I went to but new purfume recently, thinking i was definitly getting Sarah Jessica Parker's 'Lovely'. But though i liked it in the magazine, i hated the way it smelled out of the bottle. it was too strong for my liking, and the alchohol smell was overpowering, ick. SO i was left to select something else. So i started looking around and decided just to stick to the general fragrance counter, that is, not going to a specific brand such as elizabeth arden or lancome.
First, Mariah carey, then Usher, then Sean John who's 'Unforgivable' smells awsome but is also the name of his new single... Wait! when did cross markenting become so blatent and accepted? i mean, i half expected to see "'Jesus etc...' the new fragrance from Jeff Tweedy". When the counter lady was showing me the options, 'Usher for women' smells exactly like the inside of a freshly opened blank casette tape, 'M' From Mariah Carey smelled like bubblegum and rubbing alchohol. It was then that i remarked how many musicians and celebrities have thier own fragrance.
Now I was reluctant to even smell these options to begin with, as i dont believe these people know anything about purfume (or in some cases anything at all; exhibit A: 'Heiress' by Paris Hilton). But then i saw Gwen Stefani's 'L' (as in L.A.M.B) and i was all about it.
Why? It all comes down to asociation. The bullshit about brads that people buy into is simply all about symbols (literally brand symbols in this case) that are recognized by others that indicate status. Since i dont buy into that stuf, i was unwilling to even consider buying a brand like that, i'm too cool for that! and god forbid someone see that i had one of these brands and MISTAKE me as a poser of somekind! But then there was that Gwen Stefani bottle. So hideous it was, just sitting there next to mariah's butterfly topped bottle, calling my name. I even thought to myself, of course its this ugly ( i have a beef with the new gwen stefani, i think she had some kind of fashion-psychotic break and has no friends to tell her how bizarre and crap her choices lately have been.
I digress. i was toally willing to check it out because see, my love for gwen runs true and deep ( i have fath she'll come around). That's a name (brand) i am willing ot be associated with. But then i realized the funniest part of all this. Whatever i chose, i would be wearing the purfume, not the bottle, so unless someone asked, no one would even know what brand or celebrity i was wearing. So what is the point? who cares who is on the cover of that box? (thats the fleeting moment i almost bought the sean john). So the whole thing is absurd
In the end i went with the L. It may have been ridiculouse that gwen stefani have her fragrance, and the bottle so so so very ugly, but in the end it was the one i loved the smell of the best.
But let the record show this one fact that makes me both real and a hippocrit all at once:
If Jeff Tweedy came out with a "Jesus etc..." fragrance i would absolutely buy it strictly because his name was on the bottle. even (and especially) if it smelled like a stale LP record.
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