They are the fragrance equivalent of fast food: cheap, soulless and with a nasty aftertaste. They smell pretty enough to begin with, but poor construction and cut-price ingredients mean they lack any sort of depth or character.
— On celebrity fragrances, from Perfume: out with the new, in with the old at the UK Times Online.
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Funny since I’m wearing Halle today, but I think this article hit the nail on the head. The Grossmith line looks fantastic, as does OJ’s Tiare. And really, celebrity fragrances are so formulaic that there isn’t often much point in trying them all out.
There’s a few I thought were really well done. I liked Danielle, Halle (obviously), and a couple Britney Spears frags. But the oriental-gourmand-twist on gardenia-clean and unoffensive musk/patch drydown gets really tiring after a time.
I like perfumes that challenge me as well as those that just plain smell like a well made perfume. Hence why I like nearly everything Divine’s done so far. They’re one of the few fragrance lines I wear that the CEO always comments on because they just smell good and of quality ingredients. He also loves No. 5, L’Art di Gucci, Prada, a lot of Annick Goutals and almost all the Guerlains he’s smelled. I can’t come down too hard on every celeb frag, but I do agree with the article for the most part.
I still say people pick on celeb scents unfairly. Yes, most of them are what the article says, but they’re hardly alone in that…walk around the counters at Macy’s or Kohls, and trust me, you’ll find plenty of cheap soulless dreck from designers, etc — it is not a problem specific to celebrities. And to compare these scents to much more expensive and hard to find brands like Grossmith and Ormonde Jayne is to attack a straw man…
So true! And even the most esteemed fragrance houses are capable of putting out soulless dreck aimed directly at the lowest common denominator. My Insolence, anyone? I will take Queen Latifah or a J-Lo over that any day, and I worship at the House of Guerlain.
The fast food and soulless is a good description, but not for all the celeb scents. I think that a lot of young people wants to identify themselves with their stars and they mostly don’t have much money to spend on perfume and most celeb scents are not so expensive. But I also think that when you are interested in perfume you look in another direction, no matter what your age is and you could wish a good quality perfume for birthday or christmas.
No, you’re right, some of them are quite good, and esp. for the price.
Personally I dislike the celebrity culture in general, which is why I can never wear celeb fragrances. I feel the same way about book covers, I hate it when they make a movie out of a classic and suddenly a treasured gem has a couple of movie stars on the cover.
Same here — I will not buy a book with a movie picture on the cover unless it’s absolutely the only copy to be had. And luckily it never is.
So funny! I thought I was the only person who refused to buy a book with the movie tie-in cover!
we’re forming a club…..
Count me in,. too.
Me too.
Me either and if it comes with an Oprah sticker, that sucker gets ripped off immediately.
Agreed. Really, I haven’t any idea who half these “celebrities” are in the first place. When I think celebrity-fronted or inspired perfume, I think L’Interdit, Nahema or the No. 5 ads. And yes, there certainly are a lot of blah and dull frags being releaced by many fragrance manufacturers. It just seems like the celebrity frags are far less willing to be bold and take a chance by going in a new direction. I suppose no one wants their name on the line if something doesn’t sell, but if a celebrity truly has a passion for fragrance, they could quite likely start a seachange in the trend by coming out with a well done chypre or something similar and equally as interesting, imho.
Absolutely agree. Celebrity fragrances are part of a larger phenomenon with a lot of distasteful elements.
Totally agree that (a) it’s not true of all celeb scents and (b) it’s unfortunately true for SO many designer scents as well.
I also am one of those who thinks that every once in a great while, certain fast food really hits the spot.
I agree, the celebrity scents are not better or worse than most other fragrances to be found at a department store like Macys. And sometimes what you want is a simple inoffensive fragrance. Fantasy is one of the only fragrances I’ve ever been complimented on by a passerby.
When you think about it, it’s just as hard to understand why Calvin Klein should have a fragrance as Jennifer Lopez…what’s the difference? It’s almost an accident of history that designers ever got into the perfume business at all, but once they did, they discovered just what celebrities did later: perfumes are cash cows that can fund other projects. And as I keep saying, they’re all made by the same few fragrance & flavor companies.
To me, the only reasons brands matter at all is that some of them have hired staff that are better than others at creative direction and are willing to make a greater investment in the juice: for that reason, I’m more likely to like a new Kenzo than a new Paris Hilton.
If you want to make an educated guess about how good a celebrity fragrance is going to be, it’s way more important to know who holds the license (and how they’re going to position the fragrance: mass vs prestige) than to consider how much you like the celebrity in question.
Very true. My belly really wanted Mickey D’s today and I was a very happy girl.
I will give celeb frags a shot – I love Covet, and wear Midnight Fantasy to bed. I have had horrible chemical-spill results from award-winning designer fragrances – I think it is all a crapshoot.
Well said, Joe.
I think that for some people, celebrity frags are an entry door into the wider world of fragrance in general. The same way that a few years back, Avon was, for a lot of people, (still is in a way) a first introduction.
We here at NST are the privileged few and celebrity frags are not necessarely aimed at us. But we all have among our friends and families, people who would never wear perfume on a regular basis, let alone spend $100+ on a bottle for themselves. But they might be persuaded to buy something by their favorite celebrity. Hopefully it will lead them to better things down the line.
Nice way to look at it!
