Out Of Commission…

First off, you might be wondering what I’m doing here. While March is away (since I can’t bring myself to think it’s more than an extended vacation) I’ll be posting on Thursdays. Both here and on PST, which may be more Tom than any one day can handle, but I’ll try not to bore you all too badly.

So straight out of the gate I’m going to be a disappointment.

I came down with a cold, so everything is just a little off-smelling so I really don’t have anything to write about, except to perhaps start a chat about celeb fragrances. I actually like the recent Madonna one and was shocked that I kind of liked one of the Kardashian ones (but am snob enough to admit to myself I’d rather chew my own leg off than actually admit to wearing it..). The first Sarah Jessica Parker was very good; SJP was apparently very deeply involved in the development.

There are others out there of course.  We can all name them.  The ones that smell like being dipped into banana-cherry car-freshener.

So for fun, name some of the ones that you like, and some of them you loathe..

  • DJP says:

    I really like Kate Walsh’s Boyfriend and I absolutely love Paloma Picasso!

  • loverdoll78264 says:

    Really like With Love by Hilary Duff. And Glow by JLo

  • nozknoz says:

    I’m glad you mentioned Paloma Picasso, which I was forgetting. It’s the best celeb scent that I have actually tried. (I have not tried Cumming or most of the others mentioned above.)

    I also sometimes wear Ines de la Fressange (the original in the octagonal bottle) in the summer. It’s light and clean in a good way.

    A lot of people like ELDO Like This (Tilda Swinton), Miller Harris L’Air de Rien (Jane Birkin) and some of the Liz Taylor scents.

    I’ll be watching for you on Thursdays, Tom – you always crack me up and I always learn something from your posts!

    • Flora says:

      Nozknoz, the Ines is a particular favorite of mine – I bought it blind purely because she is my style iconf rom way back, and I have been stocking up ever since!

  • lisa_67 says:

    While my tastes run mostly to niche, there are a few ‘celeb’ scents that I think are well done.

    I really like Jennifer Aniston, which is especially odd for me because normally I loathe jasmine. It’s got zero indoles; just light white floral, musk, and a little salty-beachiness on my skin. It’s a great little warm weather scent, but doesn’t last terribly long, however. Fun and easy to wear.

    I also confess to owning and enjoying Kate Walsh Boyfriend in the pulse point oil (the EDP is dreadful, however – a complete patch bomb), but I find the Billionaire Boyfriend so tacky in name and marketing that I can’t even bring myself to try it.

    And to really dig the hole for myself, while I found Jessica Simpson’s Fancy toothachingly unwearable, I do like and own her Fancy Nights. If Fancy Love didn’t already resemble Burberry original so much, I might own that one as well.

    I hated SJP’s Lovely with a passion – it smelled like a sweaty, unbathed fratboy on a Saturday morning – but I thought Covet was well executed.

    And I do own and love the aforementioned Cumming!

    I cannot pull off skanky tuberose (Fracas sends shudders up my spine), so I see little point in seeking out Truth or Dare.

    I admit to being curious about Dita von Teese’s fragrance, and would love to try it.

    I can’t think of any other standouts at the moment, and I have to admit that there are a few scents by some overexposed, so-called celebs that I have no interest in owning or even trying simply on personal principle. Most of the time, however, I’m willing to give them a go.

  • maggiecat says:

    Feel better soon Tom – and take care of yourself; my cold turned into bornchitis, which is even ickier. As for celebrity scents – I have worn and loved (and still wear and love) SJP’s Lovely. I also liked Jennifer Aniston’s, though the drydown thins out a bir much toward the end. Still, it affordable and pretty and pleasant. Anything with tuberose is out of rme, so I won’t be checking out Madonn’a s new scentf – but it’s fun to hear what people have to say!

  • Joan says:

    Can Can by Paris Hilton

  • Barbara says:

    I bought With Love by Hilary Duff for my daughter about 3 years ago. Quite liked it but it gave me a headache. She of course being 13 has moved on to other tween idols!

