Want to smell like a donut? Beauty Brands Think You Do

But in 2023, we’ve moved from food-inspired aesthetics to actually wanting look at Like food, with trends like cinnamon cookie butter hair, blueberry milk nails, and glossy donut skin. Today, something goes: Velvita Hair Dye, Dill-pickle-flavored lubeAnd Hellmann’s Mayonnaise Flavor-The more absurd the rule, the better.

For millennials and millennials, these products are a sensory trip down memory lane, reliving the candy-flavored stool staples of our youth. For Gen Z, it’s a collision of high and low—a clean beauty brand like the native rubbing shoulders with fast food establishments like Dunkin’.

So happy together

TikTok, with its algorithmic obsession with absurdity, thrives on these edible beauty launches. The marketing strategy borrows liberally from streetwear’s scarcity playbook, implementing limited-edition drops designed to create urgency and exclusivity. But unfortunately, these products are not built to last. They’re flashpoints for FOMO-prone shoppers and sentimentalists looking to romanticize their routines. For Gen Z, the more outlandish the idea, the faster it seems to catch on.

Food and Beverage (F&B) licensing is a profitable avenue for this partnership. According to Licensing International’s 2023 Global Licensing Industry StudyF&B grew by 5.3 percent, and the cosmetic industry is dipping its manicured fingers into the pie. Everyone benefits from these symbiotic relationships, as food franchises capitalize on its sharability #BeautyTalk To spread their branding to new markets.

The result is a syrupy cocktail of millennial nostalgia and Gen Z satire that generates free advertising through memes, TikTok reactions and social media discourse.

So, what’s next? Crunchwrap-flavored cologne? Hot Cheetos-flavored toothpaste? Perhaps a McRib collagen serum? As brands push the boundaries of absurdity, the question isn’t whether they’ll go too far, it’s when we hit our breaking point. Novelty has a shelf life.

Without meaningful innovation, the joke risks wearing thin, much like these own franchise. In the meantime, though, there’s a cautionary tale: The punch line here is the consumer, not the product. We don’t want to wake up tomorrow smelling like cheetah and pickles and realize the joke is on us.