See What Happens When I Take A Break?

YIKES! Sorry for the 8 day hiatus. Having recently adopted one of the hottest trends of the year (unemployment), your ever-fashion-hungry editor wandered away from the laptop for a while to reflect. This week we're back with a ton of news, reviews (Dermalogica Age Smart thermal exfoliant scrub and SPF 30 lotion, two new gels from Bumble and Bumble, Origins Bedtime Spray, Cover Girl Exact Eyelights) and features on where and how to get the wardrobe upgrades you need, so check back daily!

Just to get started, I'll show you one item you might have missed thanks to my absence. I gotta get to a Kohl's and smell this nightmare concoction - which I imagine contains the essence of an anime lunchbox filled with cigarettes, pleather accessories and dried up eyeliner:

Will They Smell Like Bananas? (B-A-N-A-N-A-S)

Nope, these aren't figurines I bought at the Hello Kitty store. These little ladies are perfume bottles!
Coty is getting ready to simultaneously release five entirely different Gwen Stefani fragrances this September, each in it's own unique bottle. They are: Love, Angel, Music, Baby and G.
The plan is to sell these at slightly less than typical designer fragrance prices (keeping them around $25 and $45) to encourage the consumer to purchase more than one at a time.
Considering that most people who wear perfume leave the bottle out on a table or shelf or counter, creators were wise to acknowledge that perfume bottles double as a facet of room decor. I have yet to sample the scents, but my bet is if they are at least halfway tolerable, they'll be a hit. Especially with teens. (And er, twenty-somethings who shop at Hello Kitty stores.)

Halle Berry Does Not

I was just looking at a press release from Coty announcing the upcoming Halle Berry fragrance, and I just had to single out this "quote":
"For years I've created my own personal scent by mixing fragrances at home," she supposedly says.
Can you just picture it? Oscar winning actress Halle Berry sitting at her kitchen counter with a bunch of spices, Febreeze cans and barbecue condiments, stirring up some homemade perfume and storing it in empty pickle jars?
Well, clearly I can.
According to Coty, the fragrance is as yet unnamed. I have one suggestion: Moonshine.

More Celebrity Fragrance

Shakira smells like...

Shakira exists in my library of mental images as a whirling mass of tangly hair and a Tarzan costume-- an image that doesn't conjure an association with good smells. Nonetheless, the same company that brought you the old classic Spirit of Antonio Banderas has decided to help the belly-dancing Colombian yodeler design her own line of fragrances. (Look for it in your local drug store next to the BOD spray.)

Unpleasant Smells

As you know, every celebrity and their mother has a fragrance these days.
Women, men, and even lowbrow lit and television are in on the game.

But I bet you didn't know ...
* Geriatric farce-rockers KISS have their own fragrances for men and women. The cologne is described as "a spicy-warm scent featuring notes of lavender, anise and amber." Not sweat, grease makeup and Ben-Gay as one might guess. A jug of it sells for under $20.

*Marilyn Manson said he would be launching his own fragrance a couple of years ago. However, as with most of his public statements, this seems to have been just another cheap grab for unwarranted attention by the alcoholic child molester. There's nothing on the market yet.

* Loveable crackhead Paula Abdul is supposedly in development of a new fragrance, which she plans to call "Sexy Thoughts." I love the name not only for it's lack of creativity, but because it forces one to imagine what a sexy thought in Paula Abdul's mind might be. (Personally, I see her getting a sensual back massage from the animated cat from her "Opposites Attract" video.)
This is an actual quote she gave Access Hollywood on the subject this summer:

"In the middle of coming up with my fragrance line, I asked the question, 'By any chance do you have anything that smells like cat pee, and cow poop and, like, farts?' I want to put those elements - the cat pee, the horse poop and fart - in a bottle..."

Oh. My god. Is all I can say about that. I just checked the Firmenich site and-- what a surprise--she doesn't seem to have anything in production.

* My favorite of all is one by the hyper-talented gay actor Alan Cumming (one of my more memorable NYC celeb sightings-- he winked at me) who named his scent... Cumming.