Baobab Collection is expanding in more ways than one.
The Belgian home fragrance brand is setting its sights on the U.S. market, with a forthcoming rebrand at the top of 2026 dovetailing with the opening of its new boutique in New York’s West Village on Bleecker Street. For the company’s chief executive officer, Julien Gommichon, it’s part of a global effort to stretch worldwide interest in fine fragrance to the home category.
“That’s something we are going to focus on and develop in the future,” he said. “We’ve always used master perfumers for our fragrances, though we probably haven’t been focused enough on communicating it. In development, we’re going to be innovating to create new fragrances with new olfactive families.”
What differentiates the brand, he said, is that it approaches the category holistically. “It touches all the scents: from the feeling, to the smell, to your eyes when you enter your home,” he explained in a nod to the blown glass vessels. “It’s similar to when you perfume yourself in the morning or evening, but even more holistic.”
The U.S. consumer is more focused on scent than on the vessels’ designs, said Charlotte Croonenberghs, president of Baobab Collection North America. “People here think about their spaces, a bit differently than layering scents on your body, but they do want to layer ambiences they create in their homes,” Croonenberghs said. “That changes depending on spaces and on the seasons.”
Although awareness is higher in home geographies such as Europe, “The desirability of the brand is huge just by connecting with the product, the objects. The brand has not done a lot of marketing or investment in promotion,” Gommichon said. “This is an incredible story, to see where the brand is today. We don’t necessarily want to suddenly invest a lot, but we want to amplify that.”
The brand derives its name from the plant of the same name, which Gommichon said, “offers a strong symbol of longevity, community and timelessness.” That jibes with his efforts to streamline and elevate Baobab Collection’s distribution in Europe, expand it with its own boutiques in the U.S. and as he looks to other markets globally.
“If we start to manage the development of the brand and customer experience, we will benefit very quickly in this market,” Croonenberghs said. “We’re trying to be very rigid on who we open with or not, and now we’re working on how to get exposed as well.”
In addition to the company’s core collection, seasonal scents also perform well, both executives said. “We’re revisiting the portfolio and making sure we’re filling out some fragrance families that aren’t represented yet,” Gommichon said. “A customer in New York or Miami has different taste, let alone in Europe, Middle East or Asia. That’s the groundwork we want to do.”
The plan is to double the business by 2028, which will come from projected double-digit growth every year until then. “We are confident in the strength of our brand and its desirability,” Gommichon said, which is when the rebrand comes in. “We haven’t put words to it yet, but we’ve put codes on it. We want to make it clear and simple for a customer to understand our values, our culture. We have a lot to say.”
