How Fragrantica Became the Internet’s Perfume Bible

When fragrance podcaster and former beauty editor Sable Yong published her book Die Hot With a Vengeance in 2024, she launched a different kind of merch: a limited-edition custom fragrance named after its title. Months after the 250-bottle run had debuted, she was surprised to see it listed on the world’s largest fragrance directory, Fragrantica.

“It was just a fun thing I wanted to do for my book promotion,” she said.

Fragrantica’s detailed descriptions are critical online records for major fragrance houses and niche perfumers alike. With over 127,000 perfumes profiled, the nearly 20-year-old site’s vast catalogue has helped it to become not only the most-visited fragrance platform in the world, but the second-largest beauty site after Sephora US and Canada by average monthly traffic.

Once a resource for perfume fanatics and industry insiders, Fragrantica is “essentially a Wiki” for the fragrance world, according to Tynan Sinks, the co-host of the ‘Smell Ya Later’ fragrance podcast with Yong. And while it was founded long before TikTok’s time in 2007, it’s now a key part of the “PerfumeTok” virality pipeline. With an average of 41 million visitors a month, according to Semrush, the site has ballooned into a forum and encyclopedia for the growing number of fragrance consumers that have transitioned into connoisseurs.

Founded by California-based husband-and-wife duo Elena and Zoran Knezevic, its content is wildly influential, but users have begun to notice social and political opinions on gender and politics, causing some of its fragrance enthusiasts to splinter into other online communities.

“It’s always been about the community, the perfumers, the craft. No outside funding, no investors, just people who care about the same thing we do,” Zoran Knezevic said to The Business of Beauty in an email. He declined to speak by phone.

Attracting an Audience

Though the world of fragrance and its consumer base has since expanded, Fragrantica was ahead of its time, offering scent profiles and reviews online when the department store sample was the only way to test products.

Established in 2007 with Elena Knezevic serving as its editor-in-chief, and Zoran Knezevic as its chief technology officer, the site was conceived as an online fragrance database and editorial platform. Each fragrance entry includes accords, or common names for scent combinations such as “amber” or “woody;” fragrance notes; a description of the scent; a link to the profile of the perfumer who created it and an audience voting and comments section. Via user-generated content, fans can show off their fragrance collections with a shelf graphic feature, along with their wishlist.

While the site’s interface feels like a mid-aughts time capsule, it’s found relevance among a Gen-Z consumer through the rise of “PerfumeTok,” bringing fragrance review culture into the mainstream. Fragrance shoppers have become like wine connoisseurs, ready to dig deep on ingredients as they build up their collections.

“There’s a much stronger interest now in so-called niche or artistic fragrances than before,” said Thibaud Crivelli, the founder of Maison Crivelli, a top-ranked brand in Fragrantica’s annual awards based on audience votes. “Once you start to spend more time educating yourself about [fragrance], you’re looking for information. The platforms which share information get more and more traffic.”

Fragrantica’s third-party point of view means that it often creates scent profiles rather than being supplied with brand information. Beyond industry terms like “sillage,” “drydown” and “projection,” its forums are filled with their own lingo, with names such as “compliment monster” (scents that get a lot of positive comments), or “beast mode” (those that smell especially strong). This conversation has made its way to TikTok, as fragrance reviewers have spread perfume collector culture to the casual shopper, accelerating category sales.

It also stands out as the only name in the top 10 visited beauty sites that is not an e-tailer, with revenue sources coming from Amazon, FragranceNet and eBay links, as well as banner ads.

“Direct visits dominate, which reflects a highly loyal, intent-driven audience that keeps coming back without being pushed by paid channels,” said Fernando Angulo, senior market research manager at Semrush.

Beyond consumers, Fragrantica has also become the fragrance equivalent of what IMDB is to film among beauty professionals.

“When Fragrantica started, it was a little bit like a reference guide for the industry,” said Sumit Bhasin, senior vice president of innovation and product development at Estée Lauder Companies, adding that his team often uses the site to look up trending ingredients.

But industry insiders have noticed an editorial flourish in descriptions on the site. Die Hard With a Venegance’s profile was missing key ingredients like rhubarb and iris when its listing went live.

“I looked at the page and I was like, ‘These notes are wrong. Where did you get this information from?’” said Yong. (The profile was corrected when Yong’s perfumer contacted Fragrantica.)

Bhasin noted that for Estée Lauder Companies’ fragrance brand Kilian, the scent notes detected by Fragrantica don’t always match what the label lists on its own product descriptions.

“It’s a bit like art appreciation in a way,” said Bhasin. “Do they describe the general territory? Pretty much.”

Notes of Discord

As the oldest site of its kind, Fragrantica’s role has lasted past the forum-dominant phase of the internet to the rise of social media. Scents now associated with TikTok virality like Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s Baccarat Rouge 540 or Creed’s Aventus had a forum-first start, rising in popularity among online communities even without splashy celebrity-centred photo shoots.

Longtime fragrance fans have been surprised by recent content on the site that increasingly injects social issues into perfume discussions. The shift can be seen on smaller competitor Basenotes, where a forum for Fragrantica “defectors” has been live for 13 years. While commenters used to cite functionality and review formats as reasons for moving to a new site, more people have complained about Fragrantica’s political content in the past year.

“I used Fragrantica a ton,” said Sinks. But recently, “It’s just not a site that I feel comfortable giving clicks to.”

Speculation about the founders’ views has become a hot topic of discussion in Reddit fragrance groups. Criticism has centred on a range of issues: Elena Knezevic hosted a June 2025 giveaway for Trump’s Victory 45-47 men’s and women’s fragrances and posted on America’s Independence Day a now-deleted image of George Washington wearing a MAGA-style hat. Users have also pointed to articles calling into question gender-fluid fragrances, such as a November 2025 article where Knezevic wrote that marketing language referring to “strong and independent” women was “destructive.”

“Our international editorial and contributor team is highly diverse; approximately half of our team members identify as LGBTQ+, including individuals living in regions where such an identity carries significant personal risk. The suggestion that this platform or our team pursues a political agenda is false,” said Zoran Knezevic via email.

While some prominent fragrance creators say the site’s editorial direction and moderation choices have made them stop engaging with the platform, the site remains unmatched in terms of influence. Parfumo, another competitor, has single-digit millions of monthly visitors, according to Semrush.

“There’s been a big dilemma in the fragrance community of, ‘Where do we go?’ There’s no other fragrance site as comprehensive as Fragrantica, because it’s been around for so long,” said Yong.

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