Designer & Celebrity Fragrances

The array of fragrances that are tagged and promoted by a well-known designer or celebrity (singers and actors) is staggering. The fragrance monopolies like Coty pay big bucks to have the celebrity with a high recognition factor to promote their next big thing. If the fragrance is successful, it will stay in production over the years (Elizabeth Taylor's fragrances come to mind, as well as Halston). One just has to scan the top perfume sellers on online fragrance sites to know who's hot this particular year, and what has been discounted. Some just fade away like a cancelled TV show - in the late 70's my mother and I were fans of Cie, promoted by actress Candice Bergen. Candice is still acting but the fragrance is long gone.

So part of my search involved sampling the popular offerings of Brittney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Marc Jacobs, Ed Hardy, J. Lo, Gwen Stefani, Beckham, Vera Wang and many others. How good are they, and how well do they stand up against the classics? Some perfumes, like Shalimar, have been around since the 1920's and have remarkable staying power.

Let's put it this way: some do, some don't. Some are lovely, some are ick - it's a real mixed bag. The common thread is that the performer or designer aims to translate their personalities into a fragrance. Mr. Sexyback himself, Justin Timberlake, has a fragrance called Play that my daughter describes as 'sexy guy scent'.

So here's a random sampling and my opinions of some of the designer & celebrity fragrances:

Believe, Brittney Spears - Light, lively and fresh scent - very nice, but more for a younger girl like my daughter.
Daisy, Marc Jacobs - Light floral that doesn't last very long, pleasant but meh.
Lovely and Covet, Sarah Jessica Parker - Kind of stinky; the heavy musks are unwearable for me.
Angel, Thierry Mugler - WOW - packs a punch and smells gorgeous. I could wear this all day.
Cashmere Mist, Donna Karan - bland floral that makes this middle aged woman feel old.
Juicy Couture - fun, sweet, potent scent - much nicer than its newer scent Viva La Juicy which is overwhelming.
Princess, Vera Wang - also very sweet but young. Some newer Princesses have appeared on the market (Glam Princess is quite enticing) and her other scents are very feminine and light. Hard to choose from this line.
Essence, Narcisco Rodriguez - Heavy duty floral that I'm very fond of but not sure if it completely works on me. Beautiful base notes in this scent.
Glow, J. Lo - Surprisingly feminine floral that my daughter has taken possession of.
L'eau d'Issey, Issey Miyake - Lovely floral for the winter months, his other perfumes are ethereal. I'd buy them all.
Black Star, Avril Lavigne - Overbearing scent that makes me sneeze. Pass.

In the past I have purchased certain designer or celebrity fragrances - wore Oscar de la Renta as a bride in 1987, bought Giorgio on my honeymoon in Freeport, Bahamas, and Sung by Alfred Sung was also a favourite back then. However, apart from Halston which I used to rebuy at duty free shops when travelling, I have never purchased any of them a second time. The classics, like Miss Dior, have been replenished time and again. That's the staying power of a signature scent, and what sets them apart from the others that will disappear in time.

House of Chanel

Ah, Chanel. House of some of the finest fragrances in the world. I tried out several of Chanel's fragrances: No. 5, Allure, Coco, Coco Mademoiselle and Chance.

First of all, I have a confession to make about the most popular perfume in the world, Chanel No. 5: I don't like it very much. I must be one of the few people in the world who dislikes it; however, I do love their commercials, especially the brilliant epic commercial starring Nicole Kidman made a couple of years ago.

In the tests, I liked Allure, Chance and Coco Mademoiselle. Chance is a true 'green' scent: light, possibly young-ish, and likely a good spring-summer fragrance. Allure was a bit 'heavy', and Coco Mademoiselle was intriguing: it went on light and almost fruity; later it revealed the most exquisite base notes I'd ever sampled.

I sprayed those fragrances on sample cards and took them home to have a whiff later on for a second opinion.

I was definitely on to something here.

Body Chemistry: The "Pine Sol" Effect

Every scent is different on everyone because our body chemistry is unique to us individually. When a perfume smells enticingly good upon first whiff and suddenly converts into something resembling a household cleanser after spraying it on, that is what I dub the "Pine Sol" effect.

A classic example of the Pine Sol effect occurred when I was leafing through a fashion magazine that had a fragrance sample of the newly-released Ralph Laurent scent Notorious. Opening the tab, I breathed in a lovely, spicy-lemony scent and thought "I have got to try this one out, it's gorgeous!".

Sometime later I got a sample-sized bottle of Notorious, excitedly dabbed in on my wrists, and there it was: it smelled like Pine Sol on me - simply godawful. What a disappointment! I had to strike another potentially wonderful scent off the list because of incompatible chemistry. It's somewhat like dating, when what seems like a great match isn't. Far from it.

Next on the list of tryouts: the House of Chanel.