Confirmed: Charli XCX Wore This Bratty Perfume to the Met Gala
It's sexy, it's cool, it's suitably dishevelled—and trust me, I should know, because I wear it, too.
As a beauty editor, it's almost needless to say that despite the fact that it's 8 AM, I have already spent two hours scrolling my social feeds to dissect every look at last night's Met Gala red carpet. And whilst we saw some truly special beauty looks (Sarah Pidgeon's waves and naked manicure won the night for me), with over ten years of writing about the Met Gala under my belt, in 2026, I'm more interested in the products the A-list use than the avant-garde looks they opt for.
And as a journalist who considers fragrance her specialty, I've become somewhat obsessed with finding out what perfumes celebrities opt for on the red carpet—and I have been pleasantly surprised to learn of Charli XCX's scent of choice for the Met Gala 2026. I stumbled across it by accident. I originally planned to open my laptop this morning and write a story about the many mermaid-wave ponytails we saw last night, and Charli's was one of them. But, as I flicked through an Instagram post by her trusted hair stylist, Matt Benns, I noticed that her perfume of choice was very much a part of her hair look, too.
Sharing some behind-the-scenes snaps from the Charli XCX "glam" suite, Benns also shared a few insights into the products he used to achieve her hair look. I spotted some Wavytalk hair tools, sure, but also two very familiar bottles of fragrance—one hair perfume, one eau de parfum.
Article continues belowYes, it seems Charli and I have similar tastes in fragrance, as I, too, wear the scent from time to time. It is none other than beauty editor and insider favourite, Initio Parfums Privés Atomic Rose.
While the eau de parfum will set you back £215, Benns also opted to mist Charli's ponytail with the hair perfume iteration, which is just a fraction of the price at £85. (Many beauty editors I know wear hair perfume as a more affordable alternative to some of their luxury scents, by the way—it's a great hack.)
And I'd like to say here that Atomic Rose might just be the most Charli XCX perfume out there—it is perfectly fitting. It is, true to its name, a rose scent at its core, but this isn't a delicate rose. It is the sort of rose that smells as though it has been thrown into your handbag at the start of a date, before experiencing a night of debauchery. With both Turkish and Bulgarian rose, it's smoky and intense. But with a fresh zing of bergamot, a creamy addition of jasmine and a sweetly spiced hit of vanilla, Atomic Rose is a sexy, moreish sort of scent.
It's dishevelled, rebellious, statement-making and undeniably magnetic. The perfect fit for Ms Charli, non?
Shop Initio Parfums Privés Atomic Rose:
