SerpApi.Org
Nest New York, the line launched by Laura Slatkin, is continuing to transform from a home fragrance brand into a serious player in the fragrance category with the introduction of its newest eau de parfum, Cardamom Latte, while also continuing to deepen its international footprint by launching at Boots in the U.K.
Edgar Huber, a longtime Coty Luxury and L'Oréal executive, joined the brand in 2023 as chief executive officer and has been driving this strategy forward.
"We really started focusing on building a brand, and while before it was more a collection of excellent products and excellent quality, and with a very strong founder, but whose personality was the brand. It's very often the case with so many founder-driven businesses," he said in an interview. "We started to work on the brand book, we put together what are the key elements and pillars of our brand expression, and then we started really talking about building this brand, and not only focusing on the collection of products."
In 2022, investment company Eurazeo sold its majority stake in Nest to an investor group led by private equity firm North Castle Partners.
While Nest did not disclose net revenue, retail sales are understood to be around $200 million.
As part of Huber's strategy, Nest started evolving the business more into fine fragrances, which were less than 10 percent three years ago. Now they are closer to 35 percent, with the goal of pushing that up to 40 percent.
Part of this is embracing the scent layering trend, with its range of perfume oils, EDPs, and body mists. "The perfume oil is your ground layer. It's like the first layer of clothes you put on, and then you have the EDP, which you can apply on top, either the same scent or a different scent, so you can mix it, because there's vertical layering and horizontal layering, and then you can finish it up with the body mists, and no brand has such a strong presence in the three different formats," said Huber.
Around 40 percent of new product launches were fine fragrances versus home in 2025, which increased to 75 percent in 2026. Forty-two percent of fine fragrance revenue in the year to date comes from the top three scents - Madagascar Vanilla, Santa Barbara Strawberry, and Lychee Rose - across perfume oil, eau de parfum, and body mist formats.
Its new fragrance, Cardamom Latte Eau de Parfum, will debut at Sephora later this month, priced at $98 for a 50ml bottle and will launch at Boots in the U.K. in August, before rolling out to Douglas in Europe in September.
Fresh from being named Lifetime Achievement Perfumer at the Fragrance Foundation Awards, Honorine Blanc, master perfumer at Dsm-firmenich, developed Cardamom Latte, marking her first fragrance for the brand.
"I wanted to create a new gourmand, something very addictive. I love to work with addiction, but in a modern way, and an unexpected combination," she said. "My first idea was to combine the coconut meat and cardamom. There's something very aphrodisiac, but elevated about cardamom. It's a unisex note. I combined these two and had this very milky, creamy combination that was unusual, but then I started trying to perfect it by bringing luminosity into structure to make it more like cashmere and fluffy and added some jasmine and some ingredients to elevate it."
On why gourmand fragrances have become so popular, she said: "In the U.S., people connect gourmand with sensuality, and there's something very comforting about gourmand - every time you want something to make you feel good, you go to something sweet. But what I love about this new generation, and what's going on today is when we do things we're not afraid. We just show it."
Huber believes that one key element of the brand from the beginning was that Slatkin always worked with master perfumers. "Laura was working with master perfumers from Day One on, and that was the big difference, because so many home fragrance companies or candle companies did not have at all the sophistication in terms of fragrances," he said.
But while fine fragrance has been a big focus, home fragrance is still the majority and vital part of the brand.
"We will always be a home fragrance brand, and it's still a little bit over 60 percent of the total business," said Huber. "Laura has created a very unique brand in terms of quality and in terms of the scents she selected, and also the name, so this is really the core of the brand, and it's the DNA of the brand."
To help with this transformation, Huber has been building out his team, including chief marketing officer Erwan Le Berrigaud, creative director and chief brand officer Toni Lakis, North American general manager Jackie Staub, senior vice president of international business development Tanguy de Buchet and vice president of DTC and performance marketing Allyssa Kaiser. Slatkin stepped away from day-to-day operations last July, with plans to focus on new entrepreneurial pursuits. She continues to serve on the company's board of directors.
Another part of the business that did not exist three years ago is international. Now, in the U.K., the brand is stocked at Cult Beauty, Harrods, Selfridges and John Lewis. It is in the middle of a rollout in Boots stores and by Aug. 17 will be online and available in 37 stores and the British retailer's fragrance concept store at Broadgate Central in London.
In addition to this, Nest launched in Douglas in Europe last year and is in around 500 doors, while the Middle East is next in its sights with a yet-to-be-announced local partnership
At home in the U.S., it launched in Ulta in 2024.
"The Ulta business is very successful. We have roughly 900 doors, so there's still a way to go, because Ulta has 1,600 in total. The perfume oils are nearly half of our business with them. We have added a different and new customer to the brand by going to Ulta," said Huber.
And it's not just Ulta. Other changes in its distribution and channel strategies as well as a social media push have also attracted new consumers, according to Huber.
"It's mostly urban, it's mostly more diverse, and it's mostly also a younger consumer, and they come in through the body sprays, because over 60 percent of buyers of body mists were new to the brand when we launched them, so it was a really important tool to recruit new people to the brand, and then secondly, we also visited perfume oils and with the layering, we have succeeded to attract a different kind of consumer," he said.
