Infiniment Coty Paris Falters as Gucci Heads to L'Oréal

I wanted to love Infiniment Coty Paris. Anniversary fireworks, storied archives, that elegant Paris tag. On counter, though, I watched shoppers spritz, blink, and drift to the next bottle. The concept felt cerebral, the connection too thin. For a launch designed to celebrate Coty and revive Coty Paris, it read like a manifesto without a pulse, and consumers do not buy manifestos. They buy memories on skin.

Under Sue Nabi, the brief has been to loosen the borders of beauty, to make room for more. I respect the ambition. But on a crowded floor where niche is now practically mainstream, you need conviction in the bottle and clarity in the story. Infiniment Coty Paris had the pedigree, yet not the gravitational pull. When a line sells the idea of futurist elegance, it still has to smell like want, not homework.

The timing could not be harsher. The industry backdrop is sturdy, peers like Estée Lauder, L'Oréal, and Shiseido have kept margins intact, while Coty posted a roughly $126.9 million quarterly loss and a like-for-like revenue dip around 3 percent after guiding for growth. That is not a blip, it is a bruise.

Then comes the headline that stings more than any quarterly: the Gucci fragrance license will move to L'Oréal in 2028. Call it what it is, a crown being resized. Gucci gives a portfolio instant heat and global muscle, and when that gravity shifts, shelves and shoppers follow. You can build new pillars, but losing that name means the architecture must change fast.

What does this all smell like from the floor? Pressure. Coty needs launches that can live without borrowed shine, bottles that seduce before the press release, pricing and placement that meet the new luxury without the old bloat. The market will forgive an idea that misses, it will not forgive a pattern.

I will keep revisiting Infiniment Coty Paris, because ideas sometimes need air. But the customer has already delivered the first review, quietly, at the cash wrap.