In an industry where products are sold as much through stories as science, food has become the secret ingredient driving authentic consumer engagement. Signaling taste in both the literal and fashionable sense, food-infused beauty now serves as a gateway for emotional connections, nostalgia, and even social status.

What once began in the '90s with Lip Smacker’s Cotton Candy craze has evolved into a full-scale, social media-led cultural craving as beauty lovers seek out “glazed donut skin” (driven by over 1.5 billion views on TikTok), gourmand “dessert-inspired scents” (Spate reports +182.1% year-over-year search growth across social platforms), and “strawberry girl makeup” (fueled by a single TikTok tutorial with 45.1 million views). Driven by this consumer appetite, beauty brands are cooking up products, collaborations, and marketing campaigns that look, smell, and feel like flavorsome snacks and beverages, with a strong focus on sweet treats.

The rise of food-flavored beauty reflects a wider cultural shift in consumer relationships with indulgence and identity as a whole, turning everyday routines into sensorial experiences worth sharing (and savoring). BeautyMatter explores the growing crossover between food, beverages, and beauty, as culinary cues influence formulations, aesthetics, and consumer psychology.

Society’s Sweet Spot: Why the Trend Hits Now

Beauty critic and cultural commentator Jessica DeFino believes the rise of food-led beauty stems from the anti-diet culture rhetoric that entered the mainstream in the mid-2010s. “Anti-diet culture limited what beauty standards the media could promote without facing public backlash,” she said to BeautyMatter.

As body-critical advertising came to a slow, skin-critical messaging amplified to take its place, with the focus shifting from needing to lose weight in order to be seen as “beautiful” or “healthy” to needing to eliminate wrinkles, acne, and hyperpigmentation via a curated skincare routine. DeFino thinks the potential liberation of "all bodies are good bodies" was mitigated with "no skin is good skin" (yet). Soon we saw food take center stage in the skincare space, as "good skin" equated with "glazed donut skin" and "Jello skin."

Then came the GLP-1 (weight-loss drug) boom in 2024, and beauty was already primed to provide an alternative to actually eating. As studies found that GLP-1 users were consuming less food overall, sales of sweet bakery foods at grocery stores reduced by 7%. In this environment, official beauty partnerships with food and beverage brands such as Dove x Crumbl, e.l.f x Dunkin', allowed weight-conscious individuals to indulge in treat foods through nontraditional, beauty-focused formats that still sparked satisfaction.

“Food-themed beauty products just offer a different form of food consumption—one that conveniently keeps bodies compliant with the standard of beauty (undernourished) and faces compliant with the standard of beauty (overslathered).”

DeFino speculates that the rise of food in beauty is a reflection of the economic state of the Western world. “I also think this trend is related to inflation and the ever-increasing cost of groceries in America,” she said. “If food becomes something of a luxury, food-themed beauty products may become a sort of status symbol.”

Fridge to Face: The Psychology Behind the Boom

Food is not only a source of nutrition but also comfort, which explains why beauty SKUs inspired by edible ingredients strike such a deeply emotional chord in such uncertain times. Psychology shows that the quickest way to consumers' hearts (and vanity tables) is through the five senses.

“By engaging all five senses—through visual storytelling, packaging, scent, texture, and color—brands can create a deeper connection with the product, transforming the user experience into something more memorable and immersive,” Michelle Kwak, Director of Integrated Communications at Laneige US, told BeautyMatter.

Sensorial marketing was a key factor that drove the success of Laneige’s recently launched Glaze Craze Tinted Lip Serum, inspired by freshly baked donuts. The serums (which have a donut-shaped applicator) were a massive hit with consumers.

Glaze Craze’s launch content on social media—including images of the Laneige Donut Shop pop-up van driving the streets of NYC with hyperrealistic donuts in every imaginable flavor—generated the highest number of post shares ever for the brand across all channels. On YouTube, Laneige’s campaign videos garnered 11 million more views than the average competitor during the product's February launch month, and UGC tags for the brand also saw triple-digit growth.

The campaign's impact underscores a core truth in beauty marketing today: visual storytelling isn’t optional, it's foundational. As Juan Campdera, CEO of Aktiva, noted, “Visual experience activates brain regions tied to trust, memory, and reward … transforming a simple product into an experience worth remembering.”

