Way back in 2014, I wrote a short piece on celebrity perfumes for Biography.com. (I’m still grateful to my friend N. for recommending me for that freelance writing gig!) Until I started researching that “listicle,” I didn’t know that iconic actresses Sofia Loren and Catherine Deneuve had released fragrances under their names even before Elizabeth Taylor dazzled her fans, and the fragrance industry, with Elizabeth Taylor’s Passion in 1987.

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Elizabeth Taylor continued to add new scents to her catalogue through 2010. (She passed away in 2011.) Her namesake business rounded things off with a thirtieth-anniversary flanker to White Diamonds in 2021, and about eight Elizabeth Taylor fragrances are still available.

Cut to the present day: the above headline made me scream in laughter and annoyance. Even though KK hurriedly issued a disclaimer that she’s not comparing HERSELF to Elizabeth Taylor, she just admires and wants to emulate Taylor’s success and longevity as a beauty entrepreneur, etc. etc., I’d still rather not hear anyone from this family even mention Ms. Taylor. The distance between her experience and legacy, and their experience and potential legacy (if we want to call it that), is too vast to imagine.

And KK isn’t even the first other celeb to have this goal: Paris Hilton has already succeeded in creating a perfume licensing deal that continues to thrive, twenty years after its inception. Britney Spears’s fragrance collection was on a similar trajectory, then seemed to change ownership and so on, but many of the original scents are still available via Amazon, at least.

I’m not against celebrity fragrances in general. I remember the Y2K wave of celeb scents, which seemed endless at the time. I liked Jennifer Lopez Live when it first launched. I have fond memories of Sarah Jessica Parker’s (now discontinued) Covet. More than one friend of mine still owns a bottle of Britney’s Midnight Fantasy. I cherish my travel-size bottle of Dita von Teese’s first perfume (2011, discontinued) and I always thought the Elizabeth and James brand (also discontinued), founded by Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, was very well-done, from the scents themselves (I loved Nirvana Rose and Nirvana French Grey) to the bottles to the reasonable pricing.

Basically: it all depends on the celebrity and, more importantly, on the actual fragrance.

Here are five famous-person perfumes that I wear because I really enjoy the scents themselves and the work of the celebrities who collaborated on them. (The exact degree of involvement probably varied, but they all did more than sign a document and slap their name on a label. And none of them thought they were doing something new or following in Elizabeth Taylor’s footsteps.)

État Libre d’Orange Like This: The trend-setting Noughties niche fragrance house État Libre d’Orange ventured into the celebrity-scent arena with Rossy de Palma Eau de Protection (perfumer Antoine Lie) in 2007, then followed up even stronger in 2010 with Like This, a collaboration with Tilda Swinton (and perfumer Mathilde Bijaoui). I attended a launch event for Like This at Henri Bendel and actually spoke with Ms. Swinton for a few minutes; one of my favorite fragrance-related memories, by a long shot. I still bring my bottle of Like This, an unexpectedly beautiful brew of citrus and spice, out to my dresser-top every autumn. (Angie reviewed it for Now Smell This.)

Comme des Garçons Grace by Grace Coddington: Fashion-world luminary Grace Coddington (writer, magazine creative director, former model) worked with ever-cool fashion (and fragrance) brand Comme des Garçons on this 2016 release (with perfumer Emilie Coppermann). I reviewed it in NST, and wrote, “Grace starts off with a herbal-mint top note and then quickly morphs into a squeaky-clean “shampoo floral,” whose roses just smell pink and whose other floral and green notes are equally buoyant.” It’s pretty, it’s easy to wear, and it’s a great recommendation for someone looking for a rose soliflore.

Comme des Garçons x Pharrell Williams GIRL: I was only vaguely aware of Pharrell Williams’s music in 2014, and had never heard of artist KAWS (lol, in retrospect, given all the time I’ve spent thinking about him over the past decade), so GIRL was my introduction to both names. GIRL created a certain amount of confusion amongst Sephora shoppers, being an all-gender fragrance with a lavender-woody composition (by perfumer Antoine Lie). I like it. As Robin wrote on Now Smell This, “I salute Pharrell Williams for his good taste, and for not, as so many in the music business have, marketing crap fragrance under his name in order to make a few extra bucks.”

Régime des Fleurs Chloe Sevigny Little Flower: I have fond memories of attending a launch party for Little Flower at Dover Street Market’s New York location in 2019, and meeting creative director Alia Raza and perfumer Jérôme Epinette, not to mention Chloe Sevigny herself. The fragrance turned out to be true love for me. I reviewed it for NST and said that it was “specifically, a newly bloomed rose crowned with tart blackcurrant and sharp green leaves.” But it’s more than the sum of its parts, somehow, and it brings me more compliments than any other fragrance I’ve ever worn.

Cumming: This one actually pre-dates the others I’ve mentioned, but I’m mentioning it last because it’s gone through several iterations. The original Cumming launched in 2005, and even if you didn’t like the scent (Robin described it as “a calm, earthy scent, very low-key and relaxed. . . .a subtle, sexy, your-skin-but-better fragrance” on NST), you might have appreciated Alan Cumming’s provocative satires of famous perfume ads. Christopher Brosius was the perfumer behind Cumming and its later twin-scent 2nd Cumming. Although the original Cumming is no longer available, CB I Hate Perfume’s 691 After Party is (according to CBIHP) a very close alternative.

Do you have any favorite celebrity scents, whether they might be mainstream, alternative, or discontinued? Tell us in the comments!