Damp carpet and old coffee. That is how a perfumier might have described the “top notes” – industry speak for the initial olfactory experience – at SIMPPAR, the annual fragrance-ingredient expo held this month in Paris. It is where vendors from Sicilian dynasties to Japanese chemical firms gather to showcase their ingredients. Some are natural. The centifolia rose, a beautifully pungent pink flower harvested at dawn, at its peak potency, makes for excellent marketing material. Less romantic but highly lucrative are the synthetic ingredients. These molecules allow their makers to isolate specific smells, spare the animals once killed for their secretions and give fragrances staying power.

Sellers of such raw materials grumble openly about many things. Deepu Nair of Greenleaf Extractions, an Indian supplier, complains that unpredictable weather has ravaged his country’s ginger crop. Laura Johnston of Ultra International, a Dutch pedlar of essential oils, laments that regulations aimed at ensuring ingredients’ safety and traceability are ever increasing.

But few wish to discuss the biggest question hanging over their industry: the fate of the four giants that dominate the business of turning raw materials into flavours and fragrances for brands.

America’s International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF), Germany’s Symrise and Switzerland’s dsm-firmenich and Givaudan control some two-thirds of that market. Their haute perfumiers develop the formulas for lines by Yves Saint Laurent, Hugo Boss and others. Their functional perfumiers create scents for Procter & Gamble’s laundry detergent. Their flavourists work with Coca-Cola. Meanwhile, their chemists produce in-house synthetic ingredients.

To protect their formulas, the four have developed a culture of secrecy. The competition for commissions, or briefs, is fierce – or at least it is meant to be.

Over the past two years trustbusters have been poking their noses into all this. In 2023 EU authorities raided the four’s offices. Swiss and British antitrust cops have also been investigating. Allegations include price-fixing and divvying up customers. (Givaudan, dsm-firmenich and IFF say they are co-operating; Symrise, which Britain dropped from its probe last month, did not reply to The Economist.)

These probes have also encouraged civil lawsuits. In February an American judge declined to toss out a class action against the companies brought by a group of consumers and smaller businesses over alleged anti-competitive behaviour. (The four firms have denied wrongdoing.)

America’s Justice Department recently sought to intervene to stop some documents from becoming public, as it is considering a case of its own. Unilever, a consumer-goods giant, is also suing dsm-firmenich, Givaudan and Symrise, and has said it will invest €100 million ($179 million) to build its own fragrance capabilities.

All this may have weighed on the share prices of the four firms, which are down by an average of nine per cent over the past year, despite the fact that business has been good. In the first quarter of 2025, their sales grew by an average of a little under six per cent year on year, excluding acquisitions and divestitures.

“The fragrance market is booming,” notes Sylvain Eyraud of Takasago, a Japanese rival not under investigation. That is thanks in part to Gen Z. Perfume was the fastest-growing beauty category in America in 2024, according to Circana, a research firm, which has found that more than 80 per cent of Gen Z wear it at least three times a week.

Mr Eyraud’s optimism flags only when he talks about so-called dupes – copycat perfumes whose sales are fuelled by those same youngsters. Still, the industry’s growth is nothing to sniff at.

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