HEAVEN SCENT

Forget the fine fragrance on your dressing table - the new luxury is finding it in your make-up

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From haircare to hand sanitisers, brands are riding the olfactive wave as our collective obsession with fragrance hits high tide.

Whether it's Gen Z reshaping the luxury beauty market with their discerning noses or our shared desire to ritualise the smallest gestures, scent has become beauty's stealth power player. What once elevated a spritz of perfume now lingers in lipsticks, blushers and bronzers, layering self-expression on self-expression.

Fragrance is no longer confined to the dressing table; haute perfumers are being enlisted to scent every swipe of makeup, transforming it into an invisible accessory to bolster mood and define identity. The allure is subtle but deeply transporting: scent defines not only how we want to be perceived, but also how we want to feel while wearing it.

It's no longer enough to swoosh on luxury pigments; we want to feel luxurious as we do it, and that's where fragrance comes into its own.

“Today's luxury brands understand that scent triggers emotional memory more powerfully than any other sense,” says the makeup historian Sara Long (@themakeuphistorian), noting that cosmetic scents once served only to mask unpleasant odours of early formulas made with mercury, lead and animal fats.