Selena Gomez’s New Rare Beauty Perfume Prioritizes Accessibility 

Selena Gomez’s beauty brand Rare Beauty has released a new perfume and it’s truly for everyone because of its accessibility features.

We’ve all come across a bottle that wouldn’t open. You hit it against the wall to loosen it up, wrap a cloth around the cap for some give, or at least ask someone else to help out. For people with certain disabilities, that’s every single container they come across in their day to day lives. When every bottle cap and packaging is a barrier, disabled people are forced to spend more energy on mundane tasks and left too tired to take on the rest of the day.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. A good number of the innovations we enjoy today were made by/for people with disabilities to navigate the world more easily. Typewriters and as a result keyboards, were made for a blind woman who couldn’t write but wished to. Electric toothbrushes were designed for use by those who don’t have the strength required with regular toothbrushes. Audiobooks were made for those with hearing impairments, boosting the art of storytelling and narration for the general population beyond the target group.

Accessibility is a huge issue when it comes to beauty products. A lot of packaging can be too slippery, hard to have a grip on, or impossible to use one-handed. Closures require energy and a wider range of motion to twist open or are so small that those with dexterity and fine motor skills issues can’t use them. Features like magnetic closures solve this problem for a smaller population while giving the general population an enjoyable feature.

I personally enjoy how satisfying it feels to snap on a magnetic bottlecap. They also add a high end luxury feeling as opposed to a regular plastic cap.

Rare Eau de Parfum

Selena has already received praise for the easy to open cap on the Soft Pinch Liquid Blush after her own struggles with lupus. She has gone a step further with the first Rare Beauty perfume Rare.

Rare Beauty consulted a hand therapist to design packaging that’s easy to use. Accessibility means different things for different people as needs are varied. The spray top is a small surface area and requires precision, strength, and dexterity to use. Rare Beauty has replaced the difficult spray top with a flat top of a large surface area. This means you can use it one handed when it’s still on the countertop and use the strength of your whole hand or even other flat parts of your body. It comes with an ergonomic curve in the back that helps you wrap your hand around the bottle comfortably.

With the beauty market and the perfume market so saturated, adding accessibility features also becomes a differentiating point. A small change like this makes a huge difference in people’s lives but also make packaging more fun and creative

That being said, here’s what we know about the notes so far: 

Rare is banking on the current gourmand trend with what looks like a vanilla perfume with a hint of spice. It seems sweet and ultrafeminine without being too young. The strongly sweet note of caramel is right at the top, so I’m assuming it wouldn’t last as long– good news if you love sweet gourmands but want to prevent a headache.

As this is the brand’s first fragrance, we don’t really have other fragrances to go off of. But considering their tendency towards subtle, minimalist, but very effective beauty products, Rare could be a subtle soft fragrance. The ginger combined with vanilla and cocoa makes me imagine chocolatey ginger cookies and I can’t wait to find out if I guessed right.

Rare Beauty is also set to release fragrance balms with which you can layer the perfume. I can’t wait for 7th August 2025 to try it out.