First came the body mists . It’s not that these were the first alcohol-free fragrances ever made— perfume oils and solid formats have been around for centuries, if not millennia—but suddenly it seemed like everyone was adding these lighter, often more-affordable scents to their lineups. “We saw a huge uptick in alcohol-free fragrances one to two years ago with the big boom of body mists,” Charlene Valledor , a product developer and co-founder of the brand incubation firm SOS Beauty , confirms. “One of the things that people didn't love about spraying these mists all over your body was that there was always a big waft of alcohol. We were trying to minimize that.” In 2026, fragrance as a whole is a huge category. It seems like every other pitch that lands in my inbox is for an alcohol-free product. Some of these are spray-on formulas, like the aforementioned body mists or low-concentration eaux fraîches.…