These days it seems like every celebrity resorts to selling a fragrance with his or her name plastered on it just to get some extra pocket change. Everyone from Paris Hilton to Antonio Banderas has dipped a toe in the fragrance marketplace. So over the holiday weekend while you were doorbusting for deals, I was on a hunt for the best perfumes. I questioned my authority on the subject, because while millions of women adore Flowerbomb, I find it nauseating -- however, I felt I could provide some insight with my choosy sniffer.

Accompanied by my mother, I paid a visit to my hometown Neiman Marcus in Houston. We wandered by a couple of tables, smelling perfume after perfume and finding nothing special. As my inadequacies were starting to taunt me, I followed my mom to a counter strewn with bottles. It belonged to Creed, a perfume I vaguely remember seeing advertised in a magazine. To my surprise, Creed wasn't a perfume at all, but the name of the world's only dynastic, privately held luxury fragrance company. The logo that I first saw as a failed attempt to look prestigious was actually a legitimate emblem. As I grew more inquisitive, a Creed specialist became my perfume professor, explaining the history of the company and their scents.

Creed began as outfitters of royalty. When King George III requested scented gloves to provide a sanctuary for his nose in the days when few people showered, James Henry Creed gladly obliged. The result was a perfume inspired by the English leather used for saddles. Soon royal figures across Europe were commissioning their own scents. When Grace Kelly was asked by her fiance to name her favorite flower, she assumed it was for the wedding, but Prince Rainier of Monaco instead surprised her with a signature scent that she wore on their wedding day. These fragrances, Royal English Leather and Fleurissimo, are still available today, as are the scents made for Audrey Hepburn, Queen Victoria and Cary Grant to name a few.

All of the perfumes are created with the finest ingredients and handmade with a traditional infusion technique, a process that yields scents as timeless as the personages for whom they were created. The business has been passed down from father to son since it was founded in 1760, and the latest in line is a real-life Chuck Bass -- don't believe me, check the website. So if you want a perfume that will make you smell like Britney Spears, you've got plenty of choices -- but if you want fragrances that have been worn by Hollywood and actual royalty for centuries, look no further than Creed.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us