Scent is intensely personal. It has been said that there is no sense more strongly tied to memory than scent. Whether it's your mother's signature perfume, or your father's favorite aftershave, fragrances can be as personal and memorable as a warm embrace or a special milestone in your life. For instance, when you smell a fragrance that reminds you of someone you love, you instantly recall fond memories of that person, or when you smell certain flowers that grew in your grandmother's garden, it brings back intense memories of a certain time and place. Scent has a truly magical way of creating and solidifying memories in our minds. Does your signature fragrance create memorable experiences and the perfect first impressions?

The fragrances we choose to envelop ourselves in say a lot about us. Whether you're a romantic at heart who prefers warm and floral scents, or a bubbly and lively personality who loves fresh, effervescent fragrances, one's fragrance choices are intimately tied to the wearer's moods and personality.



Fragrance is also a great way to incorporate your favorite designers into your everyday ensemble. Whether you live for the fashion-forward designs of Costume National, the sublimely graceful style of Vera Wang, the timeless glamour of Carolina Herrera, or the classic and contemporary Prada, your signature scent speaks volumes about your overall sense of style. Another great thing about fragrance is, even if today's economy doesn't allow you to afford the luxuries of a head-to-toe couture wardrobe, you can still indulge in your favorite designer's signature scents.

What better way to create a lasting impression than to have someone say, "You smell great! What fragrance are you wearing?", and with a knowing grin, you can casually say, "It's Prada."

Sarah Jessica Parker, has been a busy lady since the Sex and the City HBO series ended four years ago. Ever the busy mogul, she keeps up her fashion icon status, attends several charity functions, is a wife and mother, an actor, director, producer and of course a successful perfumer. Her first scent Lovely, described as "a "silky white amber," has been a best seller since its launch, and now she has added three new fragrances to the mix, Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely Collection: Dawn, Endless and Twilight. Now with the scent Twilight, is it coincidence or a genius marketing move that it is named the same as the upcoming vampire flick? But I digress.

The company says that each of these scents are meant to evoke three vastly different time periods in the day. Dawn is a clean scent, like the start of a brand new day, those precious few moments to yourself, Endless is a fruity and floral scent, when one finds oneself in a state of pure joy, and Twilight, the sexy, musky scent, evoking mystery, intimacy, closeness. The trio of scents launch date will be in February on the Home Shopping Network and will go into a broader distribution channel later in the year. The scents will be available in 30 and 75 ml Eau de Parfum sizes, with each selling for $38–$58 and a body lotion selling for $28, with each scent having its own advertising and marketing campaign.

It remains to be seen if Ms. Parker can pull off a trifecta of perfume success in these economic times, but much like a solid perfume, her previous track record is, well, solid.

It was bound to happen, she took longer than most to do it, but Ms. Halle Berry has finally thrown her sophisticated hat in the fragrance ring. That’s right folks, Ms. Berry will launch her very own fragrance this winter. The fragrance, Halle by Halle Berry, is the second baby of sorts for Ms. Berry in less than a year, as the Academy Award-winning actress gave birth to her first child, a daughter Nahla Ariela in March of this year. Halle, in her interview with WWD on Friday, October 3, described the process of creating a scent in partnership with Coty as, “I have a baby, and this baby — my fragrance — is about to be born.” Berry is said to have wanted her first scent to be a partnership experience, being involved in every step along the way, and to have it be a sensual signature fragrance, or in fragrance speak, to have a woody oriental juice.

Coty brought International Fragrance & Flavors (IFF) to the partnership table to create the juice with Halle, and to have it incorporate two of her favorite notes, mimosa and fig. IFF then added in African root (a spice), sandalwood, Sicilian bergamot, fig leaves, pear blossom, hibiscus flower, ultra mimosa (of course),driftwood and sensual amber. The bottle, which all lovers of fragrance and perfume know is as important as the scent itself, is an easy-to-hold glass rectangle with a wavy-beach textured back, a rose gold-toned neck with the juice being rose gold-tinged as well.

Of course, what celebrity fragrance launch would be complete without the celebrity print campaign? These days, none. After all, it is an assured marketing route to getting the masses to purchase the scent and its accompanying accoutrements. Who doesn’t want to look sexy draped over a hammock a la Jennifer Lopez in her Deseo ad, or water-baby beautiful a la Mirah’s Luscious Pink, or pouty and provocative a la Christina Aguilera’s INSPIRE? Ms. Berry’s campaign will be no different, as she stars in the campaign, natch, and can be seen looking serene and sensuous on a beach in a bikini and white cover up, with just the right amount of laissez-faire mixed in and the perfect touch of beach wavy hair.

