"Adore the perfume, abhor the celebrity"

[CSCfan]

Posted on Mon, Dec. 05, 2005

Adore the perfume, abhor the celebrity

 

By Jennifer Byrne

 

When a coworker of mine recently alleged to have forgotten the name of the perfume she was wearing, I was instantly suspicious. No woman simply forgets the scent she has chosen. Any woman who professes she did is a liar, pure and simple.

 

And what a scent this was: violet leaves harmonizing beautifully with sandalwood, underscored by an inspired touch of black currant, peach and bergamot. A seductive bottom note of jasmine and vanilla completed the bouquet. I had to have it.

 

Yet she had the audacity to evade me, offering the lame excuse that she had "sprayed from a bottle at random" in a hurry. I knew better. She was a classic scent-hoarder, first cousin to the fashion-hoarder. I knew the type all too well.

 

After three days of aromatic taunting with no disclosure, I couldn't withhold my resentment any longer.

 

"Listen, I think it's really stingy of you to withhold the name of this stuff," I snapped at her as she walked in the door. "You force the smell into my space anyway, so why shouldn't I get to wear some, too?"

 

It was as though I had slapped her. Suddenly, her face was racked with turbulent emotions I didn't understand.

 

"It's not what you think," she said in a near-whisper, her eyes wide. And that was when I heard the awful truth: It was Celine Dion perfume.

 

What was I to do? I now found myself presented with a dilemma that more and more women face every day in silence: being irresistibly drawn to the scent of a perfume licensed to - and marketed as being the very essence of - a celebrity you find abhorrent.

 

Now, I really don't know much about Celine Dion, aside from the fact that she was responsible for spawning that intolerable Titanic song and masterminding a Las Vegas show. I've always sensed that she gave off more than a hint of frenzied egomania and anorexia, and her marriage to that guy, Rene, seems weird. More than one Web site is devoted to the theory that she is the devil.

 

Did I mention that she was to blame for that Titanic song?

 

OK, perhaps I know more about Celine Dion than I would care to admit. The point is I have serious doubts about aligning myself ideologically or olfactorily with this person.

 

Laugh at my dilemma if you will, but you won't be laughing the day you find yourself treacherously compelled to douse yourself with Britney Spears' Curious. Or when you find yourself locked in your bathroom, feverishly scratching the Olsen twins' names off the pricy 2 ounces you just brought home from Macy's.

 

The stench of celebrity greed is everywhere. On The Apprentice, Donald Trump sent his lackeys scurrying around Manhattan to promote Shania Twain's eponymous perfume. (Trump, incidentally, has his own fragrance.)

 

And as more and more already rich celebrities seek to become richer by going the perfume route, more and more women are likely to be affected. This means you.

 

The question is: When is a smell just a smell? If you were drawn to an Oprah perfume or Courtney Love scent, would this mean that you simply liked the aroma, or that you unconsciously buy into the whole Oprah or Courtney franchise, the whole "image"? Since such scents are supposed to embody the very core of that celebrity's being, does liking the smell mean you are on her wavelength after all?

 

Is it possible I am a Celine Dion fan and don't know it? Am I being summoned back to the mother ship?

 

What is with this ever-increasing appetite for celebrity branding? You can't just smell like a better-smelling you. You have to smell like a more-famous you, one who isn't even you.

 

Out of curiosity (not the Britney Spears kind), I did a search for vintage celebrity perfumes. My favorite find was the now-defunct Michael Jackson perfume for women, circa 1989. The bottle featured a creepy holograph of Jacko, well on his way to becoming the... whatever... he is today. Who bought this stuff? And what did it say about the purchaser? I smugly concluded that a person who sprays from this sample a few too many times has weightier problems than my puny Celine Dion woes.

 

In the end, I decided to forgo the Celine Dion perfume; I couldn't quite bring myself to allow the distillation of Celine-ness to seep into my pores. I'll probably hold out until Walgreens breaks out the Designer Imposter: "If you like Celine Dion, you'll love [insert equally cheesy but lesser known diva-in-training here - if such an entity exists]."

 

My coworker has moved on to a new fragrance, even more delicious than the last. This time, I won't torment her with questions. I can find my way to the tester of Paris Hilton at the local Kmart all on my own, thank you.

[fred]

Ok. Shallow, fun reading however. To avoid these dilemmas celeberties shouldn't name which parfumes are his/hers, only to hard core fans, so that in closet fans can buy these parfumes in happy ignorance...

 

 

... More than one Web site is devoted to the theory that she is the devil.

hahaha

 

/fred

Edited December 5, 2005 at 02:20 PM by fred

[SFchick]

funny lol

[Nando Férri]

Once and again people says that Celine has anorexia. I hate that, because it's a very danger sick... People really doesn't know what they say....

