There are actually few beauty products that exist solely for pleasure; the beauty industry has a way stronger track record for inflicting pain. 

As much as the items in my bathroom are fluffed up by marketing and pretty bottles, most serve a functional purpose: soaps and cleansers remove dirt, moisturisers help stop your skin drying out, heat tools and makeup change your appearance, deodorants make your body odour socially acceptable. 

Then there’s perfume. 

One of the most ancient and whimsical categories, it speaks only to our pleasure centre. Our need to smell yummy. If we're going to indulge, we need to highlight the most delectable and divisive group of the fragrance world: gourmand. 

By definition, gourmand fragrances invoke edible notes, particularly sweet desserts. According to The Perfume Society, it is the newest fragrance family. The first blockbuster example was Thierry Mugler's Angel, which caused an “olfactory shock” when it launched in 1992 – a peak musk and patchouli era. Still the brand’s best-seller, Angel was inspired by Mugler’s memories of a childhood fairground, notes of candyfloss, caramel and chocolate combined with woodsy patchouli to take the sugary edge off (and because 90s). 

The Angel phenomenon was before my time, but if you grew up with Britney Spears Fantasy, Jessica Simpson’s (now defunct) Dessert beauty line and So… Kiss Me? Body sprays, you know what a gourmand fragrance is. If you need to refresh your memory, go to a Peter Alexander store. 

Why were we so obsessed with smelling like baked goods? Put simply, perfume has always been linked to seduction, so to make yourself smell deliciously edible relates to sex. There’s a reason gourmands reek of your adolescence – nothing entices (and masks) raging hormones like chocolate and vanilla, and by that I mean Lynx (remember this ad) and amber bottles from The Body Shop. 

Today’s version is Sol de Janeiro’s Cheirosa '62 body mist (aka the scent of Brazilian Bum Bum cream), a whopping salted caramel popcorn flavour that you taste before you smell on passing teenagers. Mecca’s Fragrance Education Manager, Laura Curtis says it could be seen as a catalyst for the craze, which has been largely driven by social trends and TikTok.

"Gourmand fragrances at Mecca have seen a substantial increase in popularity over the last 12 months. These mists, at a more accessible price point, provide the perfect entry into fragrance for a lot of our younger customers as well as those who are interested in gourmand scents but may not be ready to invest."

Curtis thinks it's the feel-good factor of gourmand scents that make them irresistible, not just for younger customers. "It's a truly transgenerational trend... They're comforting, they’re warm and enveloping – a gentle hug for the soul! I think that’s what stirred the craze, they’re fragrances that make people happy," she says.

Gourmand’s return to relevance is beauty’s answer to the Y2K nostalgia and icons of girlhood we’ve seen reappear in fashion with bows, rosettes, low-rise jeans, pink velour and ballet flats. Along with frosted eyeshadow, thin eyebrows and status-symbol lip glosses, we're ready to smell like sugar cookies again.

As someone who has lived through all 42 of Britney Spears’ perfumes, this time around, I’m only re-intoxicated by the grown up gourmands. Think warm and sultry, rather than sickly sweet. 

This smells like Frapin 1270, a scent born out of a French cognac distillery with notes of bitter chocolate, coffee and candied orange, Ellis Brooklyn Bee, pure honey, cocoa absolute and vanilla bean, or D.S. & Durga Pistachio, ‘rich mob wife eating gelato in Italy’ in a bottle (this March the brand also launches Deep Dark Vanilla, "warm and gourmand recalling jungle vines and good times"). The other day I saw a press release from a famous luxury fragrance brand adding cafe, biscuit, and chantilly cream to their offering in April.

If you find sweet scents too cloying to wear, you could always light Diptyque's Vanille candle – a distinctly spicy and sexy vanilla, perfect for the bedroom – or spray Abel’s Scene 03 in the direction of your couch. Its natural notes of leather, tonka and vanilla make the space more enticing to curl up on.

Other options include D.S. & Durga Breakfast Leipzig Candle, notes of buttery pastry, steamed milk and tobacco transform your kitchen into the famous café where Bach hung out in the 1700s. You could even spritz your sheets with DedCool Taunt Room & Linen Spray and drift off to sleep with fresh dew and amber vanilla.

Whether it's sex or comfort, I think the real pleasure of gourmand is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. 

It’s the anti-clean girl of the fragrance universe, not trying to convince anyone that you just took a shower at a fancy spa, strolled through a meadow or pruned your tomato plants; you just smell like dessert.

Sorry not sorry to anyone who shares an elevator with you.