Britney Spears: Smells sells

Something of a rubicon crossed this week: With her 16th fragrance, Britney Spears has now released twice as many toilet waters as albums.

Alesha Dixon creates a stink

Alesha Dixon has released a perfume (surely we've used up all possible smells of toilet water by now?). Fair enough, but not sure about the Manchester Evening News claim here:

Pop star Alesha Dixon launches new perfume at Trafford Centre

The Trafford Centre bit is fair enough, but... is she a pop star?

Her last album was three and a half years ago, and got to the giddy heights of, erm, 84. She hasn't troubled the Top 10 singles list since Breathe Slow back in 2009.

Fair enough, she was a pop star once, but not for the best part of half a decade. And I doubt if even the most generous perfume company would be launching a brand off the back of The Boy Does Nothing so late on.

But then 'Game show judge launches perfume' isn't quite such a compelling headline, is it?

Lady GaGa succes: not to be sniffed at

GaGa stink in a bottle is selling well, apparently:

The reaction to FAME has been overwhelming. 6 million bottles in 1 week makes it the 2nd fastest selling fragrance after Coco Chanel.

— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) September 22, 2012

Six million bottles in a week, eh? That's almost too good to be true.

In fact, it really does sound too good to be true.

In three months at the start of 2011, all the department store brands combined managed eight million units.

Is GaGa really not just outstripping the competition, but selling at something like ten times as fast?

Seems unlikely.

Is GaGa confusing the number shipped with the number actually sold?

The smell of Aguilera

Christina Aguilera has launched a perfume.

I know, it's an inspired idea and I can't imagine why more celebrities don't lend their brand names to stinky water in glass bottles.

It's called Secret Potion.

No, really. Secret Potion. I guess they couldn't afford any market research, or mistook the response for everyone laughing with them.

[Christina] says, “every woman has a secret sexy side. With my fragrance, I really want that side to shine.”

Christina, we've seen the Dirrty video, and your subsequent work. I don't think you could really claim to have a secret sexy side. You've never been backwards about coming forwards. Or, indeed, anywhere much.

The Sex Pistols: Rotten stench

Had they not chopped him into parts and sold him in Punk Reliquary boxes, Sid Vicious would be turning in his grave, again. Here's The Sex Pistols: The perfume:

The English punk rock band - fronted by Johnny Rotten - have teamed up with cosmetic firm Fragrance and Beauty Limited to create the Sex Pistols scent, which is described as resisting tradition, fighting conformity and disregarding aromatic conventions.

Yes, it's resisting conventions and fighting conformity - the hole is on the wrong side of the bottle so whenever you try to squirt yourself, it ends up going in your eyes and burning. Or something.

According to a statement the fragrance - which is available exclusively at The Fragrance Shop -

See? Selling perfume at a perfume shop - in your face, tradition.

leaves a "fresh, restless bite of lemon, sharpened and intensified by a defiant black pepper".

Lemon and black pepper? Did anyone else think the Sex Pistols smelled like a well-prepared dover sole?

The release added: "Electrified by aldehydes, the fragrance exudes pure energy, pared down and pumped up by leather, shot through with heliotrope and brought back down to earth by a raunchy patchouli."

Hang about: patchouli? The hippiest scent of them all? Didn't anyone put any thought into this at all?

The ol-factor

I can just about see the thinking behind an X Factor perfume - the sweet smell of quickly fading success in a bottle.

What seems odd is producing a range themed around the judges. Yes, splashing Cheryl Cole and Minogue about might be attractive; maybe even Cowell might attract a certain sort of man.

But who would want to put themselves into this scenario:

- Darling?
- Yes, darling?
- Is there a funny smell in here?
- I don't... think...
- Like a desperate pantomime dame waving the wrong end of a shitty stick about in a bucket of sweat?
- Oh! I'm wearing Louis Walsh toilet water

Kanye West Inc expands product range

It's been a good 48 hours since Kanye West has stretched his brand over any new products, which must mean we're about to get some product launches. Now word yet of Kanye West Pop Tart, but here comesKanye West Energy Drinks and Cologne:

West will be involved in the entire development process of a new beverage "inspired by his own personal artistic vision," the company announced yesterday (April 8). The new drink is expected to launch later this year. As part of the deal, West is now an equity partner in the company [Guru beverages].

