From Skims’ “buttery-soft” bodysuits to skincare brand Pinkwonder promising “butter skin,” luxury is embracing the churn. But why butter, and why now?
There might be a few reasons but firstly, butter is getting spenny.
In the UK, butter has jumped from £1.77 in 2020 to £2.45 in 2025*. What was once a fridge staple now feels more indulgent. We can see luxury brands are playing into this shift, using butter as a soft status symbol.
It also feeds into the macro trend of “edible beauty” where beauty brands borrow names and flavours from food, e.g. glazed doughnut skin (thanks to Hailey Bieber) or strawberry girl make-up, Salted Caramel Mocha hair, and blueberry milk nails.
But the popularity of butter likely also comes down to texture. Butter is rich, smooth, and glossy. It is the perfect aesthetic reference for conveying softness and creaminess. In an age obsessed with ASMR and texture reveals, “buttery” communicates indulgence and richness, everything luxury wants.
We’ll expect to see more of this from the beauty and fashion world. As everyday groceries like butter become more expensive, they gain cultural status. And in our screen-first, hyper-visual world, we rely on texture-based imagery to feel what we can’t physically touch. Food offers an accessible context, and makes textural cues like butter a powerful style code for luxury.
*Office for National Statistics: Consumer price inflation time series (MM23).
