Smell you later

Have you been into a Perfume Shop recently? It's like reading the index page of OK! Magazine - major and minor celebrities battling for supremacy on the shelves, in a cacophony of gaudy packaging. Celebrity fragrances are big business these days. You're nobody until you've got your name on a tacky bottle that looks like a zirconia-encrusted spleen.

Although she didn't invent the concept of celebrity fragrances, Elizabeth Taylor was definitely a pioneer, if only in terms of proving what a fantastic money maker they could be. Since launching Passion back in 1988, Liz has conjured up ten other best-selling nose-botherers, each one said to reflect her "famously indomitable spirit".

Regrettably, not all the celebrity fragrances that followed could boast such legendary heritage. Jade Goody, Katie Price and Colleen Rooney have all achieved huge sales from their personal brand of stink.

It's tempting to assume that the main reason for their success was that they had little or nothing to do with the creation of the scent itself. After all, who'd want a perfume that actually made them smell like Kerry Katona? Kebab meat, special brew and desperation is a pungent combination.

Speaking of unpleasant smells, Sarah Jessica Parker is planning another assault on your olfactory senses, having already given the world Lovely and Covet. This time around she's planning something a little unconventional, rather than the usual floral and vanilla notes you might expect.

In a recent interview, the long-faced shoe fetishist claimed: "It has taken me three years to decide on the scent because I really like BO and I think it's sexy. I wanted to figure out a way to make it palatable to everybody. I was like, 'How do you get BO in a bottle and make an atomizer of it?' Then it was all about trying to capture the sense of naughtiness in a bottle that it would be good for a man and a woman."

There you go - BO in a bottle. Because nothing says delicate romance and feminine sensuality like the stench of an amateur football team's locker room. Thanks to SJP, women all over the world will bathe, moisturise and get all dressed up, only to spritz themselves with the scent of three-day old gym shorts.

I suppose it could be worse. After all, it's only a month ago that Sarah was telling Elle Magazine that one her favourite smells in the world is a dirty nappy: “I love the smell of diapers; I even like when they’re wet and you smell them all warm like a baked good." If that's what she thinks cakes ought to smell like, she really needs to find herself a new patissiere. And maybe lay off the chocolate frosting.