What do you get when you mix the brothers Caten, a new fragrance launch and fashion luminaries? One of the most coveted parties of the fashion season. Dean and Dan Caten, co-owners and Creative Directors of Dsquared2, the Milan-based über fashion brand, breezed into town Wednesday, September 10, to launch their new fragrance, He Wood + She Wood. The dual fragrance fete was held at the duo’s new New York meatpacking district showroom, far from and high above the maddening fashion week crowd. As the fashion cognoscenti know, the Caten brothers were legendary party promoters once upon a time early in their career, so a party invite from them is the holy grail stamp of an assured good time, and as the paparazzi pics showed, a good time was had by all. The theme was one of wood, based on the designer’s love of the outdoors and their upbringing in Canada. The wood element was found throughout the production, touching on everything from the paneled decor, to the wooden logs that held the fragrances, to the planks that held the food, right down to the fragrance bottles themselves. DJ Derek Monteiro spun a funky, eclectic mix of tunes, while party-goers shimmied and shaked, enjoying the continual flow of Mumm champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Couture had our very own insiders giving us the inside scoop. They spent the enviable evening rubbing their Prada hips and rocker chic elbows with the likes of designer Marc Jacobs (can you say oo la la) and the new object of his affection, Lorenzo Martone, actresses Zoe Saldana and Stacey Dash, singer Cassie, model Tyson Beckford and Hollywood stylist Rachel Zoe, or in other words, one beautiful person after another. Of course the real stars of the evening were the scents. The He Wood She Wood fragrances were inspired by the Caten’s love of nature, by its richest and strongest, most beautiful and basic of elements: wood. He Wood was a heady mix of White Fir, Vegetal Amber, Musk, Violet Blossoms, Vetiver and Cedarwood, while She Wood was a mix of Lemon, Jasmine Petals, Heliotrope, Violet Blossoms, Neroli, Vegetal Amber, Vetiver and Musk.

As the fabulous evening came to a close, I believe our Couture attendees summed it up best, “It was a beautiful, balmy evening, filled with beautiful people, fabulous surroundings, mixed with loads of laughter and a little mayhem thrown in.” Enough said!

I, for one, am a fan of art and commerce, so how excited was I to learn that one of my favorite pop-artist icons, Warhol (well, his foundation), is premiering a new perfume? Um, very! The bespectacled, white-haired iconic artist Andy Warhol was quoted saying years ago, “Another way to take up more space is with perfume. I really love wearing perfume,” so how prophetic is it that on Warhol’s eightieth birthday, today, August 6, niche fragrance maker Bond 09, will launch the Lexington Avenue fragrance. The fragrance is a nod to the artist’s former residences in Murray Hill (notably number 242) in New York City and his illustration career. The parfum breaks new ground as it brings together two of a woman’s favorite loves: shoes and parfum. The bottle design for the fragrance is also new ground, as it features colorful collages that were inspired by and reminiscent of Warhol’s early shoe sketches, reminding many of a successful career prior to the pop-art period of Campbell Soup cans and celebrity collages.

The fragrance’s juice, described as a floral-woody chypre (a fresh citrus), is composed of top notes of blue cypress, fennel, roasted almonds and cardamom; middle notes of pink peony, Florentine orris, Crème Brûlée and pimento berry; with base notes of patchouli and sandalwood. The scent is available in two sizes, a 100-ml bottle for $195 and a 50-ml size for $135, and will be available stateside at Saks Fifth Avenue, Bond 09’s New York City stores and museum gift shops nationwide. So ladies if you love art, shoes and fragrance, get your bottle fast, this is bound to be a bestseller and sell out fast.

Well, in the sense of a scent anyway. Mr. Josh Hartnett was selected by Giorgio Armani, as reported in May 14 Women’s Wear Daily, to be the new face of his upcoming men’s summer scent, Diamonds. The scent as you already fashionably know exists for women, with Beyonce Knowles (Mrs. Jay-Z) as the brand’s face.

These days it seems fashion houses are recognizing that successful launches and sales are driven these days by film and music, so Ms. Knowles makes scent sense, since she is successful in both genres but, Mr. Hartnett? He is known for previous works like Black Dahlia, Pearl Harbor, and Hollywood Homicide – well, known in a bad way for those last two box office bombs – but it has been awhile since we have seen him in anything other than gossip glossies and Page Six news. Perhaps this really does prove, one need only have a handsome, scruffy face and an occasional movie. Well that and a buff bod, lets not forget about David Beckham. As if!

We know that the financial markets have been in upheaval of late, just ask anyone that works at Bear Stearns. Bullish on Wall Street we are not, but that fact hasn’t deterred New York favorite cult fragrance maker Bond No. 9, from creating and adding the scent Wall Street to their current stable of fragrances.

Bond No. 9, cleverly so, doesn’t feel you have to work on Wall Street to enjoy the smell of its success. This citrus smelling, world’s first securities fragrance, with notes of sea kale, cucumber, lavender, ambergris and vetiver, is probably the only thing about Wall Street currently that does make perfect dollars and scents. Then again, I’m partial, if a bullish scent will cause an up turn in the marketplace, I say buy it!

The Wall Street fragrance is sold at bondno9.com and Saks Fifth Avenue.