Smell also had a heavy emphasis on Glaze Craze’s success. The lip serum teases the senses with dessert-like aromas and flavors, including Strawberry Sprinkles, Cinnamon Sugar, and Blueberry Jelly. According to a Harvard-sponsored panel discussion on “Olfaction in Science and Society,” scents, aromas, and memories are all stored in one uplifting bundle within the regions of the brain related to emotion. Laneige utilized this scientific knowledge to formulate the lip serum.

“Our goal is to evoke that comforting, warm feeling—the sense of familiarity and delight—whenever you open a tube of our lip serum,” explained Kwak. “Consumers are increasingly drawn to nostalgia more than ever. When you open our Glaze Craze Tinted Lip Serum, you’re not just smelling warm, freshly baked doughnuts; it might transport you back to your favorite local bakery from childhood.”

Even when consumers do not physically have a product in front of them, all five senses can be tapped into. Take Glossier—the brand went above and beyond with the social media visuals for its Black Cherry collection drop, including a collaboration with NYC-based bespoke cake business Yip.Studio, which designed a sculpture-esque carved cake adorned with cherries and the classic Glossier “G” logo. The visuals were so strong that they allowed consumers to tap into other senses, highlighting a creamy icing texture, alluding to the soft touch of the advertised Black Cherry Balm Dotcom’s formula, and the comforting cherry-tasting residue left behind once applied.

Just weeks later, the brand was back to playing with its food for its next campaign, Espresso Balm Dotcom, featuring videos of layered tiramisu, soaked in espresso and pillowy mascarpone cream, creating a cushion on which the product was placed. This campaign also engaged sound, finishing with a drizzle of syrup over the sweet treat that provided appealing ASMR content.

Taste Buds: Serving Craveable Collaborations

The growing approach to multisensory marketing through food has proven even more powerful when partnered with the cultural familiarity of big food chains—leaning into emotional resonance. Nowadays, it's no longer a surprise to see food giants team up with a beauty brand; instead it’s become a question “who’s next?”

It only takes one look at rhode Skin’s food-fueled social media statistics to see the results brands are reaping from collaborating with well-loved franchises. Hailey Bieber’s limited-edition Strawberry Glaze Lip Peptide, made in collaboration with Krispy Kreme, reportedly led to a +700% spike in rhode’s social media engagement—proof that tapping into taste pays off.

The marketing team at bodycare brand Native, which recently doubled down on its retail strategy through collaborations with Dunkin’ Donuts (exclusive to Walmart) and Jarritos (exclusive to Target), explained that food and beauty collaborations work because consumers crave familiarity in adventurous forms. “This reinforces the idea that consumers are eager to incorporate their favorite indulgences into their daily routines, which made the Native x Dunkin' collaboration not only innovative but also deeply relevant,” a marketing spokesperson for the brand told BeautyMatter.

When exploring the Dunkin’ partnership, Native focused on the fan-favorite Boston Kreme flavor. “We were unsure how this popular flavor would translate into a deodorant scent,” the team shared, “but through extensive consumer testing, Boston Kreme emerged as a surprisingly well-received scent—once again demonstrating that our audience is open to experiencing familiar flavors in unexpected ways.”

Collaborating with a food or beverage brand gives beauty businesses a way to tap into sensorial marketing that they could perhaps not do alone. The collaboration with Jarrito’s allowed Native to explore the beverage company’s colorful branding to create visually appealing packaging.

“We dedicated significant effort to create a thoughtful design that reflects Jarritos' playful identity and the fruity scents we were offering. The outer color of the pattern design mirrors the exterior color of the fruit, while the inner color represents the fruit's flesh,” Native continued.

The vibrant packaging resonated with consumers, with many sharing snaps of the collaborative products online, tuning into the idea of beauty and food collaborations as a status symbol. “The packaging is something consumers would be proud to display on their countertops, adding an element of fun and aesthetic appeal to their personal care routines.”

