How many new perfumes launch each year: what three fragrance databases counted, 2010 to 2025

This article sets the year counts from Parfumo, Fragrantica and Basenotes, read by 10ML for every release year from 2010 to 2025, beside the published Fragrances of the World launch counts. It is part of 10ML's perfume market and prices research. The last card shows the size of 10ML's own catalogue, as context only.

How many perfumes were released in 2025

Fragrantica listed 13,046 perfumes with a 2025 release year and Parfumo 12,720 when 10ML read both on 8 October 2026. Basenotes, which adds entries more selectively, listed 3,394 for the same release year.

The two large databases sit within a few hundred entries of each other for 2025. Fragrantica's count is the higher of the two. Basenotes lists roughly a quarter of either.

Each number is a count of database entries with a 2025 release year, not a count of perfumes that reached shops in 2025. The next section explains why those are different things, and why no single database stands for the market.

A 2025 launch such as Paradigme by Prada is the kind of perfume these counts are made of: a new scent from a fashion house, catalogued with its release year. It is one name in a year that both large databases measure in five figures.

Two other numbers for 2025 circulate widely and are not used here. A round figure attributed to a French newspaper could not be traced to a source 10ML could check. A social-media post added two databases together, which counts every perfume listed in both twice, so it is left out as well.

Database entries are not market launches

Database counts do not equal market launches. Each database adds niche, indie, regional, flanker, limited-edition and re-issued scents by its own rules, so the counts measure what was catalogued, not what reached shops.

A database entry is a record: a name, a house and a release year, plus whatever else the editors add. A perfume becomes an entry when someone catalogues it. It becomes a launch when it goes on sale. No database promises that the two happen in the same year.

Flankers are the clearest case. A flanker is a variation on an existing perfume under the same name, such as an intense, summer or limited version. A flanker can be its own entry, so a house that surrounds one perfume with several variations adds several entries in a year.

Re-issues and limited editions add more. A perfume brought back in a new bottle, or released for one season, can carry its own release year. Regional houses, notably from the Middle East, add many entries.

The databases also differ in what they let in. Fragrantica says it adds entries only from brand or press-release information, which slows additions for small brands. Basenotes adds fewer entries than Parfumo or Fragrantica, so its count is lower for every release year from 2010 to 2025. That gap reflects editorial policy, not a slower market.

The order of the two large databases flips mid-decade. Parfumo lists more perfumes than Fragrantica for every release year from 2010 to 2019. Fragrantica lists more for every release year from 2020 to 2025.

Which count does 10ML use? All three, each named, side by side, because none of them is the one true number of launches and picking one would turn a catalogue into a market statistic.

For a shopper, the practical point is the size of the shelf. How to choose a perfume without smelling it explains how to narrow thousands of new names to a few worth wearing, and the fragrance families, explained gives you the words to do it.

Ten years of growth, three different curves

From 2015 to 2025 Parfumo's yearly count grew 2.53 times and Fragrantica's 3.05 times, while Basenotes' grew 14.9%, according to 10ML's reading of the three year indexes on 8 October 2026.

Parfumo listed 5,030 perfumes for 2015 and 12,720 for 2025, an increase of 152.9%. Fragrantica listed 4,277 for 2015 and 13,046 for 2025, an increase of 205%. Basenotes listed 2,954 for 2015 and 3,394 for 2025, or 1.15 times its 2015 level.

The two large curves climb through most of the 2010s. Parfumo went from 2,443 entries for 2010 to 6,289 for 2018. Fragrantica went from 2,392 for 2010 to 5,891 for 2019.

Both turn sharply upwards at the end of the series. Parfumo moved from 7,879 entries for 2023 to 10,859 for 2024. Fragrantica moved from 8,527 to 11,117 over the same two release years.

Some years dip. Parfumo's 2020 count, 5,537, sits below its 2019 count of 6,267. Fragrantica's 2021 count, 6,571, sits below its 2020 count of 7,315. Basenotes dips in several years, among them 2020 and 2023. Dips like these can reflect editing backlogs as much as fewer launches.

Basenotes' curve is much flatter across the decade. From 2014 to 2025 it stays between 2,347 and 3,394 entries a year, which says more about how Basenotes catalogues than about the market.

The full dataset, with every row, its count type and its check date, is below.

What would measure growth in the market itself? A launch count kept on one fixed definition every year. The databases do not offer that, and the published counts from the Fragrances of the World guide stop, as far as 10ML could verify, at 2015.

What the Fragrances of the World guide counted

The Fragrances of the World guide counted 1.330² new fragrances in 2012, 1.768¹ in 2014 and 2.044¹ in 2015, as reported in the trade and enthusiast press.

The guide keeps its own count of new launches, on its own definition of what a launch is. That makes it the closest thing in this article to a launch count, rather than a count of catalogue entries.

