I’m Famous, Buy This

Sam Bowring takes a sniff at celebrities who stink up the place.

Rocker Avril Lavigne is set to release he own brand of perfumes, shampoos and bath soaps. How grungy.

Celebrity seems to be one of the few professions where it's perfectly acceptable for people to up and have a wild stab at something they're entirely unqualified for. Imagine if other professions carried on in such a fashion - like if my butcher suddenly announced he was planning to dabble in theme park design. Or if my dentist informed me, as he lent over my mouth drilling at caked-on bits of gummi bear, that he'd decided to open a line of alternative lesbian book shops. I might respond with "eres more oo id en good oral hygiene" (rinse), and certainly in neither situation would I feel particularly inclined to invest.

However, put celebrity on something random and it seems to be perfectly acceptable. Maybe Paul Newman knows a little about salad dressings (how could anyone not?), but I'm pretty sure George Foreman isn't that good at building electrical appliances.

I guess in the case of Avril, and other celebrity 'perfume designers' like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Lopez, Gwen Stefani and Kate Moss, it could be argued that celebrity and fashion are related – a celebrity will wear fashionable clothes and probably know what kind of perfume to put on. But this isn't really in itself a qualification. I know how to run a bath, but I don't know the first thing about water pressure, ceramics, or rubber duck manufacture. I can press play on a video camera, but if left to my own devices, I wouldn't even be able to invent the strap.

Making perfume is such a complicated process that when it was first developed, it informed further scientific discoveries – one technology leading to another, much like how porn created the internet. Not only that, a perfume creator must have a keen, finely tuned sense of smell, able to detect all kinds of modifiers and fixatives. I'm sure celebrity perfume creators such as the ones mentioned above are all perfectly untarnished in the nasal department. I'm sure nothing damaging or sullied has ever gone up their noses, and certainly not several times a night! And surely a little smoking here and there doesn't hurt.

Fie! I say. Don't buy something just because it has a celebrity face on it! It means nothing more than they were paid to endorse it, and that IS what they do best.

Better to go on the roller coaster built by your butcher.

"The Digestive Track."

- Sam Bowring