By partnering with food and beverage brands, beauty brands can push the traditional boundaries of their products while introducing themselves to consumers who are sure to be interested in their offerings but have perhaps not come across them before. Take Erewhon, Los Angeles’ cult-favorite organic grocer and café, for example. The retailer has become a hotbed for crossover collaborations, serving as a launchpad for beauty-branded beverages that blend function, flavor, and flair for social media virality, with collaborators such as rhode, Kosas, and Saie already under its belt.

For BondiBoost, a move into the beverage space was a natural extension of the brand’s wellness-first ethos. The Australian haircare brand recently teamed up with fellow Aussie-founded café Two Hands to create a minty matcha drink inspired by its new HG Clarifying Scalp Rinse. “The minty matcha mirrors that same clean, energizing feel as our rinse. It’s a simple, sip-able way to boost a customer’s day, rooted in the same wellness mindset behind every BondiBoost formula,” said Lindsey (Dennis) McGaugh, Manager of Brand, Community, and Partnerships at BondiBoost, in a statement to BeautyMatter.

This kind of crossover signals a larger shift in how beauty brands think about presence and relevance. By stepping out of their traditional product formats and into lifestyle touchpoints, brands like BondiBoost are meeting younger consumers where they are: in cafés, on social media (where #matcha has racked up more than 245 million TikTok videos), and in the wellness-obsessed spaces they frequent daily.

“Today’s consumers crave brands that align with how they live—and a minty matcha moment lets us show up, spark joy, and stay top of mind beyond the bathroom shelf,” McGaugh added.

BondiBoost’s approach mirrors a growing trend of experiential branding in the beauty industry, where beverages, pop-ups, and food collabs aren’t just marketing stunts—they’re immersive brand extensions. These moments offer a sensory, sharable experience that reinforces brand values, builds emotional connections, and drives cultural currency.

Snackable Content: Food-Beauty in the Wider Trend Context 

Infusing food and beverages into beauty opens up opportunities for brands to engage with pre-existing trends outside of the cosmetics realm. For a recent campaign, beauty and skincare brand eos leveraged the vitality of the social media craze “hacking the menu” which includes ordering “secret” items and customizing every detail of an order.

“At eos, we’re inspired by how Gen Z interacts with food, culture, and self-expression,” Soyoung Kang, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer at eos Products, told BeautyMatter. The campaign encouraged consumers to combine limited-edition lip balm flavours like Peach Yuzu, Marshmallow Fluff, and Brown Sugar Bubble to create their own “recipes” by layering products.

“This strategy tapped into Gen Z’s desire for personalization and discovery. It’s not just about buying a product—it’s about creating an experience that’s as custom and creative as they are. Everything was designed to feel insider-y—to feel part of something fun and exclusive. What sets us apart is that we’re not just infusing a flavor into a product; we’re creating an entire immersive world around the flavor stories.”

Kang explained that food and flavor have always been at the core of eos’ brand DNA; because of this, the brand constantly tracks what’s trending. The team at eos is so dedicated to getting it right, they often dedicate time to “flavor treks,” exploring trending snacks and sweet treats around NYC. “From the rise of bubble tea culture to tropical refreshers and nostalgic desserts—we turn those cravings into sensory moments,” Kang said.

The campaign sparked a sense of community among eos fans, encouraging them to share their flavor “recipes” and layering combinations on social media. This transformed the act of using lip balm into a communal, participatory experience. Fans were no longer just consumers; they became co-creators, inspiring one another. This emphasis on shared creativity deepened brand loyalty while fostering a fun, flavor-forward dialogue that extended far beyond the product itself. “It’s this unique blend of whimsy and wellness that defines our lip care—and keeps our community coming back, year after year,” Kang concluded.

Glow Recipe has also been known to engage its community with its food-inspired products through wider context content trends. The brand adopted the trend of showcasing behind-the-scenes (BTS) content of product creation, including videos of watermelons being carefully peeled and cut by hand before having juice extracted to go into products such as the Watermelon Dew Drops.

“Our social media strategy is to create community through transparency, authenticity, and education. We lean into fruit visuals across our marketing materials and social media because we want to make skincare feel fun and approachable,” Sarah Lee, co-founder and co-CEO of Glow Recipe, relayed to BeautyMatter.

