Fragrance darling Kayali is planting its flag in a new category.
The brand, led by founder and chief executive officer Mona Kattan, is entering body care with the launch of a four-piece Yum Lip & Body Collection, which channels two of Kayali’s bestselling gourmand scents — Yum Boujee Marshmallow | 81 and Yum Pistachio Gelato | 33 — for inaugural lip balms and body lotions, priced at $24 and $48, respectively.
“Our community has been asking for this forever — from Day One,” said Kattan, who first launched Kayali in 2018 under the umbrella of Huda Beauty, the cosmetics brand owned by her sister and fellow mega-influencer Huda Kattan.
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In February 2025, Mona Kattan took Kayali independent of the family business, entering a joint ownership deal with private equity firm General Atlantic.
“I feel like we had a rebirth,” she said of the transition, adding that Kayali’s team has since grown from around 70 full-time employees to nearly 200, and opened two new offices, in New York and the U.K., joining the brand’s existing headquarters in Dubai where Kattan lives. “It’s a new chapter, and there’s a lot of work to be done…but it’s been such a rewarding experience.”
Kattan has been developing body care products for Kayali since the brand’s inception — even nearly launching a different version of a Yum Pistachio Gelato lip balm in 2023 — but held off until the timing and the formulas, which tap hydrating date and sesame seed oils, felt right.
“Until I feel like I can really create something special and different, I will never launch anything,” she said. “With body, I don’t have this aspiration to just launch a full collection overnight. I want to do it slowly. Sustainable growth to me is a lot more important than growing overnight.”
Kayali’s post-pandemic rise has on the other hand been swift, with the brand — one of the earliest to promote the now category-defining trend of scent layering — going from ranking as Sephora’s 30th-largest fragrance brand five years ago to being its top seller in the U.S. today.
Data from CreatorIQ shows Kayali is also the number-one fragrance brand by earned media value in the U.S., and number-two globally after L’Oréal-owned YSL, generating more than $231 million in EMV during the 12 months ending May 2026.
“Our community is not a huge community [relative to legacy brands], but it is very strongly engaged, and they’ve grown up with us,” said Kattan, who has been creating social media content about perfume and fragrance culture since before the lockdown emergence of #PerfumeTok, and counts more than 5 million combined followers on her personal Instagram and TikTok pages.
The Yum Lip & Body Collection, launching Aug. 31 direct-to-consumer and at Sephora, could help further catalyze Kayali’s growth, with Circana reporting body care sales grew 16 percent during the first half of 2026, while prestige fragrance’s growth tempered to 6 percent.
“As someone who is Middle Eastern, layering is a part of our culture — not just fragrance layering, but also moisturizing, using oils,” said Kattan, who is of Iraqi descent and named Kayali after the Arabic word for “imagination.”
Other beauty brands are also zeroing in on body care, with hair care brand Amika launching a body range at Sephora in February, while in April, Nyx Professional Makeup entered the category with a 16-product collection of lotions, oils and fragrance mists.
“Ideally we’d launch an assortment for all of your fragrance needs — even home,” Kattan said. “[But] first we need to let our community become familiar with what we’re launching; take our time, get the feedback…you can tell when things are made with intention, care and investment versus being pumped and dumped out — I never want to become that brand.”
Yum Lip & Body joins Kayali’s assortment of more than 36 decadent, fruity, floral and oud-infused eaux de parfum and fragrance mists, which are now available in more than 30 countries.
To promote the launch, the brand will hit five U.S. college campuses this fall with Sephora, including Spelman College and Alabama A&M University, for a Kayali Café activation offering beverages inspired by the scents; prizes, and opportunities to test the collection.
“I want these [products] to be part of your self-love and self care routine,” said Kattan.
