These days, my inbox reads like a Parisian patisserie menu. It's full of press releases about perfumes shaped like chocolate bars, “guilt-free” marshmallow scents and the world's first “lickable perfume” (Amorecco's Late Night Gelato, in case you're wondering).
All of which would be OK if, in some corners of the internet, scents that smell uncannily like fistfuls of cake and Chantilly cream weren't being used to cut out calories. Welcome to the era of ‘scent snacking’, where the goal is not to eat the ‘bad’ carb-fuelled cake, but to use your sense of smell to rewire your cravings and satiate your hunger.
Smelling edible is in
Sweet, dessert-like fragrances, also known as gourmand perfumes, are one of the biggest perfume trends right now. Sales of gourmand fragrances rose by 77% last year alone, according to industry magazine Perfumer & Flavorist – and that's no coincidence.
We're hardwired to gravitate towards delicious food smells such as sugary vanilla, cream, marshmallows, chocolate and spun caramel. “Our cavewoman primal instincts tell us that high-calorie smells are a good thing; it’s a fight or flight response, as we know they keep us alive,” says Alice du Parcq, fragrance expert and author of The Perfume Playground newsletter on Substack.
There's also the fact that dessert-themed perfumes invite compliments. “Rich, sweet, creamy, fattening gourmand fragrances are the ones that people tend to notice the most on us because it's naturally in our systems to do so," she adds.
Not to mention, gourmand scents are deeply comforting – an emotion we've been craving in turbulent times ever since the Pandemic. “We derive comfort and joy from what we eat," notes fragrance influencer Maiya Grant, a.k.a @blackgirlssmellgood on #PerfumeTok. "Food and emotion are also interwoven in our culture. We celebrate our happiest moments like weddings and birthdays with cake; we dive into a pint of ice cream when we’re sad. Gourmand fragrances are bubbling over with sweet, cosy notes that make you feel happy and safe.”
But could there also be a more uncomfortable reason for society's obsession with sugar-heavy perfumes at a time when diet culture, clean eating and weight-loss jabs are also booming?
Getting high on ‘guilt-free’ sniffing
TikToker Amy Nose Scent certainly thinks so. “In the early 2000s, diet culture was everywhere," she says in a viral video, which has been viewed over 700,000 times to date. “Atkins diet, tabloids shaming absolutely everyone, the obsession with size zero. Celebrity perfumes responded with sugar. These were edible-smelling scents that were sold as guilt-free pleasure.
“Now we've officially entered the second wave,” she continues. "Whenever society doubles down on being thin, dessert-centred perfumes spike. Why? Because they offer the illusion of indulgence without breaking any of the rules.”
TikTok content
Social media is also rife with the idea of ‘scent snacking’ and using gourmand fragrances to recreate – and even replace – the experience of eating sweet foods IRL. “Well, I tend to grab gourmands when I'm on a diet and it helps!”, enthused one user on Reddit. “I also realised that especially sweet perfumes, vanilla perfumes, which I love, stopped me from even thinking about sweets. Smelling the vanilla perfumes was as good as “eating” them," read a different thread. And this from another user: “It's like you are snacking on the scents!!”
All of which feels like a recalibration of the viral video showing Kourtney Kardashian inhaling greedy lungfuls of a doughnut, while saying, “I can't eat this, but how exciting to smell it”. Or the woman sniffing a chocolate bar as if it's a line of cocaine before spooning broccoli into her mouth.
What about the effect of Ozempic?
There's something else to consider, too: the rise in dessert-inspired fragrances is also happening alongside the increased use of GLP-1 medications for weight loss, such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro.
“GLP-1 medications act on multiple parts of the brain, including areas involved in reward, appetite and emotional regulation," says Olivia Jezler, founder of Future of Smell and an expert in scent technology, who is currently studying this phenomenon. "These areas also play a role in how we process scent. Many people say they became addicted to fragrances, especially sweet ones. For some, gourmand perfumes seem to offer a kind of symbolic comfort and a way to feel indulgent without eating."