The brand's first BTS video resonated strongly with Glow Recipe’s followers, as the post went viral with over 1.8 million views and over 130,000 total engagements across likes, comments, shares, and saves.

“Since this content was so well received, we continued to create BTS content in the labs with our Dew Drops and Watermelon Toner, which have over 300,000 and 150,000 views, respectively,” Lee added.

Pantry to Product: The Rise of Edible Ingredients

As beauty continues to borrow cues from food culture, the shift isn’t just about aesthetics and trends—it's also functional. Traditional pantry ingredients are becoming increasingly popular in beauty, as age-old remedies and culinary staples become hero ingredients in modern formulations. “This food-inspired beauty movement is reflecting the idea that what we apply to our skin should be just as thoughtfully curated as what we consume,” Angela Taylor, Global Director of Education at Elemis, told BeautyMatter.

Whether milk, rice, or watermelon, beauty brands are digging into their kitchens and founder histories to serve up skincare rooted in cultural wisdom and clinical efficacy.

Christine Chang, co-founder and Co-CEO of Glow Recipe, attributes the growth of food as a beauty ingredient to the growing popularity of K-beauty worldwide. “We’ve learned early on that there was a close connection between beauty and efficacious food ingredients, and we’ve seen Western beauty brands adopt this philosophy with the rise of K-beauty,” she explained to BeautyMatter. The K-beauty market (in its second wave of Western growth) is projected to grow significantly in the coming years, reaching an estimated $29.28 billion by 2032, with food-beauty sure to lend a helping hand to reach this figure.

Chang explained that Korean skincare has always been holistic and grounded in generations of self-care rituals. “Growing up, we would get our faces splashed with milk after cleansing, use DIY masks with grains and honey, and soak in botanical pools at the bathhouse with our mothers and grandmothers.” These practices weren’t just pampering—they were early lessons in the connection between food and skin health. Today, that same ethos lives on in Glow Recipe’s prior-mentioned fruit-powered serums and toners, with ingredients like fermented rice water, ginseng, green tea, and honey gaining traction far beyond Korean borders. As of December 2024, Glow Recipe's market share at Sephora was 6.4%, making it one of the top 10 skincare brands by market share.

The same edible efficacy philosophy is what anchors bodycare brand Kate McLeod, where the kitchen is more than an influence; it's an origin story. “I started as a pastry chef with dry skin,” brand co-founder Kate McLeod shared with BeautyMatter. “I melted down cocoa butter like I would chocolate and mixed it with oils from my kitchen—sweet almond, apricot kernel, avocado.” The result? A solid Body Stone moisturizer that melts on contact, rich in nourishment yet free from fillers. This handcrafted, food-grade approach resonates with today’s consumers who are seeking transparency and intention in their routines—something they recognize from the way they shop for food.

McLeod’s products are not just nourishing; they’re designed to evoke pleasure and ritual, from the formulation to the packaging. “We modeled our Bath and Shower Pebble boxes after artisanal chocolate boxes, not only because they’re beautiful and giftable, but because they signal luxury in a familiar, sensory-rich way,” she said. It’s a strategy that’s worked: during the holiday season, sales of the Pebbles soared by 280%.

Even heritage skincare players like Elemis are leaning into the edible craze. Their Pro-Collagen Black Cherry Cleansing Balm—layered with notes of cherry, almond, and tonka bean—is proof that skincare can be sensorial and sophisticated. “Rich and complex aromas deliver emotional support, especially in colder months,” Taylor noted. “It’s not just about smelling nice—it’s about feeling held, even in the smallest daily rituals.”

Tasting the Trend: Where Do We Go from Here?

Food in beauty has become a powerful form of storytelling, science, and self-expression. What began as a playful nostalgia has matured into a strategic, sensorial experience that allows consumers to indulge emotionally, culturally, and physically without compromise. The fusion of food and beauty taps into our human, natural instincts—from comfort, to memory, and desire—while simultaneously adapting to a world shaped by wellness, economic shifts, and digital-first branding. 

The future of beauty is equipped for continuous beauty crossovers, from limited-edition drops to long-term brand DNA formulations. As consumers grow more ingredient savvy and community oriented, brands that blend transparency with cultural context and sensorial joy are sure to stay relevant.