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Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
Other People's Farts: Don't Let Your Good Manners Suffocate You

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Harlot Brontë
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
Nobody makes their own perfumes. Nobody. Not Giorgio Armani, not Stella McCartney, not Paris Hilton. It's the big dirty secret of the fragrance world, and one which they expend millions of dollars on marketing to make sure you never realise. Brands, whether they be Thierry Mugler or Britney Spears send what's known as "briefs" to one of ten very big and very powerful scent labs such as Coty or IFF (who also make the scents in your detergent and in your Febreeze).

The briefs describe the perfume, and can be as simple and direct as "A fig scent, with tuberose and vetiver, not too soapy." Or they can be as whimsical as the brief for Flower by Kenzo, which asked for a perfume that melded Marc Riboud's famous photograph of a girl holding out a flower to a soldier with a gun and fixed bayonet with the scent of Kenzo's favourite flower, the poppy. A poppy has no scent. So the perfume lab asked Alberto Morillas (who also made CK One and Armani's Acqua di Gio, among many others) to chemically "imagine" what a poppy might smell like. Morillas duly produces three variations on this odd idea, Kenzo picks the one they like best, and then market that stuff like nobody's business. The same exact process happens for perfumes that are sold under celebrity brands. The perfumer that made Britney Spears' Midnight Fantasy also made Badgley Mischka Couture. Interestingly enough, Midnight Fantasy uses more costly ingredients than the Mischka.

So it's laughably silly to pretend that preferring YSL's Parisienne to Avril Lavigne's Black Star is somehow about the quality of the perfume or the skill of the people who designed it. Love your perfume, no matter who's marketing it.
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morninggloria
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
I heard that Glenn Beck's scent "Racist Anger of The Poorly Endowed Screamer" is selling well among Republicans.
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sassyredhead
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
I will confess my love of Glow By JLo. But I always ask for it for a gift, then I never have to ask for it at the store. My mom has no clue to be embarrassed asking for it.
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utensil42
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
Freshman year of college, a friends' mom sent her a care package that included the Britney Spears fragrance and the Paris Hilton fragrance. Said friend really like the Paris Hilton one, but said that the Britney Spears one smelled like "baby prostitutes."
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PhillyLass
09/10/09

@utensil42: I'm scared that your friend knows what a baby prostitute smells like.
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utensil42
09/10/09

@PhillyLass: And I was never clear if she meant it as "babies or young persons who are prostitutes" or "persons who are new to prostitution."
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highjump
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
I think it is a little embarrassing to be buying some of these things. In my experiences smelling these things celebrity fragrences tend to be really unbalanced because these people don't know what they're doing. They want it to smell like cupcakes! vanilla! flowers! fruit! ZOMG everything at once!!!They also tend to be packaged in ugly, gaudy bottles. I don't want to play with a toy, and I want to smell like an adult.
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BabyJane promoted this comment Edited by highjump at 09/10/09 12:59 PM highjump was starred highjump was unstarred

dripdrop
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
The only celebrity fragrance I like (and own) is L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani. It smells SO good!

Also, I think being a perfume designer would be such a fascinating job.
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BabyJane
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
Note to self: scrap plans for Jon Gosselin cologne.
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Mary McCarthyite
09/10/09

@BabyJane: I hear Speidi is developing a unisex perfume. I bet that'll get the market going again.
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hatepaperdoll
09/10/09

@BabyJane: Great, now what am I supposed to do with all this used hot tub water and sextuplet tears?
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BabyJane
09/10/09

@Mary McCarthyite: Excellent, I'll plan on spraying it in my eyes the next time they're on television.
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Mary McCarthyite
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
Confession: I used to wear SJP's PINK fragrance...I would smell it in magazine inserts and went crazy for the scent. When I found out it was by a celebrity, I resisted buying it. I am glad I finally gave in. It is delicious.
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nyc-caribbean-ragazza
09/10/09

In reply to Celebrity Fragrances No Longer Smell As Sweet To Consumers
Good.

I never understood the appeal of wearing a scent "by" some random celeb who knows nothing about creating a scent.

That said, the fragrance industry is very interesting. I had a friend who worked for IFF (Int'l Flavors and Fragrances). I no how creative (the noses) and marketing worked together (or not) to launch a fragrance.
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Porcelina
09/10/09

@nyc-caribbean-ragazza: I wear whatever scent smells good to me.I don't care who did it. I have Paris Hilton by Paris Hilton, next to it on my shelf are Tommy Girl, Bvlgari Au The Rouge, and Nollie (from Pac Sun).

