Slow Fragrance in a Fast World: How Scent Bytes and Osmara Restore Story, Culture, and Connection
Introduction — A Fast-Perfume Era With a Hidden Cost
Between 2020 and 2025, perfume became fast fashion. In the years since 2020, the perfume industry has undergone a rapid transformation akin to the fast fashion model. What was once a slow craft of artistry is now often a frenzy of flash sales, weekly product drops, and viral “must-haves” driven by social media trends. Fragrance sales rebounded dramatically after a brief pandemic slump. By late 2020, perfume was the only beauty category with positive growth, climbing at double-digit rates glossy.co. This explosive demand created fertile ground for a new wave of perfume entrepreneurs to churn out inexpensive scents at breakneck speed. Consumers, fueled by TikTok’s #PerfumeTok phenomenon, began treating fragrances like trendy outfits – wear them a few times, then move on to the next hype. In the words of one industry observer, “Perfume = fast fashion. Drop, trend, disappear.” New niche brands and “dupe houses” popped up almost overnight, mimicking the latest luxury hits or nostalgic favorites. By 2025, dupe brands had become big business, multiplying as prolifically as indie niche brands did in the early 2000s fragrantica.com.
This case study examines how perfumery’s fast-fashion turn is commodifying cultural traditions, particularly Arab fragrance heritage, and obscuring the identities of perfumers behind the scents. We’ll explore how many white-owned companies have co-opted Middle Eastern perfume styles and ingredients, marketing them as cheap “dupes,” and how this oversaturated market disadvantages non-white and culturally authentic perfumers. Yet amid these challenges, there are bright spots. Scent Trunk and The Scented Cottage stand out as positive exceptions that uplift diverse cultures without resorting to appropriation.
We will also look at where the distortion shows up, how consumers can navigate it, and how Scent Bytes — an Atlanta‑based olfactory art studio — offers a different path through its sensory storytelling format, Osmara. Scent Bytes’ Osmara initiative is a counterforce to the fast-fashion trend – an immersive storytelling approach to fragrance that showcases cultural heritage rather than stealing it. Grounded in the founder’s Silk Road lineage, Osmara blends scent with storytelling, multi-sensory art, and community education. Through the success of experiences like “Notes of Coffee,” Osmara is reclaiming narrative space for underrepresented cultures and even bringing attention to dying languages. With more Osmara events planned for 2026, it offers a hopeful blueprint for perfumery to have a stage that honors authenticity.
The Fast‑Fragrance Problem
By 2024, industry experts were declaring that the fragrance boom was “nowhere near over.” Perfume had become the fastest-growing beauty category, with prestige scent sales up 14% year-over-year and luxury niche up 15% glossy.coglossy.co. But this growth was not driven by timeless classics or master perfumers alone. It was fueled by a frenzy of new releases and limited drops reminiscent of fast fashion’s seasonal churn. Big-box retailers and online shops alike flooded consumers with “new this week” fragrances. On TikTok and Instagram, influencers and brands hyped one viral scent after another, encouraging viewers to collect an ever-expanding “fragrance wardrobe” rather than cherishing a signature scent glossy.coglossy.co.
A hallmark of this period was the rise of dupe culture. Much like fast fashion labels copy luxury runway designs at scale, dupe fragrance brands copy famous perfumes and sell their “impressions” for a fraction of the price. Brands like Oakcha and Dossier openly market themselves as providers of “luxury-inspired” scents, often referencing the originals they emulate fragrantica.com fragrantica.com. On TikTok Shop, affordable lookalike perfumes have exploded in popularity, with dupe brands dominating sales charts wwd.com. The playbook is simple: identify a trending high-end perfume (for example, a costly niche oud blend or a celebrity favorite), reverse-engineer its scent, and launch a similar-smelling product with a catchy new name – all within weeks. These companies engage in flash sales and drop dozens of new scents per year, fostering a sense of urgency (“Get it now for $29 before it’s gone!”) that keeps consumers continually buying. In effect, fragrance has adopted the “drop, trend, disappear” cycle of streetwear and fast fashion, where scents go in and out of style as quickly as viral memes.
While this rapid-fire approach makes perfume more accessible and exciting to a new generation, it comes at a cultural cost. The focus shifts to instant gratification over artistry. Many customers now expect on-demand variety. Some indie perfume makers report feeling pressure to release multiple new fragrances per week to meet the “what’s next?” consumer mindset reddit.com. As one fragrance commentator noted, “5 scent-collections 4 times annually is way too many…scents aren’t that distinctive” reddit.com. The result is a giant catalogue of throwaway fragrances, with few given time to mature into classics. This breakneck pace leaves little room for deep storytelling or cultural nuance in scent creation. And importantly, the rush to capitalize on trends has often meant reaching for “exotic” themes and ingredients – like Middle Eastern ouds, attars, and incense – without proper respect for their origins.
The modern market moves too quickly to hold nuance. Dupes and trend‑chasing brands borrow from Middle Eastern, East African, Asian scent heritage and strip away the cultural depth attached. White‑owned “dupe” houses profit by replicating these structures cheaply and selling them as “Arabian oils” or “Middle Eastern‑inspired.” The language is seductive, but the cultural connection is fictional.
Fast fragrance reduces cultural traditions to marketing mood boards. The artistry disappears behind affordability and hype.
The Rise of Faux‑Asian and Faux‑Hawaiian Aesthetic Houses
While dupe houses were speeding up the market, a quieter, yet equally damaging trend began unfolding in parallel. Instead of imitating formulas, some white-owned perfume brands began imitating entire cultural identities. They adopted the full visual language of Asian and Hawaiian perfumery—typography, symbols, rituals, even mythologies—despite having no connection to those cultures at all.
These companies present themselves as Japanese fragrance ateliers, Korean herbal perfume houses, Chinese ink-inspired studios, or Hawaiian botanical perfumeries, even though every founder, perfumer, and creative director is white. The cultural reference points are usually pulled from Pinterest boards or vacation imagery, but the branding is sold as authenticity.
This does more than mislead consumers. It actively obscures real makers. Genuine Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Native Hawaiian perfumers—many working in small studios without corporate budgets—are drowned out by well-funded brands using their cultures as sets. The symbolism that carries weight within those communities becomes decorative shorthand: cherry blossoms, bamboo silhouettes, kanji-like strokes, kapa-cloth patterns, all stripped of meaning and flattened into an aesthetic mood.
The harm mirrors a long-running issue in Hawaii, where white-owned companies have claimed Hawaiian identity, Hawaiian spirituality, and Hawaiian language for profit while Native Hawaiian creators struggle for visibility. The fragrance industry has begun replicating this dynamic, now applying it across East and Southeast Asian cultures as well.
What connects these practices to dupe culture is their shared logic: take the imagery, take the language, take the identity—but not the people who created it. Whether it's an “Arabian-inspired oil,” a “Japanese atelier,” or a “Hawaiian botanical fragrance,” the result is the same: cultural storytelling becomes costume. Authentic creators are pushed further to the margins as imitations proliferate.
This is the environment that Scent Bytes—and Osmara specifically—respond to. Not by shouting into the noise, but by creating an entirely different way of engaging with fragrance: slow, rooted, story-first, and tied to real heritage.
Taken together, fast fragrance and aestheticized cultural misdirection create a landscape where abundance disguises absence. The shelves look full, but the authorship is hollow. Everything feels “inspired” by somewhere, yet very few creations are actually from those worlds. And as more brands adopt borrowed identities or accelerate production to match trends, the people who work slowly, intentionally, and from real cultural lineage become harder to find. This is where the damage becomes structural—not just about copying styles, but about crowding out the artists who carry the traditions these styles came from.
Oversaturation and Invisible Artisans
The fast-fashion approach to perfumery has led to an oversaturated market by the mid-2020s. With dupe brands launching new scents weekly and even established houses increasing their output, the sheer volume of fragrances vying for attention is unprecedented. But this saturation doesn’t impact all perfumers equally. It tends to favor those with the loudest marketing and lowest prices (often large companies or well-funded startups) while squeezing out smaller, culturally authentic voices who can’t or won’t play the hype game.
Independent and artisan perfumers, many of them non-white or from marginalized cultures, find it harder to be heard in the din. These perfumers typically create at a slower pace and with deeper storytelling, which is antithetical to the fast fashion model. As one indie fragrance enthusiast observed, the “true craftspeople are getting choked out by large corporations”, and there’s value in “buying small and slow” to appreciate craftsmanship reddit.com. Yet the current market makes that a challenge: consumers inundated with flashy ads and influencer reviews may overlook a subtle, heartfelt blend from a small perfumer that doesn’t have TikTok buzz. The playing field tilts toward those who can flood the channels with content and constantly shout “new!” – something many culturally rooted artisans (who might be operating on a shoestring budget) simply cannot do.