[Krys]

if Celine had anorexia...she would have been long gone

[Cambroneroj]

Posted on Mon, Dec. 05, 2005

Adore the perfume, abhor the celebrity

 

By Jennifer Byrne

 

When a coworker of mine recently alleged to have forgotten the name of the perfume she was wearing, I was instantly suspicious. No woman simply forgets the scent she has chosen. Any woman who professes she did is a liar, pure and simple.

 

And what a scent this was: violet leaves harmonizing beautifully with sandalwood, underscored by an inspired touch of black currant, peach and bergamot. A seductive bottom note of jasmine and vanilla completed the bouquet. I had to have it.

 

Yet she had the audacity to evade me, offering the lame excuse that she had "sprayed from a bottle at random" in a hurry. I knew better. She was a classic scent-hoarder, first cousin to the fashion-hoarder. I knew the type all too well.

 

After three days of aromatic taunting with no disclosure, I couldn't withhold my resentment any longer.

 

"Listen, I think it's really stingy of you to withhold the name of this stuff," I snapped at her as she walked in the door. "You force the smell into my space anyway, so why shouldn't I get to wear some, too?"

 

It was as though I had slapped her. Suddenly, her face was racked with turbulent emotions I didn't understand.

 

"It's not what you think," she said in a near-whisper, her eyes wide. And that was when I heard the awful truth: It was Celine Dion perfume.

 

What was I to do? I now found myself presented with a dilemma that more and more women face every day in silence: being irresistibly drawn to the scent of a perfume licensed to - and marketed as being the very essence of - a celebrity you find abhorrent.

 

Now, I really don't know much about Celine Dion, aside from the fact that she was responsible for spawning that intolerable Titanic song and masterminding a Las Vegas show. I've always sensed that she gave off more than a hint of frenzied egomania and anorexia, and her marriage to that guy, Rene, seems weird. More than one Web site is devoted to the theory that she is the devil.

 

Did I mention that she was to blame for that Titanic song?

 

OK, perhaps I know more about Celine Dion than I would care to admit. The point is I have serious doubts about aligning myself ideologically or olfactorily with this person.

 

Laugh at my dilemma if you will, but you won't be laughing the day you find yourself treacherously compelled to douse yourself with Britney Spears' Curious. Or when you find yourself locked in your bathroom, feverishly scratching the Olsen twins' names off the pricy 2 ounces you just brought home from Macy's.

 

The stench of celebrity greed is everywhere. On The Apprentice, Donald Trump sent his lackeys scurrying around Manhattan to promote Shania Twain's eponymous perfume. (Trump, incidentally, has his own fragrance.)

 

And as more and more already rich celebrities seek to become richer by going the perfume route, more and more women are likely to be affected. This means you.

 

The question is: When is a smell just a smell? If you were drawn to an Oprah perfume or Courtney Love scent, would this mean that you simply liked the aroma, or that you unconsciously buy into the whole Oprah or Courtney franchise, the whole "image"? Since such scents are supposed to embody the very core of that celebrity's being, does liking the smell mean you are on her wavelength after all?

 

Is it possible I am a Celine Dion fan and don't know it? Am I being summoned back to the mother ship?

 

What is with this ever-increasing appetite for celebrity branding? You can't just smell like a better-smelling you. You have to smell like a more-famous you, one who isn't even you.

 

Out of curiosity (not the Britney Spears kind), I did a search for vintage celebrity perfumes. My favorite find was the now-defunct Michael Jackson perfume for women, circa 1989. The bottle featured a creepy holograph of Jacko, well on his way to becoming the... whatever... he is today. Who bought this stuff? And what did it say about the purchaser? I smugly concluded that a person who sprays from this sample a few too many times has weightier problems than my puny Celine Dion woes.

 

In the end, I decided to forgo the Celine Dion perfume; I couldn't quite bring myself to allow the distillation of Celine-ness to seep into my pores. I'll probably hold out until Walgreens breaks out the Designer Imposter: "If you like Celine Dion, you'll love [insert equally cheesy but lesser known diva-in-training here - if such an entity exists]."

 

My coworker has moved on to a new fragrance, even more delicious than the last. This time, I won't torment her with questions. I can find my way to the tester of Paris Hilton at the local Kmart all on my own, thank you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

what a b...! do not like what this writer says about celine!

[Yangedd]

I hate when people come out with all this rubbish.

 

They clearly have nothing better to do then attack other people who haven't done anything to them.

[Célinefull]

Why? That is all that I can say. What is it trying to say? That the perfum is good? That it is bad? I don't understand. Why would someone write such rubbish about Celine when it doesn't even have a point, she could have just said "I don't really like her music, but the perfume is nice," I just, seriously hate this kind of "Journalism" that all it does is just take shots at people.