But by 2023, we’ve moved from a food-inspired aesthetic to actually wanting look Just like the food, trends include cinnamon cookie butter hair, blueberry milk nails, and glazed donut crusts. These days, anything goes: Velveeta hair dye, dill pickle-flavored lube, Hellman mayonnaise perfume—the rules seem to be crazier, the better.
For millennials and millennials, these products are a trip down memory lane, reliving the candy-flavored mall staples of our youth. For Gen Z, it's a clash of high versus low — clean beauty brands like Native versus fast-food restaurants like Dunkin'.
TikTok, with its obsession with absurd algorithms, thrives on the launch of these edible beauty products. The marketing strategy borrows heavily from streetwear’s scarcity strategy, with limited-edition products designed to create a sense of urgency and exclusivity. Unfortunately, these products are not built to last. They're a breaking point for shoppers prone to FOMO and sentimentalists looking to romanticize everyday life. For Gen Z, the weirder the concept, the faster it seems to spread.
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Food and Beverage (F&B) licensing is a lucrative avenue for these partners. According to Licensing International's 2023 Global Licensing Industry Study, the catering industry grew by 5.3%, and the cosmetics industry is also making major inroads into the market. Everyone benefits from these symbiotic relationships, as food franchises leverage the shareability of #BeautyTok to break their brands into new markets.
The result is a mix of millennial nostalgia and Gen Z sarcasm that generates free advertising through memes, TikTok reactions and social media discourse.
So, what's next? Crispy scented cologne? Hot Cheetian flavored toothpaste? Maybe the McRib Collagen Serum? As brands continue to push the boundaries of absurdity, the question is not if they will go too far, but when we will reach the breaking point. Novelty has a shelf life.
Without meaningful innovation, the joke risks becoming boring, like some of the franchises themselves. But at the same time, here's a cautionary tale: The punchline here is the consumer, not the product. We don’t want to wake up tomorrow smelling like Cheetos and pickles and then realize this was our joke.