Perfume Is the New Status Hoodie

Welcome back to Haul of Fame, your must-read beauty roundup for new products, new ideas and a return to that menacing pastel eyeshadow from Jawbreaker.

Included in today’s issue: Addiction Tokyo, Beauty Creations, Billie, Brush On Block, Colourpop, Dermatologist’s Choice Skincare, Glossier, Hilary Duff, Iris&Romeo, Noteworthy, Oribe, Prequel, Rhode, Shark Beauty, Thrive Causemetics, Tonymoly, Trixie Mattel, Tweezerman, Typology, Vera Wang, Wonderskin, YSE Beauty and that creative writing class you kept skipping in college.

But first…

Once upon a time in Beverly Hills, there was a war on prom night. It was 1991, and the suburban teen arriviste Brenda Walsh wore the same off-the-shoulder cocktail dress as the school’s ruling golden girl, Kelly Taylor. A catfight ensued. Nails were broken. YouTube tributes were dropped.

It’s been 25 years, but Alex Brands says high schoolers still panic when their friend arrives wearing the same thing. “It wouldn’t be a dress now, though,” he explained to me. “The most offense happens when you steal someone’s smell. It’s like infringing on their identity.”

Brands has some experience with this as the former marketing head of Madhappy, the coveted hoodie label with a cool-kid value somewhere between LoveShackFancy and a forbidden vape. At the streetwear label, Brands built collaborations with everyone from Gigi Hadid to Larry David. (Fictional celebrities like Buzz Lightyear were also beamed into the label via Pixar deals.) His work also served as a silent prototype for Rare Beauty by wrapping Madhappy’s mental health charity in a product you could wear like a brag.

On May 2, the Brooklyn-based strategist is launching Rite of Way, a fragrance label that, in his words, “brings fragrance from your bathroom to your closet.” If Brands has it his way, you won’t think of your perfumes as beauty items. Instead, they’ll be just like your favorite hoodies, dresses and jackets. “Just in the past few years, we’ve seen this giant shift in how people consume fragrance,” said Brands, who conducted over a year of market research before hitting the buy button on his website. “You used to have just one way to smell. Your grandmother had her scent. That was it. But now, people are becoming what I call a wardrober. They have two to 20 scents in a cabinet. They’re picking what they want to wear based on the version of themselves they want to step into. It’s become a big part of their outfit.”

“Fragrance wardrobes” — the practice of having a capsule collection of perfumes, as if they’re go-to outfits —made a minor show in the 2010s, when Dior and YSL touted the concept to launch multi-product scent sets. Major fashion magazines gamely played along because: advertising. There were always a few girls (me included) who would layer two scents at once, just to keep people guessing. But while real frag-heads may have had a sincere perfume rotation, the idea that a perfume was more like a once-a-week dress than a daily mascara is fairly new for mainstream beauty shoppers. It wasn’t until this year that Piper Sandler put the concept on its teen market brief, marking the shift as part of a 22% rise in teen category spending.

Alex Brands is bootstrapping Rite of Way himself. He’s mobilized friends, called in favors, built a supply chain that’s almost entirely US-based, “except for the glass bottles,” so he can communicate directly with all involved parties. Joey Rosin from Hoax Parfum is the nose; Fisk Projects, the creative directors behind album covers for artists like Clairo and bands like Paramore, is doing the visuals. “I’ve spent in the high tens of thousands,” he said, noting that next week’s launch won’t include any paid advertising. “With fragrance, I think we really overestimate influencer reach online,” he said. “We underestimate word of mouth,” and the way a social circle can ripple outward in key areas like Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where Rite of Way will have its first party this month at the indie retailer Colbo.

Rite of Way’s first scent will be called Outer Realm. “It’s chaos, bottled,” said Brands. He’s sort of joking but you can tell he means it. Inspired by the disruptive art manifestos of dancer and choreographer Gabrielle Roth, the scent has notes of citron, juniper and saffron and retails for $188. “It’s kind of a hype-up scent,” he explains. “We all have that one thing we wear to make us feel powerful.” The vintage YSL blazer; the Khaite jean; the WNE oxford shirt that’s a little too big; and yes, if you’re in high school (or working at a nebulous “creative agency”), the status hoodie that might just be Madhappy.

Brands is banking on adding Outer Realm and later, other Rite of Way fragrances, to that list. But also… yes… there will be a sweatshirt, along with a few other merch items created by Colin Smight at Cul de Sac studios, who is also the creative director for Alex Cooper’s projects, including “Call Her Daddy” and Unwell. “We want to build a whole world for Rite of Way to increase the surface area of the brand,” Brands explained, adding that the merch items “add texture” to the scents. “We want people to say, ‘What is that? Who are they about?’ We want to have a small halo of Rite of Way merch surrounding every scent to add texture.

“Scent is the sun in this little universe,” he continued, “But you can’t build a universe that you can’t see.”

What else is new…

Skincare

“French Girl Eye Cream” will not make you look as well-rested as universal healthcare, locally grown food and great wine, but Typology would like to make you an offer anyway. The French brand’s A30 Eye Serum hit shelves on April 21 with retinoids and hyaluronic acid.

If you saw a giant poster of an armpit on the street, would you stop and smell it? Billie is betting their ad money on it. The personal care brand debuted a “scratch and sniff the pits” campaign in NYC on April 21. The purpose is to amplify its Coco Villa All Day Deodorant. The intended target audience is likely not a bunch of 13-year-old boys, but that’s who will be the most engaged here. And if Billie can get junior high soccer teams to stop smelling like Axe Body Spray and start smelling like candy coconut, the brand may earn a lot of goodwill with teen parents.

