, and a house brand comes with neither. McKinsey wrote in its June 2026 State of Beauty Report that as assortments grow more alike across retailers, owned brands and exclusive products are set to become important ways to stand out. Private label is no longer just the budget choice, with roughly 30% of shoppers in Simon-Kucher’s 2026 Global Shopper Study buying premium private-label products.
"Retailers can actively participate in the ideation process and help shape the direction of the products," Horowitz said.
Approximately 70% of 3B International's concepts begin inside the company, Horowitz said, driven by its team's trend research, consumer insights, and read on market opportunities. The other 30% begin with a retailer's brief or specific request. "We conduct an enormous amount of trend research and use those insights to develop proposals," Horowitz said. The team also studies each retailer's existing assortment to find gaps and opportunities.
One trend the team is watching now is the rise of mini and travel-size fragrances. Consumers want smaller, more affordable formats that let them discover new scents, experiment, and build a collection without committing to a full-size bottle, Horowitz explained. Mini fragrance sets are another opening, since they offer variety, encourage gifting, and make discovery more accessible. The trend is shaping how the team approaches packaging, assortment, and price points.
Think of it as a menu, and from there, the work becomes a conversation. The company arrives with a broad range of ideas, and the retailer’s merchant team curates them, settles on what draws its interest, and works with 3B International to develop each one, from the scent and the bottle to the graphics and the name. The retailer has the final say on the name, scent, and design, Horowitz said. 3B International's role, he said, is to "bring industry expertise, creativity, and market knowledge to the table." Before manufacturing anything on a retailer's behalf, 3B International also completes the necessary regulatory and compliance processes.
The creative work stays in-house, Horowitz said, from the initial concept and fragrance direction to the visual identity, packaging design, and brand positioning. Retailers weigh in throughout, providing feedback on fragrance profiles, packaging, positioning, and pricing to ensure the final product fits their customers and assortment.
One recent example came from the "trinket era," a term Horowitz explained is often used to describe the growing appetite for mini and collectible products. 3B International had spotted the trend, and a retail partner challenged the team to explore how fragrance could fit, with back-to-school in mind. The team presented several concepts, from mini lotions to body mists. After discussion and feedback from the retailer's merchant team, the direction narrowed to a 12 mL keychain rollerball fragrance. "It's a great example of how we combine our trend insights and creative development capabilities with retailer feedback to turn an emerging trend into a retail-ready product," Horowitz noted.
Pricing is set early. Horowitz described "retail-ready pricing architecture" as a balance of quality, presentation, and price from the very beginning. 3B International establishes a pricing strategy and target before a project starts, identifies the price point that fits a gap in the retailer's assortment, and designs the product around that target to achieve "a premium look without premium pricing." It is a live issue for the category: In McKinsey's 2025 State of Beauty Report, 67% of consumers surveyed said fragrance is affordable, compared with 83% for haircare. Price, in other words, is part of the brief. The company is "generally very good at maintaining that pricing target throughout development," he said.
There may be slight variations, Horowitz said, but the goal is set up front and carried through development.
Some brands are born for one retailer. Others wear the retailer's own name. Choosing between them is one of the first decisions a retailer makes, and Horowitz said that both fall under what 3B International considers private-label work.
On the first path, 3B International creates a brand exclusively for the retailer. Better Fragrance, developed for Walmart, is one example. The Good Scent, sold through TJ Maxx, and Maeve Ellis created for IPSY, a discovery-driven platform, are others.
On the second path, 3B International develops a fragrance under the retailer's own name, and the compliance load gets heavier. "The second approach requires significantly more compliance work because we are using the retailer's intellectual property and brand identity," Horowitz added.
Design is where a retailer brand starts to take shape. Horowitz described the company as "trend-forward, design-forward," and added he believes that approach explains its success. The team spends its time assessing where the market is heading, then quickly designs around those trends.
Ten people make up 3B International's in-house design group, which Horowitz said is the largest team at the company. It’s led by Design Director Victoria Finocchiaro, whom he said is homegrown and has been with the company for close to a decade. The team manages projects from initial concept through final delivery, and each project is handled by one dedicated designer from beginning to end, providing continuity and a clear creative vision. Meaning, the designer who shapes the first concept is still there at final delivery.
The pressure to stay ahead never lets up. Horowitz explained the company has to keep investing in design or risk being "lumped in with the pack." The company's deck puts it more simply: "We move fast because trends move fast!"
The company doesn’t “farm out” design, Horowitz said. "Unlike companies that outsource these functions, we handle both design and fragrance development internally," he added. Keeping both in-house lets 3B International "move faster, maintain quality and consistency, and have greater control over the entire development process," he added.
Speed to market is the second half of the pitch, and it picks up where design leaves off. The clock, though, does not start until the retailer says yes. The 90-day timeline begins once 3B International has an approved sample and final sign-off from the retailer, Horowitz said. From that point, the company commits to delivering the finished product within 90 days, regardless of where it is manufactured. Concept development and pre-production approvals happen before the clock starts.
For existing products, the timeline can be shorter. Once a fragrance and its packaging have been developed and approved, 3B International can fulfill repeat orders "in as little as 70 days," Horowitz said, enabling retailers to replenish inventory and respond to demand more quickly.
Consider a bedazzled fragrance project developed for the fall 2026 season. 3B International identified the trend in spring 2026. Within the first week, the team had initial designs and creative concepts. By week three, it had fragrance and packaging samples, along with proposed pricing and product specifications. Once the retailer approved the samples and pricing, the project moved into production with an approximately 90-day timeline to delivery.
"The step most likely to affect the timeline was sample approval, which depended on the retailer," Horowitz explained. Any requested change to the fragrance, packaging, or design would require additional sampling and could delay delivery. The project showed how quickly the company could move from identifying a trend to developing a retail-ready product "when the creative direction and commercial expectations were aligned early in the process," Horowitz noted.
Production runs through the company’s global sourcing and manufacturing network. Horowitz described it as an established network of “trusted partners” in the United States, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India. These are supplier relationships rather than 3B International-owned facilities, and the company also manufactures domestically.
The 90-day commitment applies wherever a product is made. “Our global network gives us the flexibility to select the most suitable manufacturing partners without compromising our speed-to-market commitment,” Horowitz explained.
3B International's relationships run across the retail map, from premium to mass to off-price and in multiple categories such as personal fragrance, home, and bath and body.
Those relationships tend to grow by introduction. As the company earns credibility with one buying team, Horowitz explained, the conversation moves on: The fragrance buyer points 3B International toward the home buyer, and the home buyer toward bath and body. It doesn’t always begin with fragrance, either.
The company maintains those relationships by keeping the work close. Horowitz noted that 3B International runs its own sales team and warehouses rather than using distributors, so it can accommodate each retailer's specific ordering process. The company also produces personal fragrance under license for BCBG, Forever 21, Joseph Abboud, English Laundry and home fragrance under license for Nautica and Juicy Couture.
The arrangement Horowitz described works like a partnership, with a clear division of labor for retailers weighing a fragrance brand of their own. 3B International brings the trend research, the in-house design, a pricing target set up front, and a 90-day delivery commitment once the retailer signs off. The retailer keeps the final say on name, scent, and design.