Is Glossier’s best-selling Glossier You perfume worth the hype?

n the pantheon of perfumes, there are good ones, bad ones, expensive ones, and cheap ones. While many are two of the four, the combinations of expensive connoting ‘good ones’ and cheap translating as ‘bad ones’ do not always ring true.

Case in point: Glossier You eau de parfum, its first foray into the world of fragrance, which retails for £45. It was a risky move by the beauty behemoth, to craft a scent which it claimed will “grow with you no matter where you are in your personal evolution.” Glossier aimed for it to transcend gender, sex, and race, and instead for its spicy pink pepper top notes and warm amber heart to appeal to a gamut of people of all ages.

The scent, which launched in October 2017, has since become one of Glossier’s top-rated products thanks to its universal appeal. So much so in fact that the fragrance was one of the brand’s best-selling products of 2020, and has seen double-digit percentage growth every year since its launch. No small feat in such a saturated industry.

So what is all the fuss about? In line with its Skin First philosophy, Glossier worked with renowned perfumers (the same ones behind Le Labo’s cult Santal 33 scent) to perfect the arrangement, which is made up mostly of warm and creamy base notes, ambrox, and ambrette and topped off with sparkling pink pepper and fresh iris. The result is a warm alluring but subtle scent that evokes a familiar feeling, as though you’ve smelled it before but you can’t quite remember where.

I tend to opt more for incredibly intense and heady perfumes – Le Labo’s Cuir 28 and Ylang 49 perfumes are my go-tos – so my expectations of a light perfume such as this weren’t necessarily high. I was pleasantly surprised, however, with how many compliments I had thrown my way whilst wearing it (one of which came by way of the Royal Mail postman). It smelled incredible moreish, almost like a pudding you couldn’t stop yourself from having second helpings of, and while I do prefer my beloved Le Labo for when I want to feel on my A-game, Glossier You has highlighted to me the hole in my perfume arsenal for an easy, breezy everyday scent such as this. A very, very good perfume that’s most worthy of all of its accolades.