Selena Gomezs Rare Beauty putsup…
There’s a unusual scent in the air around the town — and it’s not just the scent of rubbish in August.
Three scratch-and-sniff billboards for Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty have been put in in Manhattan. When passersby agitate particular areas on the commercials, they get a whiff of the new Rare Eau de Parfum — the first perfume from the phenomenally common cosmetics model.
“This makes me feel like I’m in elementary school,” said Melanie Peralta, a 34-year-old advisor who lives in Bushwick and smelled one of the billboards in Soho, on the nook of Grand and Lafayette, on Wednesday morning. “It reminds me of those smelly markers growing up.”
Three scratch-and-sniff billboards for Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty have been put in in Manhattan, including this one at Grand and Lafayatte. Stephen Yang
Melanie Peralta loved the advert’s vanilla scent. Stephen Yang
It took her 5 scratches to get a hit of the perfume — she was scratching in the mistaken spot at first — but she was glad in the end.
“It smells good, like light vanilla,” she said. “I’m more intrigued to want to smell the actual perfume now.”
To make the billboards — that are also positioned at Canal Street and Broadway, and the Highline and West twenty seventh, and are as large as 25-by-7 ft — Rare Beauty first developed a scented ink.
Then the ink was wrapped in microbubbles that have been printed onto different components of the billboard. When scratched, they release the perfume. The billboards, which have been put in in late July and are up through August 10, are refreshed usually to keep the scent strong.
“The activation was inspired by something many of us remember from growing up, those iconic magazine perfume peel-offs,” Ashley Murphy, Rare Beauty’s company’s Vice President of Consumer Marketing, told The Post. “We wanted to reimagine it in a way.”
One lady fretted about wanting odd smelling a wall.
Fans of the scent, which will probably be launched in shops on August 7, can scan a QR code on the billboard, which is able to hyperlink them to a Shopify app where they will order a free pattern.
While it’s unattainable to know how many people have sniffed the billboards, an announcement video about them acquired over six million views on Instagram, one of the company’s top performing posts for the 12 months.
Some germ-weary New Yorkers refuse to take part.
“I don’t want to touch something all these other people have touched,” said Simon Sakhai, a 37-year-old who runs a longevity startup and was passing by a billboard Wednesday morning. “This is Manhattan! You don’t touch things and then smell them. You never know what you’re going to get.”
Simon Sakhai apprehensive about the germs he’d encounter touching the advertisements. Stephen Yang
But, he added, “For $100, I’d do it.”
A 38-year-old who works in a pottery studio around the nook from the Soho billboard, was also apprehensive.
“Since the Covid times I have tried not to touch public things,” she told The Post.
But her curiosity — and her admiration for Selena Gomez, whose face is also on the billboard — persuaded her.
There are three of the large billboards in Manhattan. They’re up through August 10. Stephen Yang
“Selena is perfect, she’s just adorable. I love her,” said the girl, who declined to give her identify. “I decided I just wanted to try it.”
Aside from the germs, she did fear about what others would assume of her smelling the advertisements.
She said, “I don’t want people to wonder what I am doing sniffing a wall.”
Stay in the loop with the latest trending topics! Visit our web site daily for the freshest lifestyle news and content, thoughtfully curated to inspire and inform you.
