Fragrance clubs are the new book clubs

Our five senses are the bridges that allow us to connect with each other. We do this by listening to music and watching sunsets together, hugging, sharing meals, etc.

Our sense of smell, however, despite being deeply tied to emotion and memory, has long been overlooked as a vehicle for social connection.

Now, fragrance clubs are changing that, turning what’s long been treated as a solo experience into a collective one.

Something’s in the air

They’ve been popping up everywhere from LA to Berlin to Shanghai, and take many forms: from casual blind-sniff meetups to organized tours, workshops, and fragrance swaps, or a little bit of everything.

• LA-based Reverie of Scent, founded in 2025, hosts picnic-esque BYO-perfume gatherings once a month, where “fragheads” discuss and swap scents, per The Los Angeles Times.
• Brooklyn-based fragrance brand Creature hosts ticketed “scent salons,” where raw materials from its all-natural perfumes are paired with natural wines.
• Ffern, a viral $129 subscription service with a 500k-person waitlist, is planning to introduce overnight events to showcase how its small-batch scents are made.
• Meanwhile, on college campuses, student-led fragrance clubs are getting academic with it, hosting workshops on the science behind perfumery, and infusing school spirit into custom-made scents.

Smells like community

Behind the trend are two things: a booming fragrance industry — perfume is the fastest-growing sector of the beauty industry, largely driven by smell-maxxing Gen Zers — and a lot of lonely people seeking in-person socialization.

Scent clubs address both, offering community and connection around a shared interest in a more laid-back, intentional way compared to usual nightlife activities.

• They’re similar to wine or book clubs, but with a lower barrier to entry (e.g., no assumed knowledge or required reading, and occasionally no cost), making them more welcoming of casual hobbyists and novices.
• Plus, the emphasis is typically on how a scent makes the smeller feel, not on how well they can identify its ingredients, which can produce more meaningful conversations about memory and taste, versus those centered around terroir or other insider jargon.

Not everyone can talk about soil composition or literary analysis for hours, but everyone’s got personal stories to share — which probably make for better conversations, anyway.