Are celebrity perfumes still relevant?

Fashion trends from the ’90s and early aughts, like low-rise jeans and Juicy Couture tracksuits, are now back in vogue — but can the same be said for the fragrance industry?

While new-wave brands like Glossier, Phlur and Pinrose are taking a direct-to-consumer approach to scent, these indie companies lack one major selling point that was, at one time, nearly synonymous with the industry: a celebrity endorsement.

Though countless stars from Charlize Theron to Nick Jonas have served as the face of a luxury brand like Dior or Gucci, even more have created their own branded scents. Jennifer Aniston, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, David Beckham, Diddy, Rihanna and many more have all mixed and hawked their own personal cocktails. Paris Hilton is on her 26th perfume; Britney Spears has made 24.

Perhaps the very first celebrity perfumer was Elizabeth Taylor who, in partnership with Elizabeth Arden, created Passion in 1987, followed by White Diamonds in 1991, the latter of which quickly became one of the top-selling fragrances of all time.

“At five percent of our overall business, celebrity fragrances will always have a place in the market and on our website,” Fragrance.com‘s Fragrance Expert and VP of Business Development Patti Kapla told Page Six Style. “Celebrities are ‘products’ themselves, and their fragrance is an extension to that product line. People will always want to look, dress, act and ultimately smell like their favorite celebrities.”

In search of the best, most exotic scent, glamour queen Taylor sourced ingredients for White Diamonds from 15 countries, including Egypt, France, India, Morocco, Croatia and Ukraine. A total of more than 60 fresh flowers are used to make every single bottle, which has perhaps contributed to its long-lasting success and luxurious reputation.

Matt Harkins and Viviana Olen, founders and curators of the THNK 1994 Museum —whose most recent collection, “The Fantasy of Celebrity Perfume,” featured glittering illustrations of star fragrances’ ad campaigns by artist Miriam Carothers — count Taylor as a marketing genius.

“[In the White Diamonds commercial] she’s just covered in diamonds and wearing a white dress and playing poker with all these hot guys,” Olen gushed. “She tips her diamonds into one of their hands and she says ‘These have always brought me luck,’ and it’s just like, wow, you can get a little piece of Elizabeth Taylor — who wouldn’t want that?”

In terms of the benefits that come with a branded scent, Kapla said it’s a way to keep the promotional tour rolling and give fans the 24/7 access they crave. “For the celebrities, their product extensions keep them relevant in the market when they might not be releasing an album, touring, being out in the public eye,” she explained.

Harkins agreed, pointing to Spears as the best example. “Her ads are so great because her most recent album came out and there were only one or two singles, not many music videos, and everyone was like, ‘We want more Britney content,'” he said. “So instead of releasing more music, she comes out with a commercial for her new My Prerogative perfume and it’s better than most music videos that are produced today.” Harkins also pointed out that each Spears commercial was essentially a mini movie that featured the singer as, for example, a goddess running through the forest being chased by a lovestruck hunter.

In terms of marketability, however, Kapla, Harkins and Olen agree that splashy campaigns aren’t the only key to gaining and sustaining customers — it comes down to what’s in the bottle. So it’s a good thing that many of Spears’ scents are genuinely great; Midnight Fantasy even got a four-star review in the New York Times. “If Chanel No. 5 were a Jolly Rancher flavor, this would be it,” former scent critic Chandler Burr wrote in 2009.

“Our top sellers are iconic scents that have withstood the test of time,” Kapla said. “I believe that indie brands and luxury brands have surpassed the sales of celebrity fragrances, and so the oldies are still relevant. There are fewer celebrity launches than in the past when the market was inundated.”

Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds tops the list of Fragrance.com’s ten best-selling celebrity scents. It’s followed by Jennifer Lopez’s Glow (launched in 2002) and Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely (2005). J.Lo holds two other spots in the top ten for her later fragrances, while others on the list include Jessica Simpson, Spears and Gloria Vanderbilt.

One notable (and somewhat surprising) celebrity on Fragrance.com’s top list is Usher. His eponymous eau de toilette was released in 2007, and yet seems to still be relevant to the site’s shoppers, who mostly range in age from 25 to 44. “Usher is Usher – he’s a classy guy with a classy fragrance — he’s tried and true and it smells good,” Kapla explained.

Other male heartthrobs, like Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes, have also tried their hand at fragrances targeted at their rabid (mostly female, primarily young) audiences. “Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes will always have a following,” Kapla said. “[But] today I believe that it’s more about the scent and how it smells on you then the name or celebrity endorsement.”

Leave it to Kim Kardashian West, however, to disprove the notion that shoppers won’t buy a scent based solely on who’s selling it. Over the past few years, the beauty mogul has disrupted the industry with her direct-to-consumer KKW Fragrance scents, which her fans happily snap up before even having the chance to sniff them first.

When Kardashian launched her three KKW Crystal Gardenia scents for $60 each in 2017, she sold $10 million worth of the stuff in a single day, according to TMZ; her sold-out KKW Kimoji Hearts perfumes sold the same amount in just four days, according to the outlet.

“The experience of flipping through a tabloid and then seeing a perfume that’s offering kind of like the essence of that celebrity is something that doesn’t exist anymore because of social media,” Harkins explained.

But Kardashian, in a way, has managed to capture that same magic with savvy, headline-making PR stunts, like sending Valentines to her enemies to promote Kimoji Hearts or selling scents in bottles shaped like (and made from an exact mold of) her own famously curvy body.

Even when the press is negative — as when designer Jean Paul Gaultier pointed out the striking similarities between his fragrance bottle and Kardashian’s, or when Vibes Media sued the superstar over her Kimoji Vibes perfume — it all still seems to boost Kardashian’s bottom line.

The question now is whether Kardashian can sustain this sort of momentum. Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds continues to be an enormous success well after the death of its namesake, having raked in $1.5 billion in sales (and counting), according to a rep from the estate. Four bottles are sold per minute; one bottle every 15 seconds globally. And it’s the sole celebrity scent on Fragrance.com’s list of all-time bestsellers, holding its own against iconic entries like Calvin Klein Eternity and Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue.

So while Kim Kardashian may be playing a valuable role in keeping celebrity fragrances relevant, she still has a ways to go in order to keep up with Taylor.