I said the other day that I’d have a hard time calling one of Elizabeth Taylor’s fragrances hilariously vile, but Kimora Lee Simmons doesn’t rate the same kid glove treatment — she’s just one more celebrity of whose existence I’d be blissfully unaware if she hadn’t jumped into the fragrance business. I was, I must say, mightily impressed with her legs in that ad, but a quick image search in Google justifies The A.V. Club’s claim that Ms. Simmons may have used up what remained of the world’s photoshop resources to make those legs. They are darned nice legs, but they’re clearly not her legs.

Dare Me, which launched earlier this spring under her Baby Phat line, is Simmons’ fifth fragrance, and she’s joined a number of her colleagues in the celebrity fragrance world in going downmarket: Dare Me is in mass market stores instead of Macy’s and the like, and can be had for a song (relatively speaking, of course). The (presumably) diminished resources have not dimmed her style, though: Dare Me’s opening is almost (but not quite) as over-the-top fruity and sweet as its predecessor, Baby Phat Fabulosity…

Read the rest of this article »