Vacation’s Orange Gelée Marks 100 Years With Fragrances, Sale, Party

Vacation is turning Orange Gelée into a month-long giftable moment, pairing a 20% off anniversary sale with five new fragrances, a $28 eau de toilette kit and a $5 air freshener. The centennial rollout, called 100 Years of Gelée, runs from April 16 to May 16, with Gelée Week at Target from April 26 to May 2 and a 100th birthday party at The Hollywood Roosevelt on May 7.

The timing gives the collection an unusually strong self-care gift angle. Vacation has leaned into value as well as nostalgia, with the anniversary fragrance kit priced at $28 and the Orange Gelée Air Freshener at $5, small-ticket items that make the centennial feel less like a museum exercise and more like a ready-made beauty buy. The brand is also extending its orange gelée accord into fragrances, which positions the launch somewhere between scent wardrobe and collectible keepsake.

Vacation says the story begins in Paris in 1926, when Monsieur Antoine trademarked the orange-tinted sun gel that helped define the bronzed, holiday-maker look of the era. The product later became tied to French Riviera leisure culture, then appeared in the United States under the Bain de Soleil name. The Orange Gelée name was formally introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, along with an SPF 4 rating, which is a reminder of how different sunscreen once was from today’s high-SPF, skincare-first category.

The original Orange Gelée was discontinued in December 2019, then brought back through the Orange Gelée Revival Project, which Vacation says launched in 2023 and reached shelves in summer 2024. That revival was built with fans and guided by an advisory board that included skincare and scent experts, a rare mix that helps explain why the comeback feels more considered than nostalgic branding alone. Vacation says the revived gel and spray oil were updated to modern skincare standards and went on to win Allure’s Best of Beauty award.

For gift buyers, the appeal is obvious: this is not just a fragrance launch, but a conversation piece with built-in provenance. The range has a broad price ladder, from a $5 air freshener to the $28 anniversary fragrance kit, which makes it easy to buy something small and thoughtful or build a more layered present around the same story. Vacation has taken a discontinued sunscreen legend and turned it into a polished self-care drop with retail momentum, and that is exactly the kind of beauty nostalgia that tends to travel well.