Inspired by his own artistic vision? How does he pipe that into a sugary drink, exactly?

"I express myself through music, fashion, art and design and that's why I am excited to collaborate with GURU; because the brand values what I value, and I can put what inspires me into this new product," West said in a statement.

The brand values what West values? That would be money, then, would it?

But what of the cologne?

West is also part of a deal that will see branded perfumes and colognes from Jay-Z, Rihanna, and West himself. Parlux Fragrances, Inc., announced Tuesday (April 7) that it has signed an agreement with Iconic Fragrances LLC, Jay-Z's own licensing company. The agreement allows for royalties, profit sharing, and stock options for West and the others.

Suspicions that the bottles of Kanye West Drink and Kanye West Stink will contain the same, slightly sickening, liquid are beneath you.

Gordon in the morning: Heavy pants

At last, something to distract Gordon from Amy Winehouse's holidays: Victoria Beckham doing a bloke's underwear shoot:

Posh in kecks

That's actually quite good, although it's a pun that only really works in Scotland; come down too far into England and kecks move from being underwear to outerwear and the pun breaks.

But can Gordon keep it up?

She peeled off to briefs and a, er, Posh-up bra for shots inspired by 1950s cinema.

Posh-up bra?

Bust what I was after ... Victoria in Armani ad

Okay, stop now.

Is there very much for Gordon to do other than try to stop getting it on the photos?

Becks, nicknamed Goldenballs, was at the shoot near their LA home.

Clearly not - "nicknamed Goldenballs"? Even if anyone had called him that since, ooh, 1973, why on earth would you mention that? And isn't "Becks" a nickname itself?

A year ago, Leona Lewis insisted she was going to concentrate on music and not muck about with fashion or perfume or autobiographies. Gordon reports this morning that she's just signed up for the perfume, with the clothing line and book already in preparation:

Well, a year is a long time in the life of a superstar.

She obviously has loads of exciting new stories to share, and a more mature sense of style and smell.

That's the most sardonic thing I think I've ever seen in Bizarre. Well, written about someone they still need to be nice to.

Elsewhere, Holly Valance's career has stalled so badly she's now at the desperately begging Hugh Hefner for a Playboy spread stage:

I would definitely consider doing Playboy if it was tasteful. I’d consider topless too if it was perhaps in black and white.

Ah. So she's begging to go in the world's most famous skin magazine and... you know, providing it was slightly arty, she might even take her shirt off. What sort of magazine does she think Playboy is?

Stefani: Gonna make toilet water out of your culture

Gwen Stefani has long attempted to bolster her credentials as being in touch with young people by marching bands of pressganged Harajuku girls round behind her.

Now, she's decided she's going to milk some cash out of them, too by launching a range of perfumes in caricatured bottles branded Harajuku Girls.

Which, by implication, means that she's gone one step further from merely appropriating a youth culture that existed quite happily without her, and turned it into a brand name. I await her explanation of how she intends to share the money she's making out of this project with the original Harajuku - perhaps she'll use the cash to fund some more meekly walking in silence behind her.

[Thanks to Eleanor G for the story]

Scent firm thinks Prince stinks

Heading to court: Prince, dragged by the firm which gave him a stupid sum of money to make products 'inspired' by his records. Why would you want a cologne inspired by Prince's songs? Isn't it going to smell of discarded panties, sweat and stains?

Anyway, the company is humped that Prince didn't turn up at any events to help promote the scents and, with a new one set to launch next year, is trying to remind him of his responsibilities. Although it's possible he did show up to promote the bottled whiffs, but nobody saw him behind the perfume counters.

Can anyone else smell a bizarre mix of desperation, cocaine and chicken drumstick fat?

Have you ever wished you could smell like Kerry Katona, but don't have the time to sleep in your own clothes?

Good news, she's just launched her own perfume, called Outrageous.

The Liverpool Echo reports:

The French-made scent, whose bottle has a spiky black rubber top, aims to reflect the mother-of-four’s personality and the “outrageous” lies about what she has not done.

We're not sure how the smell reflects Katona's personality, but we're given to understand that once it's on you, no amount of washing or scrubbing will ever rid you of the smell.

What's that smell?

