While visiting my parents in Pennsylvania last spring, I stumbled across a blue raspberry soda in a local supermarket. I bought it on a whim, and the flavor quickly morphed into a full-blown obsession. Around the same time I discovered Skylar Boardwalk Delight perfume and Laneige Cotton Candy lip mask. While different flavor profiles, the mix of blue and pink on both blue raspberry and cotton candy products captured my attention and I began feeling as though this color combination was everywhere in the beauty sphere. Judging from these releases in the first half of 2025, I don’t think it’s entirely my imagination.
- Jill Stuart Pastel Petal blush
- YSL Couture Mini Clutch eyeshadow
- Clio Crystal Balm Plumper
- Juliette Has A Gun Miami Shake perfume
- Flower Knows Shell’s Jewel eyeshadow palette
- Dior nail polishes in Bluemania and Pinkmania
- Half Magic Crystal Butter lip balm
I picked up a few others for the Museum – some pieces from the Pat McGrath Candy Crush collection and Chantecaille’s spring collection – and naturally I had to get Bath and Body Works Blue Raspberry Burst fragrance for my own use.
It’s not totally unexpected that pink and blue is seemingly peaking now, given that it was trending strongly in 2024 and 2023 as well.
1. Ariana Grande Cloud perfume set (2024)
2. Coloupop holiday 2024 Snow Day gel eyeshadows
3. Clé de Peau holiday 2024 eyeshadow palette
4. Beauty Creations x My Little Pony lip balm (2023)
5. Too Faced Cloud Crush blush (2023)
6. Etude House spring 2024 Pink Shy collection blush
7. Trixie Cosmetics holiday 2024 Snow Bunny palette
8. Flortte x Esther Bunny lip oils (2024)
9. Rude Cosmetics x Chupa Chups ombre blush (2023)
But the question remains why. Makeup doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so I looked around at what’s happening in fashion and in everyday culture more generally to see if these products were simply part of bigger trends, but I couldn’t find any solid evidence to support the theories I’m about to discuss.
Pastel pink and blue are always popular makeup and packaging colors and it could be that the cloud-like gradient is just a new way to present them. And at least one product, the blue and pink swirled summer 2024 Pool Party edition of the Beauty Blender sponge, ties these colors to more concrete references (the blue of swimming pools and the pink of flamingo pool floats.) But maybe there is something deeper. Perhaps the gradient and blending of the two colors is a subconscious manifestation of the idea that gender is on a spectrum and the boundaries of the traditional gender binary are blurred; there are no harsh lines between male and female. This is key for makeup as the industry continues to chase after all genders, both for increased profit and to appear inclusive. More compellingly, it could be that the soft, fluffy, hazy pink and blue suggest clouds – either in the sky or mounds of cotton candy and other non-chocolate, round-shaped sweets. As we know, makeup as dessert is a long-time marketing technique, but it has skyrocketed in the past few years. And out of all the sweets that could be selected as inspiration for beauty packaging, cotton candy and lollipops (i.e. pure sugar) is a particularly interesting choice to be represented in this era of Ozempic and other new weight loss drugs that were originally intended to treat diabetes.
The link between food and makeup doesn’t end there, however; there also seems to be an increase in emphasizing texture in both ad copy and campaign photos in a way that mimics food advertising. Unlike the high-fashion, editorial quality of close-up shots of makeup that were artfully splattered across the pages of magazines from the 1970s through the early 2000s, today’s photos are much more reminiscent of food, regardless of whether they are actually named after or inspired by edibles. Videos of lip oils slowly being poured or creams being scooped out of a jar are tantalizingly reminiscent of honey or foodstuffs like peanut butter and whipped cream. Words such as “fluffy”, “whipped”, “mousse”, “airy” “soft”, “creamy”, “melting” and “buttery” heighten the association to food. Nearly of these terms, however, could also describe clouds. Additionally, the term “dream” appears frequently alongside products with cloud in the name, alluding to escapism and fantasy – particularly the “dream” of consuming sweets without empty calories or insulin shock. Along those lines, the artificiality of the flavor and nearly-neon bright blue coloring used for blue raspberry products and blue cotton candy are appealing precisely because they don’t exist in nature. Clouds are a natural phenomenon made magical and dreamlike through their very essence, whereas blue food coloring and flavor are largely the result of imagination and whimsy (and in the case of blue raspberry, a way to differentiate from other red fruits.)
In any case, more broadly, using dream and clouds together insinuates that these products provide a way to avoid reality and keep our heads in the clouds, so to speak. Indeed, cloud-inspired beauty has been increasing since taking off roughly 5 years ago, amidst the backdrop of the pandemic. While Glossier Cloud Paint blush was introduced in 2017, K-beauty popularized the notion of “cloud lips” around 2020, with leading brand 3CE releasing a cloud lip tint. The cloud lip color style referred to a mostly matte, but not dry, finish that appeared blotted and ever so slightly blurred around the edges of the mouth – not smeared or messy, but not a crisp outline either. In 2023, amidst the never-ending cycle of complexion-focused trends, “cloud skin” emerged as a counterpoint to the super sheen of glass skin (and its siblings, dolphin skin and glazed donut skin), with Glamour magazine hailing it as the “dreamiest beauty trend” of the moment. Cloud skin, like cloud lips, featured a semi-matte, not flat, soft-focus finish that looked gently blurred and hazy. Since then, at least 25 beauty products, from blush to moisturizers, with “cloud” in the name were launched, and two Korean brands – DearCloud and Cloud Beauty – introduced in 2024 and 2025, respectively, made the cloud concept their brand identity. Cloud Beauty’s primary color scheme, as you might have guessed, is pink and blue.
It’s unclear as to whether there is a cloudy moment culturally. The latest COVID variants have been named for cloud types, but beyond that, I don’t see much in the way of cloudiness. Nor can I find pink and blue trending heavily on social media and runways, either in the clothes or the makeup. But maybe we’re all looking to get away more than ever from the current horrors taking place across the globe, and companies are keen to capitalize on that via cheerful pastel packaging, cotton candy-scented lip balm and fluffy-textured body creams.
What do you think?