- Herbal Essences launched "Scent of Your Dreams" on July 7, 2026, starring Amaya Espinal, known to fans as "Amaya Papaya."
- The campaign frames fragrance as a mood-boosting, dopamine-driven escape, built around the brand's signature Rose Hips scent.
- It's Amaya's third Herbal Essences collaboration, following "Scent Traps" (Oct. 2025) and the Papaya + Citrus Strength collection launch (June 2026).
- The campaign was developed with agency Grey and is now live on Herbal Essences' social channels and YouTube.
Herbal Essences has launched “Scent of Your Dreams,” a new campaign starring Amaya Espinal, the Love Island winner fans call “Amaya Papaya.” Live across Herbal Essences’ social channels, the campaign frames fragrance as a mood-lifting escape.
In the spot, Amaya slips into a dreamlike “above world” of clouds and roses, built around the brand’s signature Rose Hips scent.
This marks Amaya’s third project with Herbal Essences. She first fronted the brand’s “Scent Traps” campaign in October 2025, then extended the partnership with the Papaya + Citrus Strength collection that hit retailers in June 2026. “This extension of our partnership just made perfect sense,” Amaya said. “This collab really feels like me in a bottle.”
Fragrance-driven celebrity campaigns are trending this year. Leah Kateb fronted Skylar’s True Love’s Cake fragrance push, while Yara Shahidi became the face of Jean Paul Gaultier’s latest scent, a sign that brands increasingly lean on personality-driven storytelling to sell fragrance.
Beyond Herbal Essences, Amaya has grown her beauty portfolio with Garnier, a partnership dating back to September 2025. Herbal Essences, meanwhile, has a history of celebrity faces, having worked with stars like Ashanti and Nicole Scherzinger on past campaigns.
Developed with agency Grey, “Scent of Your Dreams” doubles down on Herbal Essences’ “hair care should transform your mood” philosophy, reinforced just weeks after the brand’s Papaya + Citrus expansion.
Takeaways
This isn’t a one-off ad buy; it’s chapter three in a growing Amaya-Herbal Essences story, and that repetition says something bigger: brands are treating breakout reality stars less like guest talent and more like long-term co-creators.
Amaya’s arc from “Love Island” fan-favorite to fronting a full fragrance-and-haircare pipeline shows how fast internet affection can turn into shelf space. It also hints at where beauty marketing is headed: less about ingredients, more about feelings.
Does turning a nickname into a full product line set a new playbook for reality stars monetizing their persona? Will multi-campaign deals like Amaya’s become the norm over one-off endorsements?