Moreover, the dupe culture directly undercuts original perfumers, including many from the Global South. When a Middle Eastern perfumery releases a masterpiece that gains worldwide acclaim, it doesn’t take long before dupe makers issue a cheaper knockoff. For instance, the Lattafa and Rasasi brands from the UAE – which are Middle Eastern enterprises – saw their popular oud scents cloned and sold under different names globally beta.fragrantica.com. Even Western niche hits get cloned. The moment an Indian-inspired niche scent or a perfume by a Black perfumer makes waves, dupes appear, potentially siphoning away customers who opt for the $40 imitation over the $150 original. The economic disadvantage for authentic creators is clear – they invest years of cultural knowledge and artistic labor into making something new, only to have imitators profit from a copy. In some cases, the clone may outsell the original due to wider distribution or better SEO, burying the creator’s name in the process.
Importantly, this saturation dilutes not just market share but cultural clarity. With hundreds of similar-smelling options, the unique stories behind perfumes can get lost. Non-white perfumers often infuse their heritage into their work – be it a Nigerian-American perfumer incorporating Yoruba incense traditions, or a Vietnamese perfumer highlighting scents of her homeland. But when dozens of “inspired” variants proliferate, consumers might not recognize which version came from a place of genuine cultural inspiration. The narrative becomes muddled: was that intoxicating saffron-rose scent created by a South Asian attar expert, or was it a dupe house’s riff on a designer perfume? If the packaging and names are all vaguely exotic and the perfumers remain unnamed, it’s difficult for cultural authorship to be known, let alone celebrated.
This dynamic has real consequences for representation. Fragrance has historically been a Euro-centric industry, and the recent boom could have opened doors for more diverse voices. However, the fast fashion mentality risks turning that boom into yet another cycle where those with existing advantages (capital, market access, algorithmic savvy) dominate, often using minority cultures as marketing spice while sidelining the actual people from those cultures. In other words, the oversaturated fragrance market isn’t just cluttered – it’s skewed. And those skewed dynamics mean who gets to succeed in perfume remains uneven.
Bright Spots: Culture‑Forward Houses
Despite these challenges, some brands in recent years have proven that it’s possible to celebrate culture and craft without succumbing to appropriation or frenzy. Two oft-cited examples are Scent Trunk and The Scented Cottage, which have built models around authenticity, education, and inclusivity.
Scent Trunk – a California-based niche house – has been called “the antithesis of dupes” by fragrance connoisseurs, and for good reason reddit.com. Instead of copying trends, Scent Trunk commissions original perfumes from independent artisans across the globe. The brand’s mission is explicitly to elevate diverse perfumers and their cultural perspectives. “Our community of perfumers represents a broad and diverse talent base from various regions of the world,” Scent Trunk proclaims, emphasizing “cultural heterogeneity” and giving creators full artistic control ministryofscent.com. In practice, this means a Scent Trunk collection might include a scent inspired by the Canadian wilderness by a Canadian perfumer, next to a scent rooted in Persian spice markets by an Iranian perfumer. Each comes with a narrative of its inspiration and credit to its creator. One Reddit user noted how unique and creative Scent Trunk’s fragrances are, precisely because the perfumers have license to infuse their identity – “everything I’ve smelled from them has been entirely unique… they give creative license to perfumers where they are usually constrained by corporate prompts” reddit.com. Scent Trunk’s approach shows that celebrating culture isn’t just ethical – it results in distinctive scents that dupe houses can’t replicate easily, because these perfumes are born from personal stories. Crucially, Scent Trunk’s model uplifts the artists behind the scent: perfumers are named, celebrated, and fairly paid. By 2025, Scent Trunk had a reputation for showcasing global heritage through perfume - for example, a fragrance like “Saffron”, which weaves a syrupy rose and leather inspired by the Middle East, or “Moon Jasmine” drawing on South Asian night-blooming floral traditions reddit.comreddit.com. This culture-first ethos has proven that slow, story-rich perfumery can still find an enthusiastic audience even in the fast-fume era.
