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.