Balenciaga returns to fragrance with a ten-scent collection led by a revival of Le Dix, but the house has not positioned them as clean or non-toxic, leaving transparency to niche players in the clean-fragrance market.
Three weeks before Pierpaolo Piccioli’s first collection as creative director, Balenciaga has reentered the fragrance world with a sweeping ten-scent collection. For the Kering-owned house, the move marks a return to olfactive storytelling after years of absence, reclaiming a category that was once central to its identity.
Balenciaga CEO Gianfranco Gianangeli calls the fragrance launch and Piccioli’s arrival “an exciting new chapter in Balenciaga’s couture and olfactive history.” He explains, “Fashion and fragrance have been in the house’s DNA for almost 80 years, and exist in harmony.”
The new collection centers on Le Dix, the fragrance Cristóbal Balenciaga created in 1947. The revival stays close to the original’s structure, keeping its violet notes, but replaces the animal-based materials with iris aldehyde molecules. “We are incredibly lucky to have the original formula. So we started with that and gave it a twist,” Raffaella Cornaggia, CEO of Kering Beauté, told Vogue Business.
Other scents include No Comment, inspired by Balenciaga’s belief that designs should speak for themselves; Getaria, named after the designer’s Spanish birthplace; Cristóbal, described as understated yet powerful; and Incense Perfumum, with its striking black hue referencing Balenciaga’s enduring use of dark tones.
The relaunch also marks first major test for Kering Beauté, the group’s beauty division created in 2023 to expand its maisons into fragrance. The unit debuted with Bottega Veneta’s high perfumery collection, acquired heritage brand Creed, and now ushers Balenciaga into a tightly curated distribution strategy.
Cornaggia describes it as a unique opportunity: “We have a very strong ambition to express the DNA of our maisons through beauty, and especially through high perfumery. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — to be able to create the entire universe for a brand in a new category, to expand the brand’s expression into that category.”
The strategy seems to be paying off. Kering Beauté reported €150 million in sales for the first half of 2025, up nine percent year-over-year. While still modest compared to beauty giants like L’Oréal or Estée Lauder, the group is clear that scale is not the goal. Instead, it is banking on exclusivity and positioning, mirroring the success of Kering Eyewear.
The bottles, designed with archival cues, debut at €260 for 100 milliliters, with accessories like a €320 discovery set and a €395 bag charm. Balenciaga is limiting availability to select fashion boutiques across North America and Europe, its Paris couture flagship, and e-commerce, with gradual expansion to 200 stores worldwide by year’s end.
British artist Katerina Jebb created the campaign, which uses a scanning motif to echo the meticulous recreation of the original Le Dix bottle. Inside the Avenue George V flagship, Balenciaga has opened a dedicated fragrance store, a move that Gianangeli frames as part of a broader brand experience: “Each scent embodies distinctive attitudes, shapes and gestures rooted in the house’s design language like a Balenciaga wardrobe.”
The choice to launch ten perfumes rather than a single statement scent reflects Balenciaga’s couture ethos — an entire wardrobe of olfactory gestures, designed for discovery, exclusivity, craftsmanship, and the art of couture reframed as fragrance.
The clean question
With any luxury fragrance launch, there’s a lingering question: are the formulas clean or non-toxic? In Balenciaga’s case, the answer isn’t straightforward. The new Le Dix omits the animal-derived notes of its 1947 predecessor, a thoughtful modern update, but that alone doesn’t place the collection in the clean-beauty category.
“Clean” in fragrance generally means avoiding ingredients such as phthalates, parabens, and synthetic musks, and offering transparency about what’s in the bottle. But most traditional houses still take advantage of the industry’s allowance to group a long list of ingredients under the single word “fragrance,” leaving consumers with little clarity about what they’re actually wearing.
Regulation is also inconsistent. In the United States, oversight is minimal, and brands are not required to list all ingredients individually. In Europe, the standards are tougher: more than 1,600 cosmetic ingredients are banned or restricted, and allergens like limonene or linalool must be disclosed. Still, much of the enforcement comes through the International Fragrance Association, an industry body that issues its own guidelines.
Independent beauty watchdogs note that Balenciaga is not cruelty-free and flag “many ingredients used are questionable.” By contrast, clean-fragrance players such as Henry Rose, Ormaie, and DedCool build their entire positioning on ingredient transparency and third-party certifications.
That doesn’t make Balenciaga’s new perfumes necessarily unsafe; many synthetic molecules are deemed safe at regulated levels — but it does mean the collection isn’t marketed as clean or non-toxic. Instead, the emphasis is on heritage, couture-level artistry, and exclusivity, aligning the perfumes more with high fashion than with clean beauty.
It may also be a missed opportunity. The clean-beauty segment, with its emphasis on transparency, natural ingredients, and eco-conscious values, is showing undeniable vitality. The clean and non-toxic beauty market segment is expanding from $8.25 billion in 2023 to an estimated $21 billion by 2030, and it’s growing at twice the speed of conventional beauty, according to recent data.
A 2025 study also found that 73 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for eco-conscious products, yet only 41 percent feel they have sufficient information to make informed choices. By staying silent on clean credentials or ingredient transparency, Balenciaga may miss connecting with a growing consumer base, especially younger shoppers who equate luxury with ethical clarity.
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