Zendaya Spoke To Us About Her Secret To Smelling Soooo Good

But, just as Zendaya has cultivated a respected taste in how she experiments with (and executes) her hair and makeup, Z, tells glamour fragrance has always been important to her. “There are certain fragrances and soaps that are absolutely transportive, that take you to a time or a place. I remember the fragrance I wore as a teenager. It was a really strong jasmine fragrance that I was obsessed with at the time, and every time I smell it, it smells like graduating high school. Then, I went through a phase of loving everything gardenia-scented, so that reminds me of my first time living on my own when I had gardenia-scented candles everywhere. There are so many moments in my life that I can associate with specific fragrances. I think that’s very special.”

In fact, a love for fragrance runs in the family. She learnt the art of fragrance layering from her big sis. “My sister is eighteen years older than me,” Zendaya notes. “When I was a teenager, she would teach me how to layer fragrances so you smell good all day. She always smells so good. We have a joke that perfume is just embedded in her now. She sweats perfume. That’s the only logical explanation,” she laughs.

As for what drew her to Paradoxe? “To me, it’s a very confident fragrance. It radiates and lingers in a way that’s not overpowering. I would try fragrances and maybe they wouldn’t last on my skin very long, or they’d be too strong. This is the perfect balance. Paradoxe Intense is my favourite of the ones I’ve tried before Paradoxe Sweet Chemistry. I think it was the warmer notes which I really liked,” she explains. For those familiar with the OG, the latest rendition takes the sweet, clean, warm florals that the original is known and loved for, and updates it with sweet and sharp blackcurrant syrup, while the neroli essence is softened with a neroli milk accord. Zendaya is intoxicated, not only with the scent, but the mood it gives. “I love how [it] celebrates complexity,” she explains, describing the scent as both “strong” and “vulnerable”

Courtesy of Prada Beauty

Zendaya worked with Academy Award winning director, Barry Jenkins (of Moonlight fame) to capture complexity in her campaign for the fragrance. “We did a lot of vignettes of me in various hairstyles where Barry put me in front of the camera as different characters, as a kind of homage to Andy Warhol. He started asking me different questions. He’d say, ‘You’re Suzy from so-and-so and you’ve had a really tough day, and you’re finally getting to this audition, and the person on the other side is not paying a lot of attention to you, so you’re kind of irritated…’ You know, he would create these little scenarios for me and we’d do an interview as these characters. They were all in slow-motion so you don’t hear anything we’re saying, but it allowed us to add these characters. That was really fun,” Zendaya shares of the process. As for working with Barry, “we’ve developed a lovely friendship over the years for another project we’re working on together,” Zendaya shares. “I’m such a fan of his work, but I’m also a fan of him as a person. He’s really, really lovely. He’s done so many different kinds of projects. But there’s still a heart that he brings that feels like him; like a Barry Jenkins movie. You can tell that he cares a lot about his characters,” she notes. He cares about the people behind the characters, too. “He had a way of making me feel like I was not playing a character in this campaign. It felt more like myself, while also exploring different versions of myself through my work. It was almost like shooting something from behind the scenes,” Z explains.