Likewise, The Scented Cottage has emerged as a beacon of culturally mindful perfumery. The Scented Cottage is a boutique perfumery and retailer that embraces a “slow down, breathe deeply” philosophy. One of their hallmark projects is d’Annam, a collection celebrating Asian scent traditions. Rather than co-opt, The Scented Cottage collaborates directly with perfumers of the relevant heritage. The d’Annam line is described as “fragrance rooted in culture, crafted with calm,” specifically “celebrating Asian cultures through handcrafted, small-batch perfumery from Vietnam”. Here, a Vietnamese perfumer leads the creation, honoring local ingredients and legends. Scents in this series, like Vietnamese Coffee or Chinese Calligraphy, are priced as luxury artisan products, not cheap dupes – reflecting that they contain high-quality naturals and authentic storytelling thescentedcottage.com. The Scented Cottage doesn’t just sell these perfumes; it contextualizes them. Visitors learn how “d’Annam honors Asian traditions” and emphasizes mindful design and sustainable practice. In other words, the cultural narrative is front and center, not an aesthetic afterthought. Beyond d’Annam, The Scented Cottage curates niche brands from around the world, often highlighting perfumers of color and women perfumers. Their approach is akin to a cultural exchange: walking into their boutique (or browsing their site) feels like entering an antique library of scents, each with a story waiting to be told. This stands in stark contrast to the grab-and-go dupe stalls of the internet. By uplifting authentic creators and educating consumers (through classes and storytelling events), The Scented Cottage creates value that fast fashion perfumery cannot – the value of genuine connection.
These examples underscore that consumer appetite for cultural authenticity is very much alive. Scent Trunk’s success in selling out unique monthly editions, and The Scented Cottage’s growing community of loyal aficionados, prove that not everyone wants their perfume experience to be an anonymous blur. Many fragrance lovers are seeking the human element – the knowledge that a real person with a real heritage crafted this scent, and that by wearing it, they partake in that story. For non-white perfumers and culturally anchored brands, this is heartening. It means there’s a path to thrive by being proudly authentic, even if it’s a slower burn than the flash-in-the-pan hype products.
Scent Bytes: A Different Philosophy
If the fast fragrance trend has been a tide pulling perfumery toward commodification, Scent Bytes’ “Osmara” initiative is a forceful current moving the other way. Launched as a creative venture by Scent Bytes (an Atlanta-based olfactory art studio), Osmara is not a product line but an experience – a series of multi-sensory perfume events designed to showcase cultural heritage rather than steal it. Osmara can be seen as a modern revival of ancient storytelling traditions, deeply inspired by the founder’s own Silk Road lineage.
The founder of Scent Bytes, Yasmine, comes from a family line that traces back to merchants who traveled the historic Silk Road. This heritage isn’t just a talking point – it actively shapes how Osmara events are conceived. On the Silk Road, merchant caravans didn’t merely trade goods; they traded stories, songs, languages, and rituals in the caravanserais where they rested. Those roadside inns were “crucibles for the exchange of cultures”, where travelers from distant lands would come together to share stories and experiences over evening meals en.unesco.orgen.unesco.org. In these gatherings, spices, resins, and silks weren’t just commodities; they were storytellers’ props, each with a tale of a far-off origin. Osmara takes direct inspiration from these historical merchant traditions.
That multisensory approach is also informed by the founder’s synesthesia, a perceptual crossing in which scent naturally appears as color, texture, and atmosphere, thus making Osmara’s narrative structure an extension of how she experiences the world.
Osmara — Where Scent Becomes Story
Osmara is the signature format of Scent Bytes. It is not a product line — it is a method of experiencing fragrance. At an Osmara salon, you might find a small group of guests seated in intimate ambiance, as if around a modern-day caravan fire. Instead of simply spraying perfumes on blotters, the host – an “Osmarist” interpreter – will weave a narrative around each scent. There are deliberate “break” moments reminiscent of those caravan tales: between scent segments, guests might sip on tea or taste a confection relevant to the story, while hearing about the origin of a rare ingredient in the perfume. This format encourages slowing down and savoring, much like travelers breaking bread and exchanging culture. For example, one Osmara gathering incorporated the ritual of coffee when exploring coffee-inspired fragrances, connecting guests to the East African origins of the bean through taste and story. Such touches ensure that every cultural element is properly attributed and celebrated, not abstracted as a mere “note” in a perfume description.
