Beyoncé
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Would you want to smell like Derek Jeter? How about Jessica Simpson or Beyoncé? Celebrity scents might not reflect the actual smells of our favorite stars, but they do represent a connection to those celebrities that can be quite lucrative for the companies that partner on the scents. The top 10 bestselling celebrity perfumes from 2010 brought in $215 million in the U.S., according to Euromonitor International. Celebrity fragrances are more popular than ever. Just this year we've seen scents launched by Katy Perry, Fergie, Rihanna and Kim Kardashian. Companies like Coty, Elizabeth Arden and Avon like to partner with celebrities on new fragrances because they are great marketers. "Companies feel it's a great way to reach younger consumers in the U.S.," says Virginia Lee, senior research analyst at Euromonitor. "Somewhere like France, putting on fragrance in the morning is a daily habit. In the U.S. fragrance has never completely taken hold." Celebrities are naturally in the spotlight as often as possible, and they come with built-in fan bases that often want to buy the perfume regardless of how it smells. Singer Mary J. Blige recently launched her first fragrance, My Life, on the Home Shopping Network. "The fact that people are buying a fragrance without even smelling it says there's a connection with the celebrity," says Lee. Celebrities can also use their fan base to cheaply spread the word about a scent. When Rihanna launched her Re'l Fluer perfume in February she put out a one-minute video that quickly made the rounds among her 4.5 million Twitter followers and 30 million Facebook fans. Topping our list this year is White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Arden sold $54 million worth of the scent in the U.S. last year. Lee, of Euromonitor, says the scent appeals to baby boomers who associate Taylor with the glamour of her youth. But the perfume also has an appealing smell; it's been a bestseller since it hit stores in 1991. In the near term at least, the star's death shouldn't affect sales, since the celebrity appeal is so strongly correlated to her life as a young star. Ranking second with $27 million in sales is Driven by Derek Jeter. Lee says that, for the most part, scents for men are bought by women for their boyfriends and husbands. So the appeal of Driven probably has more to do with Jeter's persona than with his baseball skills. In third place: Heat by Beyoncé. The singer launched her perfume in 2010, and it did well right out of the gate with $21 million in sales. It doesn't hurt that Beyoncé promoted the fragrance with a steamy commercial deemed too hot for daytime TV in the U.K. Four scents tie for third place, each with $18 million in sales: Unforgivable by P. Diddy's Sean John brand, NYC by Sarah Jessica Parker, Fancy by Jessica Simpson and Harajuku Lovers by Gwen Stefani. NYC is an impressive newcomer. Parker has several other scents, including Lovely, Dawn and Endless, but NYC, which launched in 2009, is her bestseller.