The 2012 figure comes from the Fragrances of the World launch count, reported by The Moodie Davitt Report². The 2014 figure¹ and the 2015 figure¹ come from the Fragrances of the World launch count, reported by Australian Perfume Junkies¹.

The 2015 count was reported as the first twelve-month period in which the guide counted more than two thousand launches. 10ML has not seen the guide itself; every count here is quoted second-hand.

Some years are left out on purpose. Published quotes disagree on the count for 2011, and they give different figures for 2013 as well. A later interview figure does not make clear whether it refers to 2016 or 2017. Where quotes disagree and neither can be checked against the guide, 10ML leaves the year out rather than choose between them.

10ML found no published count from the guide for 2016 to 2025 that it could verify.

Set against the databases, the guide's counts are far lower. For 2015 Parfumo lists 5,030 entries and Fragrantica 4,277, roughly two and a half times and roughly twice the guide's 2.044¹. That is a difference of definition, not a contradiction: the databases catalogue flankers, re-issues and regional editions by their own rules, and the guide counts launches on its own terms.

How many perfumes exist altogether

Fragrantica's unfiltered search summed to 141,544 perfumes on 8 October 2026, the largest single count 10ML found. It covers every release year.

That total covers all release years together. It counts entries in one catalogue, so it is not the number of perfumes on sale today. 10ML did not read an all-years total from Parfumo or Basenotes.

How many perfume brands are there? None of the sources 10ML used counts brands reliably, so this article gives no number. A house count taken on one stated definition, in one database, on one date, would answer it.

10ML's own catalogue is a curated list, not a census. The 10ML Price-per-ml Index, which tracks the 10ML member price, VAT included, across the perfumes 10ML stocks, covers 1.155³ perfumes from 103³ houses. That is context for the reader, never a measure of launches.

The perfumes in it span well over a decade of release years. Santal 33 by Le Labo dates from 2011. Baccarat Rouge 540 by Maison Francis Kurkdjian dates from 2015, a release year with 4,277 Fragrantica entries. Side Effect by Initio Parfums Prives dates from 2016, Delina by Parfums de Marly from 2017, Erba Pura by Xerjoff from 2019 and Angels' Share by By Kilian from 2020.

Who owns these houses is a separate question, answered in our research on who owns which perfume house. What they cost next to designer perfume is in niche perfume price per ml, measured against designer. A wider shortlist sits in the best niche perfumes to try.

Why the latest years keep growing

Databases add perfumes after the year ends: Parfumo showed 12,544 perfumes for 2025 in an earlier check and 12,720 on 8 October 2026.

Entries are added retroactively. A brand can send its information late, an editor can work through a backlog, or a regional release can be catalogued months after it went on sale. Each of those adds an entry to a year that has already closed.

So the counts for 2024 and 2025 in this article are readings on one date, not final totals. The most recent years will keep growing.

How many perfumes will launch in 2026? 2026 is not over, so 10ML gives no 2026 count. Its numbers will keep rising for years, as the 2025 count is still doing. A fair figure needs a reading well after the year closes, taken the same way as the readings here, and then repeated to see how far it still moves.

This is also why any quoted number for a recent year needs a date beside it. Without the date of the reading, two people can quote the same database for the same year, get different numbers and both be right.

For a shopper, more entries every year means more perfumes that reach you as names before you can wear them. Safe blind buy perfumes lists easy styles to start from, and the price per ml of samples, travel sprays and discovery sets shows what trying a scent first costs.

How 10ML counted

10ML read each database's own count for every release year from 2010 to 2025 on 8 October 2026, at least twice per year, with identical results.

Parfumo prints a total for each release year on its index of release years. 10ML read that page three times with different clients, and every value was identical each time. Parfumo is reported to serve automated fetchers randomised single-perfume pages, so only the year index page is used.

Fragrantica prints no single total for a year. 10ML filtered its perfume search to one release year at a time and summed the female, male and unisex counts it shows for the filtered results. The unfiltered search sums to 141,544, which confirms the year filter was applied. Every year was loaded at least twice, and 2025 three times.

Basenotes' directory search was filtered to one launch year at a time, and 10ML read the results total it prints. Every year was loaded twice, and 2010, 2015 and 2025 a third time, with identical results.

Fragrantica and Basenotes were read in a normal desktop browser, because both block scripted fetches.

The Fragrances of the World counts are quoted from the trade and enthusiast press, through the sources named in the footnotes. 10ML has not seen the guide itself, and its counts use the guide's own definition of a launch.

What was left out: any count for 2026, which is not over; the guide's years with conflicting quotes, 2011 and 2013; an interview figure with an unclear year; an unverified round figure for 2025; and a social-media count that merged two databases. No count of brands is given, because none of the sources counts brands reliably.