Alisha Boe is YSL’s new Black Opium girl, and she smells like strawberries and espresso

Black Opium built its reputation in 2014 on a black coffee accord, reportedly the first of its kind in a women’s fragrance, paired with white flowers and vanilla. Pink Glaze keeps that coffee base but adds an unexpected natural strawberry extract on top. 

YSL has paired the launch with a new ambassador, Alisha Boe,  who went from playing Jessica Davis in 13 Reasons Why to leading The Buccaneers on Apple TV+, by way of Poms opposite Diane Keaton and Yes, God, Yes.

The pairing isn’t exactly random, either, as Boe has said she first encountered the scent in high school, catching it on an older girl walking past her in the hallway and being floored enough to track down what it was. 

Underneath the fruit, the coffee accord is now stacked with jasmine grown in YSL’s own Ourika gardens in Morocco and Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar. Expect something much richer and more grown-up than the strawberry-and-cream image the name suggests. 

The campaign was directed by C Prinz, who spent time as movement director on Charli xcx’s Brat tour. Even the bottle’s had a glow-up, now translucent pink with a blacked-out Cassandre logo to match the cap. Shop