Celebrities fill up the fragrance counter

On a recent cold and rainy evening, J-Lo shared a crowded space with Paris Hilton, while Hilary Duff beckoned customers with free topaz bracelets. A few feet away, Britney Spears gave Hilary Swank a run for her money with a number called In Control.

This was not the red carpet at a Hollywood award show, but the fragrance department at Macy’s in Manhattan, where a gantlet of salespeople wave scent strips to tantalize discriminating noses.

And here Marie Jean, a 37-year-old New Yorker, purchased a $62 bottle of Hilary Duff’s With Love.

“Celebrities sell good stuff,” Jean said. “You can’t go wrong if you smell like a celebrity."

The fragrance counters are getting crowded with the famous and fabulous, and not only those from Hollywood. Romance novelist Danielle Steel recently launched her aspirations in a bottle. Jon Bon Jovi is the new face of Kenneth Cole’s fragrance, R.S.V.P. And New York Yankee Derek Jeter has bottled his team spirit in Driven.

Even Elton John has gotten into the act, signing a contract with Bath and Body Works to launch his own home fragrance collection.

“Celebrity drives everything today, so why not fragrance?” said Mary Ellen Lapsansky, executive director of the Fragrance Foundation. “It’s an aspirational thing--consumers can buy into the celebrity’s lifestyle by wearing their fragrance. They can feel and smell like celebrities.”

These high-profile, personalized scents are the fastest-growing segment of the fragrance industry, which had sales of $2.9 billion at department stores last year, according to market researcher NPD Group.

The market is largely fueled by fans who are star-obsessed. Celebrity and celebrity-endorsed brands represented 23 percent of the top 100 fragrances for women in the United States in 2005, up from 10 percent in 2003, NPD Group said.

Fragrance consumers are divided into those who want upper-tier scents bearing the names of the designers whose collections grace the pages of fashion magazines, fans who gobble up everything connected with their favorite celebrities and trend seekers who are simply looking for a new perfume that will smell good on their skin and set them apart from the pack, according to Parlux Fragrances Inc.

“I don’t like Paris Hilton, but I still buy her perfume," said Kyle Romero, 20, who scooped up a $49 bottle of Hilton’s Just Me at Macy’s.

The craze for scents bottled with a celebrity imprint is credited with reviving a dormant fragrance industry and bringing customers under 40 to perfume counters.

So just how does the personality of an icon get bottled?

“Usually the celebrities are very involved,” said Chad Lavigne, a packaging and graphics designer for luxury products. “It is a direct expression of their lifestyle.

“Sarah Jessica Parker has a remarkable nose," Lavigne added. “I was amazed at how sophisticated her abilities were when it came to developing Lovely.”

Danielle Steel explains the process on her Web site this way: “Creating the fragrance was very much a team effort, blending the inspiration of many people, how they perceive me and how I perceive both my readers and the world I try to create with my books.”

And then there is Paris Hilton, whose gossip-page shenanigans, her marketers insist, do not reflect her true essence.

“Paris has often said people should not confuse the person they see on TV in 'Simple Life' skits with her real life and real personality,” said Kathleen Galvin, vice president for marketing at Parlux Fragrances.

Stars are always playing roles defined by someone else, Galvin said. Having a scent allows celebrities to express themselves creatively in a novel way.

The industry has become so crowded that it has even sparked its own awards program. New York’s Radio City Music Hall was host to the Fragrance Foundation’s annual FiFi Awards last year. Complete with a performance by the Rockettes, the awards include categories like the "People’s Choice" and the "Hall of Fame."

But those who have grown up with the classic scents scoff at the notion of stars taking over the fragrance market.

“Celebrity perfumes are not the normal American lifestyle; it’s just cheap,” said Anna Moss, a 58-year-old mother of five shopping for Creed, her favorite fragrance, at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. Selling for $98 a bottle, the perfume is manufactured by the House of Creed, the world’s only privately held luxury dynasty, which has passed from father to son since being founded in 1760 in London.

The perfume is handmade using a costly and time-consuming infusion method. Most of the perfume industry has abandoned infusion in favor of mechanized commercial techniques.

Some view celebrity fragrances as a passing trend.

“Saks stores don’t carry celebrity fragrances as they are just not upscale enough or established brands like Creed,” said Kareline Guzman, business manager at Saks. “These stars are trying to sell themselves as a lifestyle and not really a perfume. So their fragrances have no quality.”

Though celebrity continues to drive the industry, at some point another trend will replace it, Lapsansky says.

“At the end of the day, [celebrity perfumes] all smell the same,” Moss said. “Nothing new is being added. We have to leave this fragrance business to experienced names like Gucci and Chanel.”

E-mail: ra2285@columbia.edu