Why should it matter where it came from?
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nyc-caribbean-ragazza
09/10/09

@Porcelina:

It matters to me. If I'm going to pay more for something because of an endorsement then I like that person to have some kind of expertise in that arena...not just slap their name on it.

It's the same reason I don't own cookbooks by Sandra Lee. Not because I have an issue with celeb chefs (I own books by Mario Batali, Ina Gartner, Giada De Laurentiis, etc.) but because I don't think she can cook.

Marketing exists for a reason. Some of the celeb marketing works and for others it's a turn off.

I'm not a fan of Paris so why would I buy her perfume?
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Porcelina
09/10/09

@nyc-caribbean-ragazza: Yeah, I totally get that. I didn't know people paid more just because of an endorsement. I live in Las Vegas, and when you cash your checks at casinos, or rack up gambling points, they just GIVE that crap away. I got a Paris Hilton perfume, and I wasn't going to NOT use it just because it had her name on it, and it smells good (unlike her other ones).

But yeah, I can totally see people not wanting to shell out money, supporting someone or a brand that they don't like.
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Aesop's Foibles. YES.
11/25/08

In reply to Other People's Farts: Don't Let Your Good Manners Suffocate You
I'm still laughing from yesterday. Also I gotta weigh in on the "period poop" phenomenon. This only recently started happening to me. It really is awful, hastily removing a tampon before all hell breaks loose. And it always ends the same way, to borrow a fitting phrase coined by my sister: the milliwipe. You know, where you have to sit there and wipe and wipe and wipe and finally your butt hurts and you're like "fuck this." Oh the humanity! I tried using baby wipes for a while when this happened, but then I saw blood (blood!!) on the wipe and gave up. There really is no happy medium here. Either you leave the bathroom frustrated and aware of the fact that there is still an errant trace of feces in there, or you leave the bathroom tired and sore. Gotta love the menses, yo.
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gobblegirl
11/25/08

In reply to Other People's Farts: Don't Let Your Good Manners Suffocate You
My dog's farts would be so bad that he would get up and leave the room. Hideous.
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BluebellaElliot
11/25/08

In reply to Other People's Farts: Don't Let Your Good Manners Suffocate You
Gosh, if I suspect my SO of stinking up the bedroom, I'll probably just sit on his head and try to squeeze out a worse one! Laughing the whole while of course.

Normally he isn't sly about it anyway, he likes to do it really loud and on one of my body parts preferably.
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MediasBlue
11/25/08

In reply to Other People's Farts: Don't Let Your Good Manners Suffocate You
I grew up with my Dad and my brother, who are both major walking gas bombs. I finally made a rule that they couldn't fart in the kitchen, just so I could have some fresh air! So when my brother was telling me about the woman he was dating and he said that she has very little sense of smell, I told him it was fate (they've been married 5 years).

I can burp like my brother and Dad, but refuse to fart like them. I just can't. Mr. Shasse will walk away from me or look me in the eye and announce that he feels like my brother. That gives me time to run away.
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purefog
11/24/08

In reply to Other People's Farts: Don't Let Your Good Manners Suffocate You
I ain't no lady, but I have always thought it to be sufficient etiquette in such instances to slide the emitting ass to the edge of the bed, lift the covers, poot into the large and diluting ocean of air that is the room, wait a beat, and then come back under the covers. Anyone for whom this is insufficiently considerate ("You should have gone out of the house and run down the block, or held it in until you exploded!") is disqualified from a return engagement. (Usually.)
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MeganGlass 就是一个古代的三明治
11/24/08

@purefog: A fine tactic unless your side of the bed is against the wall. Mr. Glass is not against the wall, nor does he try to deliver his presents to freedom. He prefers to let his business infiltrate the entire bed, and subscribes to the idea that there are only 2 kinds of farts, one's own and anyone else's. Naturally he is immune to the former. I am not. Floofing ensues.
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MeganGlass 就是一个古代的三明治
11/24/08

In reply to Other People's Farts: Don't Let Your Good Manners Suffocate You
So what do y'all do about farting in bed? I lift the covers up and floof it out, but Mr. Glass thinks it's uncouth to do so. He prefers to wallow, I guess. What do you ladies do?
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