The One Direction Fragrance Made Half a Million Bucks in One Week

The oh-so-fun lads of One Direction took the time to sniff a bunch of chemicals and “create” a fragrance — Our Moment — and in the UK, the scent has been on sale at Harrod’s for a week and has already raked in £360,000 — which is $560,00 — as in over HALF A MILLION. In one week. This number includes pre-orders, aka cash from people who bought the fragrance without ever smelling it.

From the Daily Mail:

Escentual.com CEO Rakesh Aggarwal said: ‘Our Moment is predicted to sell around 180,000 units in the first week alone, making it one of the fastest selling fragrances of all time.

‘It’s certainly looking like it’s going to be the most successful celebrity perfume launch of the year and sales in America are expected to be bigger still,’ says Aggarwal.

On the basis of 180,000 sales of the most popular 30ml Eau de Parfum, which retails at £19.99, the turnover for the first week will come in at nearly £3.6m.

Apparently the kids get about $3 for every bottle sold, and we should expect more products and gift sets later in the year, since about 70% of all fragrance sales happen during the Christmas season. Someone from the Daily Mail sniffed the stuff; she reports:

I found Our Moment very sweet and a tad too heavy for daytime for grown-ups – and even an hour after first spraying this, the smell still lingered over me like a huge cloud of frangipani and candyfloss. I have nothing against frangipani, it’s just combined with everything else that the overall effect is a bit cloying.

Here’s the commercial for the perfume, which, of course, is tongue-in-cheek — remember that these kids are FUN — and includes a slow-mo shot of Harry nuzzling flower petals.