Smelling Selena Gomez's Rare Eau de Parfum is like throwing your boyfriend's favourite jumper over a lace bra while red heart emojis shoot up your nose. In other words, it's comforting, quietly sexy and makes you smile involuntarily.
Most people (including me) won't remember the star's first foray into fragrance – the now-discontinued Selena Gomez Eau de Parfum, which launched back in 2012, with the type of fruity-sweet notes (think peach, blackberry, vanilla, chocolate, and coconut) that's catnip for tweens.
The Rare Eau de Parfum – Rare Beauty's debut perfume – also contains chocolate and vanilla. But it's almost like Selena's baking skills have gone from entry-level to gourmet as she's hit on just the right amount of sugary sweetness to ensure this juice still feels grown up.
So what exactly does Rare smell like?
The first thing to note, is that Selina Gomez's Rare Eau de Parfum is classed as a gourmand or dessert-like scent. There are buzzy perfume ingredients such as pistachio, caramel, cocoa and vanilla for sure, but these notes are almost the backing singers here. What really jumped out at me when I sniffed my wrists was the pink pepper and ginger, which add a nose-twitching, zesty spiciness to the scent.
I also like that Rare lands on a bed of sandalwood and musk, which together mimic the warmth of skin, ensuring you still smell like a human being rather than a patisserie or a bag of Haribo Starmix (a pet hate of mine with a lot of other gourmand perfumes).
Rare Eau de Parfum: My verdict
When a vial of Rare, covered in “Confidential!” and “Top Secret” stickers, landed on my desk last Thursday, I nervously spritzed the juice onto both wrists and waited for an overdose of sugar to hit my nose.
For the first few minutes Rare admittedly smells a little syrupy and saccharine. But then it starts to settle on the skin and rather than feel like a fly drowning in honey, I found myself taking in greedy lungfuls as it turned into the ultimate comfort food for my senses.
It's warm, nuzzly, and I can see myself reaching for this bottle a lot in the colder months. I also love that it won't overpower my colleagues in a lift but that it's impactful enough to spike people's interest over a glass of wine in a bar.
The Rare bottle deserves a special mention, too. The first thing you notice is its small, neat size and that it has a large pump dispenser rather than one of those twiddly little misters that you have to swivel the right way to prevent spraying perfume in your eye.
Put simply, it looks a like a jar of expensive moisturiser. Better still, it's designed to be accessible to all – a consideration that I wholeheartedly applaud as beauty products are rarely designed for people with disabilities to use them.
We asked the community and its allies the changes they want to see in the industry.
Selena has openly addressed that her hands shake as a side effect of her lupus medication. Decorative caps and standard pumps in perfume bottles can be challenging for someone with dexterity issues. “We worked with certified hand therapists and tested multiple prototypes to make sure the bottle was accessible," Selena explains in an Allure interview. "The wide top was also an intentional choice for anyone to spray it comfortably.”
The Rare Eau de Parfum is shaping up to be one of my biggest perfume surprises. It's a fragrance I really didn't think I'd love when the press release came through because I'm normally drawn to softer skin or aquatic scents. But having worn Rare for a week, I've done a complete 360. Even today, the scent trail caught me unawares and I found myself looking around to see who smelt so good before realising it was me!
Selina Gomez's Rare Eau de Parfum goes on sale today. My advice? Run, don't walk.
For more from Fiona Embleton, GLAMOUR's Associate Beauty Director, follow her on @fiembleton.