Tweezerman is celebrating its sapphire anniversary (45 years!) with a version of its classic Slant Tweezer that’s been cast in deep blue enamel and encrusted with Swarovski crystals.

On April 24, Brush on Block launched SOL SPF 50, a mineral-based sunscreen that sprays on white so you can see where you need coverage, but turns invisible once it’s settled onto the skin.

Makeup

When a drag queen tells you where she gets her eye makeup, believe her (and buy it, too). On April 18, Trixie Mattel dropped Hotline Brown, a liquid gel liner. This is serious stuff — it comes in a pot and you need a liner brush for it — and costs $18.

My fave genre of GRWM is “celebrity who has her own beauty line, but uses a competing product anyway.” This is not sarcasm; it’s truly brilliant when a star admits she lives in the world, not her own branding campaign. It also ups the celebrity’s trust factor a zillion percent, which is useful when they’re asking you to buy things. Hailey Bieber is a master at this particular genre, and on April 22, she applied Tonymoly’s $22 Cheek Tone Jelly Blusher on top of her own $24 Rhode Pocket Blush, along with a Kosas concealer.

Addiction Tokyo debuted its Harmonious Synergy collection on April 22 with eight eyeshadow singles ($22 each) in 1990s-throwback hues like mint blue and yellow-green, along with two liquid liners ($24) in shimmery brown and sparkly red-beige.

Congratulations to Dermatologist’s Choice Skincare for dropping its Glycolic Peel Pads and TCA Toning Pads on April 22. Congratulations, also, for picking a brand name with guaranteed SEO value. Very smart.

Prequel’s doing colour now! The skincare brand launched Lip Visor, a rosy minty gloss on April 23. It also comes in clear; both shades are $14 and come with SPF 30.

Thrive Causemetics debuted a Berry Collection on April 23 that includes a purple-brown mascara ($26) and three lip shades ($26 – $28) described as “warm plum” and “plum mauve” on the brand’s website. No, plum is not a berry. Yes, it’s still a super pretty shade for lip stuff.

Wonderskin introduced its Phlush Stick ($26) on April 23. It’s a “custom color” blush with the consistency of Milk’s Jelly collection, and it changes tints through “pH adjusting pigment technology” to create a skin-powered pink shade.

First, Sabrina Carpenter gets everyone to wear butter yellow. Now she’s moving makeup giants to name their stuff “espresso.” The newest entrant is Glossier, with Espresso Balm Dot Com hitting shelves on April 24.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your lip gloss. On April 24, Colourpop released a “Tangled” collab including a shadow palette, highlighter, face glitter and three shades of sparkly gloss.

Beauty Creations dropped a whopping 24 makeup brushes on April 25; they’re a powdery millennial pink shade and retail for $7 and under.

Molly Sims is entering the lip gloss chat. Her indie brand, YSE Beauty, drops four shiny shades on April 25, including a poppy red and a warm taupe called “Fashionably Late.” They’re $30 and yes, they have the tip.

Iris & Romeo has hit Substack. This month, the brand launched &co., a newsletter by founder Michelle Gough Baril that they claim has earned 4,500 followers in just 2 weeks. The brand team has smartly replied to every single comment to boost engagement (and double their comment count from 12 to 24); the conversion rate? We’ll see. Expect a cross-posting soon from Maggie Smith, the author of For Dear Life, who has over 40,000 subscribers on the platform.

Haircare

Is it a coincidence that SharkNinja’s stock jumped when the appliance company debuted its TikTok famous FlexStyle dryer in a limited-edition Blossom Bliss (rose gold) colorway? Yes, but it’s still worth paying attention to the brand, especially because it’s still significantly cheaper than a Dyson hair system, but made quick, glossy work of my 3c curls in the same amount of time.

Now that fragrances are giving up the erotic vibes, hair care brands are stepping in. Oribe’s Gold Lust hair cream hits April 23 with a damage-repair mission and a musky eucalyptus scent to make “bed head” into a goal.

Fragrance

Does Lauren Sanchez have a fragrance deal yet? If not, she’d be a bombshell pick for Vera Wang’s new scent, Love Eau de Parfum, which debuted on April 20. The scent has notes of mandarin and jasmine, plus a bottle shaped like a giant diamond engagement ring. (Though of course, not as giant as Sanchez’s reported 30-carat stone.)

Wait, floating planks of wood have their own scent accord? Apparently, yeah. The indie fragrance company Drift launched their first male-geared scent on April 22 called Coast, which has notes of sea salt, lavender, lemon zest and… driftwood. It’s $80, and unfortunately, came out a full two years after the live-action “Little Mermaid.” What a collab…

It’s been a minute since we’ve had a fragrance memo that reads like slam poetry. On April 24, we got one from Noteworthy about n,470 Floating Garden, a “quietly radiant” apple-based scent that is “a breath of clarity — spa-like, soothing, yet quietly invigorating — a reminder that even in open air, there’s always something to hold onto. The crisp breath of morning, the warmth waiting beneath it. A moment suspended, a fresh start — wrapped in quiet, effortless luxury.” I’ll get the drugs; you get the notebook you pretended to burn after your Intro to Creative Writing class in college…

Hilary Duff is plugging into the fragrance world. Literally. On April 23, the most underrated Gossip Girl guest star hit QVC with her $89 scent plug-ins, which are part of the actress’s home brand, Below 60.

And finally…

Keep your eyes peeled for a La Prairie cameo in the (very funny) wealth-porn satire Your Friends and Neighbors. Then ask your (richest) friends and neighbours if they’ve ever had a jar of La Mer or a bottle of Oribe swiped from their bathroom during a cocktail party. (I’ve heard it’s especially common Out East.)

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