Even before “Sephora kids” — tweens dropping their allowances on high-end beauty products — became a TikTok phenomenon, Evereden was making skin care for Gen Alpha. Kimberley Ho first launched the family-focused beauty brand in 2018 to deliver “a ‘cleaner’ standard for skin care” for babies and moms, and later expanded into offerings geared toward kids, preteens and teens as its consumer base aged up. This spring, Evereden ventured into a new category with its three-scent hair- and body-mist lineup in response to Gen Alphas taking their first steps into fragrance.

As elder Gen Alphas (11-to-15 year-olds) enter the fragrance space fresh off #PerfumeTok, they’re met with strong eau de parfums and extraits packed with mature notes like musks, florals and amber, whose price tags often soar into the triple digits. Rather than splurge on ‘grown-up’ scents typically marketed with romantic undertones, younger beauty consumers are increasingly embracing sweet-smelling body mists, the trendy younger sister to the classic eau de parfum.

Along with Evereden, other beauty brands have rushed to get in on Gen Alpha’s body mist boom: Daise, which launched in January, offers six vibrant fruity and floral blends; Florence by Mills entered the category this spring with three versatile scents dubbed Soft Girl, Coastal Chic and Love Core; Touchland introduced eight brightly colored, “mood-enhancing” mists; and Vacation unveiled a trio of tropical spritzes primed for poolside lounging.

“Body mist invites experimentation — it lets Gen Alpha play with different moods and identities without the pressure or permanence of a luxury fragrance,” Daise Founder Jaimee Lupton tells Fashionista via email. “And from a practical perspective, it’s more affordable and more approachable, which is key when you’re early in your beauty journey.”

Now that body mist has (re)emerged as Gen Alpha’s entry point into fragrance, how are beauty brands capturing kids’ attention in the crowded olfactory landscape?

For Evereden’s three $23 scents — Main Character, Darling and Supernova — it initially tried leading with the fragrances’ notes (for example, Darling boasts a fruity blend of strawberry, peach and pineapple with a vanilla base), but found that its Gen-Alpha audience was struggling to understand the scents through the screen. The brand considered comparing its mists to other popular fragrances on the market, but tweens just entering the perfume world are typically unfamiliar with well-known scents.

Thus, the brand landed on personality-based marketing for Gen Alpha consumers to select a scent that aligned with their self-expression. “We led with use case scenarios, mood and personalities instead of the technical notes,” Ho explains. “We found that that landed so much better with this generation versus the traditional fragrance marketing methods of leading with notes and also similar perfumes.”

The theory is that this vibe-matching approach is reaching younger consumers right as they begin to explore who they want to be. For example, Evereden describes Supernova as “effortlessly cool, candied pear daydreams, texting you playlists and her latest thrift hauls” and Main Character as “beaded friendship bracelets and pinky promises, gold huggie hoops on the first day of summer break, peachy freckles and bites of green apple.”

As for the actual fragrance notes that pique Gen Alpha’s interest most, mouth-watering gourmands take center stage. Body mists are inherently lightweight (thanks to lower concentrations of fragrance oil), making them the ideal medium for fruity explorations of peaches, pears, pineapples, berries, coconuts and more. Caramel, brown sugar and lots of vanilla are also favorites. “Gen Alpha tends to gravitate toward scents that feel comforting, but also a bit playful,” Lupton notes.

Along with positioning body mist as a sensorial personality test, packaging (read: how cute it looks atop your vanity or on your TikTok) also plays a major role in snagging Gen Alpha’s attention. When designing its fragrances, Evereden consulted 200 teens and tweens for feedback on what stands out to them on a shelf or through a screen. The verdict? Bright pops of color with a stylish twist.

“They really responded to packaging that felt elevated,” Ho says. “They didn’t want something that looked like it was made for a child. Elevated, but still youthful.”

Evereden’s body mists are bottled in neon pink, green and orange vials topped off with a spherical cap, balancing “a sense of girlhood with something that was elevated.” Daise opted for three-dimensional flower-shaped bottles for its mists, spanning vibrant shades of yellow, lavender, mint green, pink, orange and blue.

“We’re always thinking about color, texture and shape in ways that spark joy and feel shareable,” Lupton explains. “It’s about creating something they’re proud to display, share online or just enjoy using. Design is part of the experience — it’s never just about what’s inside the bottle.”

Though bright packaging and an emphasis on self-expression may seem like a quick ticket to younger consumers, there’s a catch: Successful marketing cannot look or feel like an advertisement. “Gen Alpha, they’re unique in that they have grown up being the most digitally native generation of any generation,” Ho says. “They’re allergic to ads because of that. They know an ad within the first few seconds and they’re scrolling away on TikTok.” Therefore, Evereden shifted its TikTok strategy to be “much more fun [and] snappy” with a focus on “edutainment pieces” that merge education and entertainment for curious Gen Alphas.

Daise’s social media marketing strategy centers on “engaging, playful content” that taps into the existing ways Gen Alpha is discovering beauty via influencers, trend cycles and peer recommendations. “For us, marketing to [Gen Alpha] means speaking with them, not at them,” Lupton says. “They value authenticity, fun and experimentation — but they also know when something feels inauthentic or like it’s talking down to them. Our approach is to empower them with choices and encourage creativity, rather than prescribe a specific way to smell or be.”

In the overarching fragrance category, Launchmetrics found that brands are diversifying their storytelling by “leaning into personalities and platforms that foster emotional connection, authenticity and aspiration.” In an effort to meet Gen Alpha where they’re already spending time, some fragrance brands are getting into video games. Givaudan, a fragrance house behind some of the industry’s top scents, teamed up with Roblox to launch a new digital experience called Guardians of Memories specifically geared toward Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

For those who may not have a Dress To Impress fixation, Roblox is a multiplayer gaming platform with more than 90 million daily users (the majority of whom are under 16 years old). In Givaudan’s Guardians of Memories, players enter an immersive dystopic world where the inhabitants have lost their memories and must complete a series of mini games to create a tool to restore forgotten memories. Through these challenges, “you are really following the exact process of creating a fragrance,” Arnaud Guggenbuhl, Givaudan’s head of global marketing, insight and image for the fine fragrances division, notes.

To begin, the user selects natural ingredients from different biomes in the digital world, then delivers them to a laboratory where the scents can be extracted. Next, players must compile the fragrance recipe in the correct order (by top, heart and bottom notes) to create a perfume that will recover the inhabitants’ lost memories. There are three perfumes with varying levels of difficulty, allowing players to return and play again.

Beyond fueling Gen Alpha’s interest in the olfactory space, Givaudan is using this gamification approach to familiarize the budding beauty consumers with common fragrance notes by connecting in-game ingredients to real-world scents. For example, Guardians of Memories recommends sipping Earl Grey tea to smell bergamot or sniffing a pencil to smell cedar. “We give them little tips so that even within real life, they will be able to experience the scent step by step, discovering each of the ingredients,” Guggenbuhl says.

With the oldest Gen Alphas just starting high school and the youngest still in diapers, the generation is already influencing household purchasing decisions and making an impact on the wider beauty industry. “Nowadays, it’s not exactly what’s inside the fragrance that is important for [Gen Alpha], it’s what the fragrance will convey as a message when you wear it,” Guggenbuhl reflects.

“In fact, I have to say that fragrance for this generation is becoming a medium,” he continues. “When you spray it on yourself, what does it tell about you? What does it tell about your emotions, your feelings, and what is the message that you want to give to the people that will smell you?”

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