A lot of this comes down to the feel-good chemical dopamine. Eating sweet foods essentially activates our brain's reward system, leading to the temporary release of dopamine. Smelling something sweet has a similar effect on the brain, according to a study by the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet.
Dopamine also kicks in when we smell something comforting – a connection that might be broken when someone is on weight-loss jabs and avoiding sugary comfort food, Olivia notes. For some people, gourmand scents are stepping in and filling that dopamine void.
Alice, who was prescribed the Mounjaro jab a year ago, admits: “I’ve noticed that my perfume preferences have really changed. Approximately two months in, I noticed a tangible need for very strong, very decadent and very luxurious gourmand fragrances. Specifically, almond and vanilla ones that smell like billionaire pudding trolleys."
But can you really sniff yourself thin?
You're probably wondering, can a perfume really replace food? We know that something significant happens in the brain when we catch a whiff of food. "Smelling food before eating it impacts our sensory experience," says Thibaud Crivelli, founder and creative director of Maison Crivelli perfumes, which is why we start salivating when, for example, we smell a chocolate cake in the oven.
All smells are also processed in the part of our brain that controls emotions and memories. So the smell of that chocolate cake may trigger feelings of joy as you remember baking with your grandma as a child.
Anything more should be taken with a pinch of salt, says Amanda Carr, a trend forecaster and co-founder of the fragrance platform We Wear Perfume. “If the body can be 'satisfied' by getting its hit of nostalgic comfort from a sweet smell, then great. But it's a whole lot more complex than replacing food with fragrance.”
Dr Lara Zibarras, a psychologist and food freedom coach, also worries about the dangerous precedent this idea of replacing food with fragrance sets. “It reinforces the message that hunger is something we should suppress, and that pleasure from food is something to avoid or feel guilty about,” she notes.
The real appeal of sweet, buttery gourmand fragrances
As a beauty editor who has smelt hundreds of fragrances during her career, I can vouch for the fact that there's so much to love about gourmand perfumes when the focus is on indulging your senses rather than denying them.
Take vanilla, for example. “It's the scent that is most likely to bring a sense of calm, relaxation and comfort, perhaps due to its presence in breast milk and its use in lots of early years puddings in Western cultures,” says Amanda. Precisely why Victoria Beckham's 21:50 Rêverie and Kayali Vanilla 28 are like proverbial hugs in a bottle.
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Jo Malone's Raspberry Ripple Cologne swirls the sharp juice of raspberries and redcurrants through white musk to conjure up scoops of ice cream and sun-drenched sandcastles. Sol de Janeiro's Cheriosa ‘62 Perfume Mist sandwiches heady jasmine between nutty pistachio, vanilla and salted caramel, which conjures up eating a Snickers bar in a flower shop.
Prefer a more nuzzly skin scent? Lancôme's new La Vie Est Belle Vanille Nude laces creamy musks with the sweetness of glazed vanilla, fluffy coconut and a dash of zesty orange essence for a scent that's addictive without feeling cloying. While Glossier You Rêve, with its dominant musks, sugary buttercream and a note that recalls a sticky plum tart, smells like the type of comfort food you'd eat after dancing until 2 am.
There's also a new trend emerging for “neo-gourmand” scents, which mix unexpected foodie notes and are so artistic that they frankly deserve a spot in the Louvre. Think liquorice blended with smoky tendrils of tobacco in Dries Van Noten's Havana Gold Eau de Parfum; a milk foam accord designed to smell like a creamy latte in Valentino Beauty Sogno in Rosso, and the scent of warm, buttered bread wrapped in powdery orris and leather in Fendi La Baguette.
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Fragrance goes way beyond beauty standards – it's one of the most powerful tools we can use to boost our mood. So why not gorge on scents that conjure up crimson cherry juice dribbling down your chin if it makes you feel happy? Or allow those artificial, plasticky strawberry scents to whisk you back to childhood and the joy of unwrapping a square of bubblegum?
Because, guess what? A perfume doesn't care if the person wearing it is size zero or plus size.
For more from Fiona Embleton, GLAMOUR's Associate Beauty Director, follow her on Instagram @fiembleton.