In fact, Scent Bytes distinguishes between two scales of Osmara experiences: Mythos and Diegesis. An Osmara Mythos is like a chamber play – an intimate salon where “fragrance becomes narrative,” exploring the soul of a theme (heritage, emotion, place) through layered aromatic chapters.
These often involve a single perfumer or storyteller guiding a small audience with visual art pieces, flower arrangements, related food and drink, lighting and of course fragrance displayed in a glass cloche.
Osmara exists in two scales:
Osmara Mythos
Intimate, small‑room sensory storytelling events. A guided exploration of scent, emotion, memory, and culture. An Osmara Mythos is like a chamber play – an intimate salon where “fragrance becomes narrative,” exploring the soul of a theme (heritage, emotion, place) through layered aromatic chapters. These often involve a single perfumer or storyteller guiding a small audience.
Osmara Diegesis
Larger‑scale, immersive installations. Scent becomes environment — paired with curated sound, curated objects, lighting, pacing, and narrative arc. Osmara Diegesis is a grand immersive performance – “the narrative of olfaction, told through time, space, and light,” unfolding like a cinematic dream. In a Diegesis event, light and soundscapes choreograph with scent: imagine a dark gallery gradually illuminated to mimic a sunrise as you smell citrus–frankincense fragrance in your glass cloche, with instrumental music composed to reflect an ancient sunrise prayer. Guests walk through a “living world built from fragrance,” essentially stepping into the story At the highest end, Osmara event will have collaborations where perfumers perform live music interpretations of their scents.
Osmara is grounded, not fantastical. No invented rituals. No fictional histories. No false cultural claims. Everything is intentional, respectful, and researched.
Case Study: Osmara Mythos — Notes of Coffee
Case Study: Osmara Mythos — Notes of Coffee
Guests experienced a warm, inviting atmosphere paired with guided storytelling that traced the journey of coffee through a sequence of carefully curated fragrances, allowing quiet connection among the attendees.
They left with small keepsakes, perfume decants, and memory capsules — tangible reminders that carried the emotional resonance of the event home with them.
Feedback was consistent across the board: guests said the experience felt elegant yet personal, completely new for Atlanta, warmly welcoming, and it left coworkers feeling closer than before.
Why Osmara Exists
Osmara is built for people seeking depth rather than hype, connection rather than consumption, cultural truth instead of aesthetic cosplay, and a slower upscaled experience instead of endless drops. Artistry curated with purpose and honor.
It exists because its creator grew up between cultures — and understands that scent is one of the last living archives of ancestral memory.
Where modern fragrance blurs cultures together, Osmara clarifies them.
Where fast fragrance erases the artisan, Osmara brings their story forward.
Where brands aestheticize Asia or the Middle East, Osmara contextualizes and credits.
It is a counterweight in a noisy, accelerated market.
The Path Forward — Slow Fragrance, Deep Story
Today’s consumers are flooded with choice but starved for meaning. They want something they can feel, not just buy.
Scent Bytes proves that fragrance can be:
educational
personal
culturally grounded
emotionally clarifying
quietly luxurious
Osmara shows that the future of fragrance doesn’t have to be fast — it can be deep. Future Mythos performances are scheduled for 2026, and Scent Bytes is considering finding a residency host(s) for larger Diegesis performances. Allowing venues to collaborate is this new art form and introduces their guests to memories that will last a lifetime.
In a world full of drops and dupes, the rarest luxury is still the same:
A story told with care and presented with integrity.
For Scent Bytes, that story is carried through Osmara—one intimate gathering, one carefully chosen note, one remembered moment at a time. As long as there are people who want fragrance to mean something again, there will be space for slow perfume, deep culture, and olfactory art that actually respects where it comes from.
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@m.cherries_23. (2023, July). Understanding Arab fragrance dupes: The truth behind fake scents [Social post]. Lemon8. https://www.lemon8-app.com/@m.cherries_23/7529952969610347038
UNESCO Silk Roads Programme. (n.d.). Caravanserais: Cross-roads of commerce and culture along the Silk Roads. UNESCO. https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/content/caravanserais-cross-roads-commerce-and-culture-along-silk-roads
Ministry of Scent. (n.d.). Scent Trunk [Product description]. Ministry of Scent. https://ministryofscent.com/collections/scent-trunk
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The Scented Cottage. (n.d.). d’Annam Collection. The Scented Cottage. https://www.thescentedcottage.com/collections/dannam
