Celebrity perfumes - do you buy it?

I like to think that when it comes to fragrance, I am a purist rather than a snob. If it's a lovely scent and lasts all day without turning bitter or over powering than it goes into my 'like' category regardless of the brand, or celebrity endorsement. However, it just so happens that most celebrity perfumes smell like cat pee.

Let me just explain what I mean by celebrity perfumes. I don't mean brands that get celebrities to pose in their adverts to endorse the scent, for example, I heartily condone Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost) promoting Davidoff Cool Water*. Yes, that's perfectly OK in my book. What I object to is so called celebrities releasing perfumes under their own name, claiming to have had a pivotal role in developing the scent, when in reality, they have most likely just had their first whiff minutes before the media launch. Frankly, I just don't buy it.

To be fair, I can understand why the 'Z' list celebs go down that road. After all, their fame is fleeting and they have to earn as much as possible while they can, but it's the likes of Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez that annoy me. They have no business dipping their toe in the perfume production world as far as I am concerned. I own both their debut scents (gifts, not bought by me!) and they are both vile. It's just so unnecessary. They have contributed nothing to the perfume world. In fact they taint the genre with their terrible concoctions.

Take Jennifer Aniston. Now, I like her, she is a good actress who makes the occasional good film and she is also exceptionally beautiful. So what in the name of Chanel is she doing bringing out a perfume and then admitting during the press launch that she is not a 'perfumey kind of girl'?! That's just rude. And more importantly, does not exactly fill me with confidence that she was in any way involved in the development.

All that being said, I will still give Jennifer Aniston a good sniffing before I discount it completely, because as I said, I am not a perfume snob. Which leads me on to my next point. There are two exceptions to the 'all celebrity perfumes smell like cat's pee' rule - please step forward Kylie Minogue and Kate Moss. I will explain....

Darling by Kylie Minogue was Kylie's debut into the fragrance world. As with all celebrity perfumes, I approached the bottle with caution and was pleasantly surprised, not because of any slight on Ms Minogue, far from it, I am a big Kylie fan and one of my mantras in life is 'what would Kylie do'. Darling is darling. It sweetly dances on the nostrils and then once it's finished twirling** around your senses sprinkling them with the scent equivalent of pretty pink sparkles, it settles down into a warm and comforting snuggle.

Kate Moss' self titled scent was released after the whole debacle of her being caught on film sniffing cocaine and her other ungainly antics with Pete Doherty. Again, I approached the bottle with caution, but this time because of what the name Kate Moss represented and was again surprised, but this time to my utter annoyance. It was lovely. It's edgy, dark and dangerous - exactly how you would imagine the lady herself to smell, minus the stench of booze and cigarettes.

In conclusion, I am not suggesting that you avoid celebrity perfumes completely, but please don't allow yourself to get sucked into believing the hype. If you can, ignore whoever it is on the box and judge the scent based purely on your own standards for assessing the merits of a fragrance.....unless it's Celine Dion, in which case it's OK to use it as drain cleaner!

xx


*my opinion is based purely on being OK with celebrity endorsements and nothing to do with Josh being semi-naked and walking out of the water looking so yummy that you could spread him on a cracker.

**I could have gone for the obvious and typed 'spinning around' instead of twirling but that would have been too easy and silly for a serious blog about perfumes!