oh god.. this sounds like a headache in a bottle!

and a cheap looking bottle at that!

The packaging seems perfect for the debut scent from a fictional soap opera character :-)

Makes celeb scents -- featuring actual, real people -- suddenly seem like the very height of sophistication and legitimacy! What WILL they think of next? Come to think about it, I don't want to know. ;-D

OK, I have been lurking for some months, but this one I can't resist. What about Marge Simpson, maybe Eau de Soie Jaune? The bottle would be no worse than the Gwen Stefani kewpie doll idea. Maybe it could have one of those squeeze sound modules that plays every time you spray with different Marge Simpson sayings. And of course it would have to smell cartoon-y, but there are so many fragrances out there that already do....

Yes!! Scents for all the Simpsons, with those doll-cap thingies like the Gwen Stefanis. They'd sell, too, I bet.

And welcome!

Where's my royalty check, lol.

Thanks for the welcome!

Hey, now at least when they launch, you can sue for royalties :-)

Robin, so true!

Okay, my vote's for eau de Bridget Jones! With notes of red wine, cigarettes and regret.

And heavy on the regret --

Good one!

I wonder if they will have Susan Lucci model this scent for them. What a joke!!

Didn't she have a fragrance once too? I can't remember.

In 1999 Susan Lucci had this fragrance called "invitation" This one was a whole mess. One of my customers received as a gift from her boyfriend, I cannot remember ever smellng anything as bad it was back then.

Thanks, thought she had one.

I agree. Let's make a new contest. The worst & cheapest new launches. Who starts ?

But now we don't need a contest, LOL -- what could possibly top this?

Wait... so she's not even a real person? Is there anything actually *in* the bottle?

Hey, watch who you're calling "not even a real person" -- she's a published author! Next thing, you'll be telling me Pine Valley is not "a real place".

E. that is a true eau faux !

Ha! Did not mean to tread on toes. I think I am out of touch - now that I've read the NYT article, I see that this is not a first. One doesn't even have to be a live person to be famous for 15 minutes. If nonpersons get to have fragrances, I vote for Rei Toei, the idoru from William Gibson's novel, getting her own scent.

Must google that...

Gosh! Do you think her book is full of exclamation marks! The ad writers must have been truly desperate!

Perfumes for the characters of ATWT would probably sell well..

ATWT???

"As the World Turns". Old soap from when I was a girl.

As The World Turns indeed. It is an old soap running for over 50 years but still running and going strong, well as far as I know.

Aha...I'm only familiar with the lineup on whatever channel it was/is that had All My Children, One Life to Live & General Hospital.

The network would be ABC. I have my mom to thank for those high school memories (*cringes*).

Yes, thank you! And your mom!

I watched GH in the Luke and Laura era. That was a TV couple that really transcended the show, actually. Even guys at my school were watching. I am sure if they had launched his and hers Luke and Laura fragrances, it would have sold like crazy. I suppose the Calvin Klein or Diesel his/hers offerings are not so far off this idea.

I watched it then too...and for that matter, so did every person I knew. Hard to believe soap operas can compete today though, gosh, they were so sloooooooooooow!

VG, I can only assume the ad writers wrote the book?

Coming soon:
Trinket! by Eastenders
The honest grit of the rail tracks and the style of the market are combined in this sensual debut fragrance. Bought to you by favourite character Kat Slater.


I think we've reached a new low. When will I get to create my own fragrance?

LOL -- another good one!

This looks hideous. C'mon Sears, you can do better than this!

If we buy it, do we get "drinks on thee 'ouse"?

I am a little embarrassed to say that I actually saw a scene on "All My Children" where they were talking about making the fragrance (I mean in the fictional world of the show). It was playing on one of the TVs at the gym, and there I was on the stairclimber, and since all the televisions are subtitled, I didn't need to be listening--I had something on my iPod, I don't remember what--to follow the story. Not that I particularly wanted to, but if you've ever been in that situation, with a half-dozen televisions in front of you as you do the most boring thing on Earth, you know how it is.

As far as I could tell, the women in the scene were employees at or owners of a cosmetics company, one that had been started by someone home-brewing lip gloss on her stove (shades of Hard Candy). One of the characters was describing the construction of a perfume to the others, talking about top notes and base notes and such, and then (I wish I were kidding) they began stuffing things into a blender. "Lemongrass for a top note! And rose petals for the heart note!"

Seriously.

I pretty much tuned it out after that.

That bottle and box are just about the cheapest-looking things I've ever seen. They wouldn't be out of place in one of those supermarket vending machine that dispenses cheap trinkets for the kiddies. But if the scent was made by tossing random botanicals into a blender, then I guess it fits.

Pyramus for a while you were really into it. You remember a lot of details ;)

I liked As The Worls Turns eventhough it could be extremely cheesy.. watching it relaxed me for some reason.
Would love to know what Lucinda Walsh would choose as perfume. Don't know if she is still in the soap.

Some decades ago I lived in Lisbon, Portugal for two years and I loved the Brazilian telenovellas and they were a great help with learning Portugese.

Pyramus -- wish I had seen it, sounds priceless!!!

Hilarious that "All My Children" is on the bottle. Would make a great gag gift at a perfume party.

The problem is that real people are going to buy this stuff, and sincerely. You don't know whether to cringe for them or get highly pissed off that the manufacturers of said liquid would be this disrespectful, this patronizing.

I'd sooner buy a scent called George Jetson. Or Boris Badenov. At least there you can laugh at the joke.

Hey, this is no worse than buying any other celebrity scent, is it? I mean, it's the same kind of marketing.

Well, I'm not a fan of celeb scents, but I do think this is worse. Maybe it's easier to explain if you think about a different era. I mean, if people learned what Brigitte Bardot liked to wear and tried it as an homage to her sensuality, it's fans who admire someone choosing to explore her taste. But here women are not invited to identify with or admire a person--only to *buy a product AS IF it were actually used or favored by someone they might admire*--so:

1--They're being asked to go along with a clear lie, pretending not only that Erica Kane's daughter exists but that this is something she "likes" and has "created" or "commissioned"...

and

2--They're not even meant to laugh at it as a clear fiction, like if the juice were called Jessica Rabbit or Minnie Mouse.

So, step right up, pay your money and get your deliberate mockery here...

In a way I think it is worse to have a pretentious small house selling something not-so-special for outrageous amounts of money. It is the emperor's new clothes. However, I do remember reading somewhere that studies have shown people's satisfaction increases with the price they pay for [whatever]. As an analogy, I am all for 2-buck-chuck (i.e., cheap wine that is good and drinkable) if it is more enjoyable than a bottle of Dom.

Barton & Guestier Founders' Merlot--$10/ bottle for me--or even the great Chilean Concha y Toro, which comes in those four-packs!

Inexpensive can be great. But not in the case of "Charm." However much they want for it, put the same money into Yves Rocher and get real products and real delight.

And totally with you on expense and pretense. And extortionate price-increases as if Joe Blow Niche House were the new Caron.

How about his and her fragrances from Boris and Natasha, and a similar set with Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Oh yeah, you can't forget about Beavis and Butthead, either ya know!

Good ones!

How about eau de Jack Bauer? It could be called "Dammit! Dammit!" Gunsmoke, duct tape adhesive, fingerprint powder, and sweaty cell phone....

Had to google Jack Bauer -- now I know :-)

Great article! I bought this perfume and absolutely loved it! I was a little nervous because I've bought other perfumes online that I didn't care for, but this one is a keeper!

Glad your purchase worked out, and enjoy your perfume!