Kayali Bottles the Birthday Cake Moment, Candles Included
Yum Vanilla Cupcake | 108 joins Kayali's Yum collection, with a sprinkle-covered limited edition and a New York launch that involved a lot of cupcakes.
Mona Kattan has taken the exact second you blow out your birthday candles and put it in a bottle. Yum Vanilla Cupcake | 108 is the newest member of Kayali’s Yum collection, and it landed globally on October 30.
The inspiration is refreshingly specific. Kattan, who founded Kayali in 2018, says the scent comes from her love of gourmand fragrances, the nostalgic joy of a freshly baked vanilla cupcake, and blowing out the candles on her childhood birthday cake. It’s less “dessert menu” and more “the best five seconds of being seven.”
Where to get it, and what it costs
The Eau de Parfum is on sale at Kayali.com, and at Sephora online and in store. Selected retailers across 30 countries are carrying it too, and in the US that includes select Sephora at Kohl’s locations.
The full price ladder, for the strategic shopper:
The 100ml is $150. The 50ml is $105. A 10ml Deluxe Miniature is $32, a 10ml Travel Spray is $29, and the 1.5ml sample size is $4. If you’re not sure you want to commit to cake, four dollars is a low-risk way to find out.
For the holidays, there’s also a limited-edition 50ml sprinkle bottle. It’s the signature Kayali bottle, now with playful sprinkle detailing. The scent is dressed for the party, and so is the packaging.
The launch party was a bakery with a guest list
Kayali marked the release at Lavan Chelsea in New York with a two-day event. On Wednesday, October 28, the brand welcomed 179 beauty editors, influencers and industry tastemakers. On Thursday, October 29, it opened the doors to 602 consumers. That’s 781 people in total, all of them presumably hoping for a cupcake.
They got several. Guests could decorate their own at the Sprinkle Atelier, sip cupcake-inspired drinks (complimentary), and meet Kattan herself. There was also a station for sending custom celebratory postcards to loved ones, plus exclusive gifts with purchase.
The campaign stars were there as well: Paul Fino, Emily LulaMay, Daim Algow, Unice Wani, Maryam Warda, Layanne Bacchi and Bao Tran. Creators Stephanie Valentine, Aditya Madiraju and Landon Romano came too, among others.
The layering bar is the real clue
The most telling detail of the event wasn’t the sprinkles. It was the fragrance layering bar, where guests could experiment to find their own ideal Kayali combination.
That’s no side activity for this brand. Kayali describes layering scents as central to what it does: the idea is to help you build a mood, and to treat sharing scents as a ritual. The name itself means “my imagination” in Arabic, and the brand ties its approach to Kattan’s Middle Eastern heritage. A vanilla cupcake scent fits that approach nicely. It’s a bold, easy-to-read starting point that invites you to add something on top. Kayali didn’t publish a formal list of pairings for this one, but the layering bar made the intent plain. Treat it as a base and play.
Why we keep falling for dessert in a bottle
Gourmands have a loyal following for a reason that Kattan’s own story explains. Nobody has a complicated relationship with birthday cake. It’s tied to candles, a room full of people singing, and a wish. A perfume built on that memory doesn’t need a long explanation. You smell it, and you know how you’re supposed to feel.
Kayali has also made a business of that kind of emotional shorthand. Kattan has turned her fragrance obsession into a community of more than 7 million combined followers. Her Yum collection gives that audience something to be openly greedy about.
As for the “108” in the name, it sits there like a catalog number on a very sweet piece of evidence. Fans of the line will know the Kayali naming style by now. Everyone else can just say “the cupcake one” at the Sephora counter. They’ll know what you mean.