Scent Beauty Rides Nostalgia And Americana With Ambitious Stetson Gen Z Fragrance Push Leave a comment

Capitalizing on a renewed fascination with the American West and the chokehold nostalgia has on contemporary popular culture, Scent Beauty is placing its biggest bet yet on Stetson’s ability to transcend generations.

The fragrance licensee is investing $5 million in marketing through the end of this year to introduce Stetson Untamed, a collection spanning three eaux de parfum and three body sprays designed to recruit gen Z men to a fragrance franchise that got its start more than four decades ago. The 75-ml. eaux de parfum are priced at $38, body sprays at $11 and gift sets at $30.

Beginning Sept. 1, the collection will roll out to more than 5,000 doors nationwide, including Walmart, J.C. Penney, CVS, Boscov’s and Meijer. Next year, Scent Beauty plans to ratchet up the marketing investment to roughly $10 million. Stetson’s fragrance business has doubled under Scent Beauty, according to the company, and its goal is to double it again in five years. Scent Beauty projects Untamed will generate $10 million in retail sales this year and $20 million in 2027.

“This will be the biggest launch in Stetson’s history in the last 40 years,” says Steve Mormoris, founder and CEO of Scent Beauty, which is also the license holder for Megan Moroney, Dolly Parton, Kylie Minogue and Sabrina Carpenter fragrances. He adds, “Stetson is more than a brand. It’s an American institution. We saw an expandability of the brand from an older consumer who is basically a baby boomer, and we saw that it has transgenerational appeal.”

Model and actor Matthew Noszka, who has nearly 2.5 million social media followers across platforms and stars in Hulu’s legal drama “All’s Fair,” fronts the Untamed campaign. It was shot in New Mexico and draws on Noszka’s enthusiasm for off-roading, motorcycles, horses and the outdoors.

The campaign will extend across paid and earned media, sampling, events and retail, including a Times Square billboard and a hero video. It is deliberately masculine, but its definition of masculinity spans wellness, introspection and sensitivity along with ruggedness and physical daring.

“Stetson has always stood for confidence, freedom and an unmistakable American spirit,” Noszka says. “I’ve always felt most at home outdoors—whether I’m off-roading, working on my truck or simply getting away from it all. That connection to the outdoors and the American West is a big part of who I am, so becoming part of Stetson Untamed feels like a natural fit.”

Stetson Untamed’s three EDPs—Open Sky, Wild Sage and Free Rein—occupy distinct olfactive and visual territories. Open Sky is a fresh scent pairing citrus, mountain blue juniper and eucalyptus with clary sage, incense and cedar leaf. Wild Sage combines orange peel, cinnamon bark and cardamom with sagebrush, lavender, pine and amber woods. Free Rein blends prickly pear, verbena and sweetgrass with prairie moss, pinyon resin, vetiver smoke and red amber.

Untamed is arriving more than five years after Scent Beauty, then known as Edge Beauty, took over Stetson’s fragrance license from Coty. Rather than simply maintaining Stetson Original, the mass-market cologne introduced in 1981, Scent Beauty has sought to construct a broader men’s fragrance and grooming platform around the Western lifestyle brand.

“Stetson is more than a brand. It’s an American institution.”

Scent Beauty has supplemented Stetson Original with younger-skewing fragrances such as Stetson Spirit and Stetson Legend, and it has stretched the brand into aftershave, lotion, body wash and deodorant. Untamed, however, represents a bigger shift in Scent Beauty’s strategy for Stetson. Instead of building the launch around a single hero fragrance, Scent Beauty intends the collection to function as a scent wardrobe.

“The younger consumer is buying multiple fragrances. They’re not looking for one signature fragrance,” says Mormoris. “They are looking for options, and they’re looking for different formats.”

That behavior is changing the economics and architecture of fragrance. Young male consumers who may resist the price of a $300 prestige scent are nevertheless willing to assemble sizable fragrance wardrobes across price points and distribution channels, according to Mormoris. And the Stetson body sprays are giving them bang for their buck, at a fragrance concentration Scent Beauty puts at 23% higher than the average body spray. Additional Untamed fragrances are planned.

Mormoris estimates young male consumers’ average fragrance orders can reach $100 to $150 and encompass two or three scents. That estimate tracks with outside data: gen Z consumers spend an average of $204.15 a year on cologne and perfume, $38 more than the average consumer, per NielsenIQ.

That enthusiasm comes as mass fragrance is gaining momentum. Mass-market fragrance sales in the United States increased 15% in the first half of 2026, outpacing prestige fragrance’s 6% growth, according to Circana.

Mormoris says, “Young men may shop at Walmart, Ulta or Sephora, but they’re looking for authenticity regardless of the price point.” He continues, “The guy who lives in West Morgantown, West Virginia, goes to Walmart. He knows what an eau de parfum is. That wasn’t the case five years ago. TikTok has educated that customer enormously.”

To gauge consumer readiness for Untamed, Scent Beauty conducted regionally diverse consumer panels across the U.S. It tested unbranded products and concepts before exposing participants to Stetson-branded versions. Purchase intent increased when the Stetson name was added. Of the age groups in the panels, consumers between 18 and 24 exhibited the strongest engagement with the brand, surpassing groups between 25 and 49.

Scent Beauty is presenting Stetson’s heritage as a source of credibility for young consumers attracted to nostalgia, Americana and Western imagery. The Untamed bottles feature sculptural horse-head caps and are designed for display at a moment when gen Z consumers frequently collect and showcase packaging on bedroom and bathroom shelves.

Scent Beauty is betting the unvarnished Americana of Stetson will travel outside the United States, too. Untamed marks the company’s first international push for the new Stetson fragrance concept, with distribution planned for Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Brazil and other select markets. International volume is expected to eventually reach around 20% of Untamed’s U.S. volume.