Gourmand (from the French, meaning gluttony) refers to cosmetic products that seek to replicate the distinct aromas of certain foods.

They’re often inspired by saccharine desserts with sickly, sweet smells and are notable for their recent propulsion into virality amongst fragrance fans on TikTok and other platforms. Think of best sellers like Lush’s viral Sticky Dates range or Sol De Janeiro’s Cheriosa 62 vanilla, caramel and pistachio body spray.

Recent data demonstrates their demand. Machine intelligence analytics platform Spate has published a report claiming that searches related to the term ‘gourmand fragrance’ have spiked by over 77% on Google and TikTok in the last year, indicating a growing desire for this perfume category. Indeed, the sector is forecast to prosper as industry insider research from Future Market Insights has predicted that the global gourmand fragrance market will grow to a value of $55 billion by 2033.

So, why all the hype?

Well, the swelling desire for these products might not be as sweet as it seems. Recent research has found that “smell has a major influence on metabolism,” hinting at a strong connection between the smelling of tasty, food-like odours and satiety (feelings of fullness). In this way, gourmand fragrances fall under the category of aromatherapy (scents used for healing and health) and can serve as novel sensory tools to complement dieting and accompany weight-loss, especially when paired with the use of GLP-1 drugs.

Though originally developed for the treatment of diabetes, one study posted to medRxiv finds that, in early 2025, approximately 910,000 people in the UK had used these GLP-1 medications, not for their intended invention, but to curb feelings of hunger and shed weight quickly. Drugs like Wegovy, Mounjaro and Ozempic have revolutionised the way that people choose to approach dieting and are especially powerful when used alongside aromatherapies.

I put this idea of combining weight loss drugs with food-like odours and perfumes to Mrs Burke, 57, an NHS nurse currently using Mounjaro to lose weight, who says that she “can see that working well.”

Though she says that a gourmand scent wouldn’t necessarily make her feel full, Mrs Burke states, “I don’t like the thought of putting something on that is sickly… the thing that would make me stop eating is that the smell would make me feel nauseous.”

She explains this feeling of nausea by adding, “that’s obviously the Mounjaro effect so, something has changed in the way that I perceive food and smells.”

Feeling sick from confectionary cosmetics may not sound appetising but one British man, 22, tells me his use of GLP-1 medications to shed weight has been “a true godsend” as he “didn’t think [he] could do it by just eating less and working out without them.”

Others don’t view these injectables so highly; articles from publications like The Mancunion have suggested that the increasing prevalence of such medications is contributing to a resurgence of unattainably thin beauty ideals.

For context, in the early 2000s, the ideal body type for fashion models and women in the public eye was largely pallid, gaunt and unhealthily thin, an aesthetic that’s colloquially known as ‘heroin chic’. This obsession with being size-zero is perhaps no more appositely underlined than by Kate Moss’s popularisation of the phrase “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”

Today, cultural commentators and articles from news sites like The Guardian have suggested that the pendulum of fashionable body standards has swung away from the ‘body positive’ inclusivity of the previous decade and back to this exaltation of thinness. Think of contemporary celebrity examples embracing extreme thinness like Ariana Grande, Demi Moore or Brooke Shields, to name a few.

So, what’s the impact of new weight control tricks in a resurfacing diet culture?

In a viral TikTok post, perfume influencer Amy Nose Scents says that gourmand scents “offer the illusion of indulgence without breaking any of ‘the rules’” which she says is a kind of “guilt-free pleasure.”

On this idea, Laura Thomas, a high-profile nutritionist and author, says of behaviours using gourmand aromas to suppress feelings of hunger: “sniffing a perfume that is trying to mimic or replicate food is just another way that we try to short-circuit our appetite cues.” Specifying that these behaviours are “really disordered.”

Feeling unshaken by this prospect, a sales associate for L’Oréal beauty tells me that the gourmand perfumes she sells are “not in very high demand.” According to her, Lancôme's Idôl Nectar, containing notes of “marshmallow” and “popcorn,” has “sold very little”. She feels that the use of gourmands to supress appetite “isn’t too much of a worry” as a result.

However, this might be seen as a problematic way to curb natural feelings of appetite; Mrs Burke shares her thoughts: “I think we’re on dodgy ground here…”

She worries about how a potential perversion of these dieting techniques might be harmful to children and young girls as she says, “they might think that they can’t get a boyfriend, or feel that they need to be a lot thinner… I think that’s a danger.” Encapsulating her concerns for where this all might lead, she asks, “are they then going to start getting onto anorexia?”

I reached out to Lush, Kayali, Sol De Janeiro, Spate, L’Oréal Beauty, Estée Lauder, The Fragrance Shop, The Perfume Shop and Eden Perfumes who declined to comment.