You might think my failure to keep up with celebrity news and gossip would be a handicap when it came to reviewing celebrity perfumes, but it’s really an asset: it’s much easier to consider a perfume objectively when you know little or nothing about the person fronting it. And since most celebrities have little or nothing to do with developing the perfumes released under their names, it seems silly to worry about who they are and what they do anyway, other than insofar as their shenanigans might affect perfume sales.

Elizabeth Taylor is another matter. She’s an icon, for heaven’s sakes — even I know who Elizabeth Taylor is. Plus she’s 78 years old, and not in the best of health. I readily admit that if her latest perfume, Violet Eyes, turned out to be hilariously vile, I’d have a pretty hard time saying so…

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