After making a few useful observations, I thought the original Times article petered out into an unpaid ad for the new Grossmith line.
Seemed that way!
I find myself wanting to analyze my thoughts, the ones that go into assuming that a celebrity fragrance is extra likely to be Not Much Good. They are:
- A celebrity scent is likely to be marketed to the masses.
- That means that it’s unlikely to take any substantial risks. It’s not likely to demonstrate daring or originality.
- All that’s left to possibly distinguish the fragrance is quality and good design. (Do you call it “design” or is there another word? I mean the actual composition of the fragrance.)
- Quality and good design cost money.
- The celebrity costs money.
- Quality and good design probably take some serious fighting for.
- That fight’s going to be more difficult with a bunch of money going to the celebrity.
- That fight’s going to be more difficult with the likely perception, in some quarters, that the celebrity name alone should be enough to make sales. There’s always an assumption that advertising and image will sell the thing, but the celebrity name is just one more thing on the scales, to give the illusion that the actual juice doesn’t matter much.
So I see all these factors drowning out any small struggling voices arguing for a quality scent. So while it’s not impossible for a celebrity fragrance to be fabulous, it just seems to go against the odds.
All true, but I’d say that many of those things are also true of at least some of the designer brands. Many of them pay for celebrities to front the perfumes anyway….many of them rely on the designer name to sell the scent, and don’t take any risks, and don’t pay any more than they absolutely have to for the juice. My point is not at all that celebrity scents are likely to be excellent, but that most fragrances are not likely to be excellent — there is relatively little excellence out there, period. If you go into Kohls, where they’re now carrying lots of the lower end celebrity scents, you’ll smell lots of dreck and not all of it will be from celebrities.
This is quite true. I could respond that I have limited sampling financing, but one of the good things about the celebrity fragrances is that they tend to be very available for at least a quick spray – it’s not as if I have to send off to the Perfumed Court to get my hands on them. Maybe I should stop ignoring so many testers.
It’s true…the ability to find in-store testers is a huge plus.
What an interesting article and discussion, I like a good, friendly debate!
But I’m thinking that maybe celebrity scents and designer shouldn’t be considered equal. Maybe designers have more to lose if they keep releasing dreck out. I would think the Armanis, CKs, Gucci, etc. companies may just care that little bit more about the quality, standard and originality of their scent lines considering that they’re well known for their
scents (as well as the fashion stuff of course).
I wouldn’t imagine Gucci would be happy to release a scent like Paris Hilton Fairy Dust or whatever it’s called as they would have SOME standards.
Celebrities wouldn’t have a reputation to uphold in the fragrance world – they just want to trade off their name and sell product. They don’t have to prove anything to anyone. If it’s crap and no-one buys it, they’ll just move on to something else, maybe appear on TV spruiking proactive acne cream!
But some celebrity scents are pretty good and I’ve bought a few for family and friends but I’m not sure they should be considered in the same class as designer scents.
But you’re taking some higher end designers and comparing them to Paris Hilton…not a fair standard. Parlux, wisely I think, does not invest undue sums on Paris Hilton’s fragrances — why would they? They’re geared towards an entirely different slice of the market than Armani & Gucci.
But take, say, Calvin Klein Free next to Sean John Unforgivable, and I think you can make a reasonable comparison, and the celebrity scent holds its own quite well (actually, in that case I like the Sean John better). Coty also made a big investment in Sarah Jessica Parker’s first scent, and I think in terms of quality it could play with the big guys. Meanwhile, Christian Lacroix is putting out low end stuff for Avon. So I dont’ think it’s an issue of “designer vs celebrity” at all…it’s more a matter of who holds your license.
And when you say “If it’s crap and no-one buys it, they’ll just move on to something else, maybe appear on TV spruiking proactive acne cream!” — that ignores that the celebrities aren’t the license holders for these scents, any more than the designers are for their own scents. Coty is not going to invest in a product that it doesn’t think will sell, whether it’s for Calvin Klein or Jennifer Lopez.
Hmmm…interesting point and it all definetely makes sense.
But it still doesn’t explain why most celebrity scents smell terrible to me? Maybe it’s all in my head and I just THINK they smell bad because they’re celebrity fronted. Who knows? I’ll just keep testing things and try and stay objective.
Well, part of it is that most of them are geared towards young people, and most of them are on the lower end of the price scale. So, not claiming they’re fabulous as a group, just saying that most scents geared towards young people at the lower end of the price scale — celebrity or not — aren’t great, you know?
I mean, to give another example, the Britney Spears line is quite comparable to, say, the Vera Wang Princess line (in fact, I’d take Fantasy over Princess) or the Ralph by Ralph Lauren (Ralph Hot, Ralph Wild, etc) line.
Gwen Stefani’s L, which was geared slightly older, was a well-made but basically boring scent that you can compare to many similar designer scents (Vera Wang Look springs to mind). I’m sure her youth-oriented Harajuku Lovers have outsold L by the bucketload — and that’s the thing about the celebrity market: it does better with the young.
That does seem true – many celebrity scents do seem geared towards the young which would explain the plethora of fruity florals or fruity lolly which I tend to predominately smell. So yes maybe that’s why I have such a dim view of celebrity scents as a whole (with a few exceptions of course). Ah, fragrance is WASTED on the young!
It is too bad that such a huge proportion of new scents are geared towards young people….wish it was an even spread.