But in 2023, we’re moving from a food-inspired aesthetic to wanting to look like food, with trends like cinnamon cookie butter hair, blueberry milk nails, and glazed donut skin. These days, whatever they’re doing: Velveeta hair dye, dill-pickle-flavored lubricant, and Hellman parfum de mayonnaise — the rule is the more unhinged, the better. Candy-scented mall staples of our youth. For Gen Z, it’s a clash of high and low—pure beauty brands like Native rubbing shoulders with fast food institutions like Dunkin’. So Happy TogetherTikTok, with its algorithmic obsession with the absurd, thrives on the launch of this edible beauty. The marketing strategy freely borrows from the streetwear scarcity playbook, implementing limited editions designed to create urgency and exclusivity. But unfortunately, this product is not built to last. They are flashpoints for FOMO-prone shoppers and sentimentalists looking to romanticize their routine. For Gen Z, the weirder the concept, the faster it seems to spread.TikTok contentThis content can also be viewed on its origin site.Food and beverage (F&B) licensing is a profitable way for these partnerships. According to Licensing International’s 2023 Global Licensing Industry Study, F&B grew by 5.3 percent, and the cosmetics industry dipped its cleaned finger into the pie. Everyone benefits from this symbiotic relationship, as food franchises use #BeautyTok’s shared capabilities to spread their branding to new markets. The result is a syrupy cocktail of millennial nostalgia and Gen Z irony that generates free advertising through memes, TikTok reactions, and social media discourse. So, what’s next? A crunchwrap scented cologne? Hot Cheetos flavored toothpaste? Maybe a McRib collagen serum? As brands push the limits of absurdity, the question is not whether they will go too far, it’s when we reach our breaking point. Novelty has a shelf life. Without meaningful innovation, the jokes can wear thin, like some of these franchises. In the meantime, here’s a cautionary tale: The punch line here is the consumer, not the product. We don’t want to wake up tomorrow smelling like Cheetos and pickles and realize the joke is on us.