  • LindaB says:

    I like, own, and wear Britney Spears Curious (ACK, THE HORROR!!). I find it soft and musky and comforting. I love SJP’s Lovely – not on me, but on a close friend who has it as her signature frag. I wore JLo’s Glow on my honeymoon so I have lots of great scent memories with that one. Jennifer Aniston’s is wearable but I’m not spending any money on it, that’s for sure.

    I’m open to all fragrances, regardless of whose name is plastered on it but these are the only ones that I find tolerable. Am looking forward to smelling Madonna’s – I’m off to Sephora this afternoon. Do they offer it yet?

    And Tom, I enjoy all of your posts…keep em coming and feel better!!

  • Musette says:

    ps. Tom, is that a hankie or a pair of flowered underpants up there?

  • Musette says:

    My sister LOVES Juicy Couture and I was appalled because I don’t like the brand in general. But I bought her a gift set 2 Christmases ago (didn’t smell it – didn’t have to. I knew it was going to be BAD).

    I was wrong. On her, at least, it’s a lovely, light citrusy floral that smells delightful. I sat next to her at a concert and was amazed at how much I enjoyed the light fragrance.

    The cub wears Tim McGraw (or Alan whatisname….Alan Jackson. No…that’s not it. Crap. I think it’s Tim McGraw (hang on, while I Google it) yeah! Tim McGraw – the silver one. Sorry – I should’ve been more prepared. Anyhoo, I found I didn’t HATE it, once I got him to lighten up on the application. Very generic ‘guy’ cologne, like Aqua Velva without the ‘cool’.

    xo :Devil:

  • Teri says:

    This is going back a bit (can it really be 15 years or so?), but I remember wearing and enjoying Misha by Mikhail Baryshnikov. And although I never wore it, I greatly admired Catherine Deneuve’s Deneuve.

    It’s hard to think of a celebuscent that I loathe and that’s largely because they tend not to leave much of an impression, postive or negative. Most are innocuous, designed to be as inclusive of all tastes as possible, and rarely contain the kind of polarizing ingredients that would incite a ‘love it or loathe it’ response.

    It seems hard to imagine – although I know it will come to pass – that 50 years from now, today’s tweens will be remembering the latest Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen or Justin Bieber scent with the same degree of nostalgia I feel for the ‘drugstore classics’ (Coty, Faberge, etc.) I loved as a teen.

  • Dionne says:

    I’ve got a bottle of Queen by Queen Latifah ($20 shelf at the local Shopper’s) that I really enjoy, and I’m considering getting myself a small bottle of Kate Walsh’s Boyfriend. Both of them have impressive longevity, and they’re great sleep scents in the winter.

  • Joanna says:

    I mentioned earlier I liked that first Michael Jordan scent and I like Cumming quite a bit really.
    To be honest I’d rather be boiled in lead than be stuck in a room with anyone wearing SJP’s first fragrance. I find that one especially bad.

    • Tom says:

      Oooh, I forgot about Cumming! That one is wonderful. I’m glad it came back.

      • Joanna says:

        Yeah I had to peek at my hoard of bottles to see if I own any celeb scents and realized Cumming is one. Wearing it now. 🙂

  • Melissa Anderson says:

    I vaguely remember trying the Kim Kardishian scent and thinking that it wasn’t bad. SJP’s first too were much better than the usual celebrity blast of froot and sugar. Covet, in particular, was daring for a celebuscent. I can’t think of any others that I like.

    I tried the Madonna scent last weekend. Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t pleasant. After a spritz on paper that smelled primarily of tuberose (not bad), I tried one little spray on a finger. Tuberose for about 10 minutes and then a blend of what I would describe as synthetic woody-musky notes emerged and walloped the crud out of the tuberose and the other fragrances that I had spritzed on my upper arm. And it wouldn’t quit! If it was intended to be a Fracas clone, I think it failed.

  • Patricia Hall Borow says:

    Would Nikki de St. Phalle count? That’s one of my go-tos.

    • Tom says:

      I don’t think so, really. Nikki is an artist more than a celebrity. But then maybe. Would you put Paloma Picasso in there too?