Adding to the increasingly unlikely range of celebrity smells: Tim McGraw, a fragrance for men who probably don't really feel comfortable wearing fragrances.

The X-Factor stinks

As if in some laboratory demonstration of the ease with which a fool and money can be put asunder, they're launching an X-Factor perfume. You and I might think this would be the stink of desperation, but the Fragrance Shop says not:

A spokeswoman for the store said: "Since the talent show phenomenon first launched there has been massive debate about just what constitutes the X factor and more importantly who has it, and now it's been bottled for everyone."

The Fragrance Shop is, of course, to perfumiers what those stores with large, scoopable tubs of off-brand breakfast cereals and dried fruit are to the Harrods Food Hall, but even for them this is stretching it a bit.

As James P pointed out when he brought this festive-market product to our attention:

So that's that settled then. When Simon Cowell says he's looking for someone with the X factor, what he means is 'someone who smells of repackaged Jade Goody perfume'.

Oh, and there's also this: "Maker ScentUps claims the scent will help fans become 'part of the excitement and glamour of becoming a pop star'". Bottles are priced at £12.99 each, so presumably when they say "become part of the glamour of becoming a pop star", the pop star in question is Lisa Scott Lee.

Although 'smells of repackaged Jade Goody' does pretty much sum up Shayne Ward, if you ask us.

Mariah perfume panic

As if the bad boys wandering past queues outside bookshops yesterday evening saying "oh... this is the one where he dies in the end, isn't it?" wasn't cruel enough spoilerage fun, it seems that someone has taken to faking Mariah Carey perfume ads and scattering them online, just to spoil the, ah, fun of a celebrity-endorsed bottle of very, very expensive water. Elizabeth Arden are having beautifully scented kittens:

An image of Mariah Carey with her fragrance bottle photoshopped in the corner is being featured on several blogs today, and is categorically not the advertisement for her new fragrance, nor is it even remotely close. The real ad for M by Mariah Carey will debut exclusively on TMZ during the second week of August."

Other celebrities might wonder why Carey is giving an exclusive to TMZ, a website not noticeably fond of treating the famous with the dignity and respect they might hope for. We wonder if TMZ have any 'not mentioning the whole going a bit off the rails' thing in their side of the deal?

Captain Peacock, how am I meant to price the garterbelts when I'm worried what Mr. Prince is doing to my pussy?

Because he's launching a perfume, called, of course, 3121, Prince is going to do a gig in the Minneapolis branch of Macys. It's going to cost $250 to get in, although for a quarter of that price we'd imagine you'd be able to pick up a similar, off-brand gig in the Minneapolis Target.

Smells like Xtina spirit

We'd have thought that Christian Aguilera might have decided to abandon the Britney Spears playbook by now, but, no, she's still aping her one-time rival, move for move. So it is that the world is preparing itself for Aguilera - the perfume. It's going to be called Simple. Sorry, Simply. And they're clearly pitching it as a gift gormless blokes will buy their for their unfortunate girlfriends:

Presented in a curvy glass bottle, intended to mirror the singer's silhouette, the fragrance will be supported by a print ad campaign featuring Aguilera's bare back painted with a black lace design.

It features the tagline: "Sometimes it's all you need to wear".

A;though, frankly, why you'd need to bother with a dab of toilet water behind your ears if you've already got your knickers off is beyond us. Still, nice to see exactly what the mature Christina is like now she's no longer relying on sex appeal to sell.

Britney Spears invites you to stalk your friends

It's not so long ago that Britney Spears was so annoyed with people taking sneak photos of her, she attacked the paparazzi with an umbrella.

Now, though, she's trying to push her new fragrance, Faded Glory ("Midnight Fantasy") by encouraging people to, erm, sneak up on friends and take photos:

[Britney] is sending emails to fans asking them "to sneak up on their friends and photograph them." She writes: "Share what happens to you when the clock strikes 12... Where are you? Who is with you?

"Savour every last detail and when you think you have it down, recreate that perfect moment and capture it as best you can in a digital photograph."

No, we're not quite sure we've understood that brief. Sneak up on people, take a photo, then imagine what you might be doing at 12 and recreate that?

Apparently you win a signed iPod if you somehow unpick the terms enough to send in the winning photo.