      • Patricia Hall Borow says:

        I’d have to say that Nikki de St. Phalle and Paloma Picasso were early examples of the celebrity/artist — Nikki because she was very good at P.R. and Paloma because of her, well, name. So yeah, they would be celebrities, imho.

        BTW I don’t understand this Facebook connection thing: I’ve always posted before under my pen name, Olfacta.

  • Taylor Swift Wonderstruck isn’t too horrible. I’m sick to death of it being that my 15 yr. old has been soaking in it since Christmas, but it could be worse. The funny thing is the dry down on that one smells scarily like the dry down of Creed Jardins d’Amallfi (so sorry Creed!). The Justin Bieber one is pretty harmless smelling, like Viva la Juicy Lite. Ditto for Katy Perry Purr.

    I didn’t care for the Madonna fragrance (but I barely like Fracas). I liked the Kardashian one better. It is a white floral bouquet (more a low end Chasse Aux Papillons than Fracas).

    • Tom says:

      That’s what I liked about the Kardashian one. But hey, if Madge can make tuberose cool then good for her.

  • Antje says:

    There are some that I really enjoy:
    JLo glow (the very first one)
    Hillary Duff with Love
    Jessica Simpson Fancy (and really all the flakers)

    The first two so much so that I own fb. I don’t really count the ‘inspired by’as true celeb fragrances but my favourite there is probably ‘Like this’.

    • You know, I sniffed those Jessica Simpsons a while back and thought they weren’t too bad, but I am a vanilla fiend. I thought I could maybe live with those as a teen fragrance, but most of my daughters seem to prefer froooooty!

    • Tom says:

      I might have to go try those.

      “Like This” is gorgeous..

  • Jillie says:

    Get better soon! And you are not a disappointment! Funnily, I actually liked SJP’s (second I think) fragrance, Covet, which of course was discontinued almost as soon as it came out. I have to admit that I only sniffed that originally because some ot the blogs said it was very good, otherwise I would not have gone near it.

    There are celebrity scents with the stars’ names plastered all over them (or at least all over the PR material), like Kardashian and JLo, and then there are the others which are more subtly associated with them, eg Creed’s Fleurissimo with Grace Kelly, Givenchy’s L’Interdit with Audrey Hepburn. On the whole I find I have much preferred the latter (but might that be because they are from another time or because they actually use better ingredients?). I couldn’t bear to wear something that had been connected to Justin Bieber (does that make me a fellow snob?)!

    Just had a thought – apparently Madge was wanting to create a perfume that smelt like her mother’s which might well have been Fracas: famously this was Ava Gardner’s favourite scent. Nothing is new.

    • Tom says:

      Well, I’d venture a guess that Hubert de Givenchy being inspired by Audrey Hepburn is guaranteed to be something a bit more than something “inspired” by a Kardashian, since I would guess their motives run more toward the royalty check than creating a classic.

      But I’m a snob.

      As for Justin Beiber, I’ve tried it. It’s completely inoffensive. That is all.

  • Will I be asked to leave the room if I tell you I love L LAMB by Gwen Stefani? It’s a heavy hit of peach version of SJP Lovely basically. It lasts all day and is almost linear, so if you like it at the start you’ll still like it at the end.
    There are others of course,
    Portia xx

    • Tom says:

      I’m not going to ask anyone to go anywhere; I read that a lot of people liked L. Peach hates my skin so I wasn’t going near it..

    • Gwyneth says:

      I will keep you company.
      Now there are 2 of us, possibly more?

      This little fragrance ‘by’ Gwen Stefani is very nice. I enjoy wearing it during the spring and summer. I’ve received compliments on the “fresh, sweet smell”.

      And, quelle horreur — I’ve worn it in tandem with some lotion by Juicy Couture. L LAMB wears nicely with Peace,Love, and Juicy Couture. Say what?

    • Jennifer says:

      I have that (bought at TJMaxx clearance giftset)it is almost exactly the same as Benefit’s Maybe Baby.(Which I also have -was gifted).