Adam Levine Hates Celebrity Fragrances But Is Releasing One Anyway

Adam Levine is kind of an annoying dick. You see that tiger tattoo on his arm? I was with a friend who was getting her half-sleeve done at New York Adorned some years back when he was getting that done, and I thought my eyes would never see again from rolling so far back in my head listening to this dipshit speak. He was talking as loudly as possible (so as to be heard by everyone, thinking we would be impressed) as he vowed that he wouldn’t go on tour with Maroon 5 before the basketball season was over since he couldn’t bear to miss a Lakers game and going on and on about all the hot chicks in Las Vegas, blah blah. It kind of made me want to go all Van Gogh and cut my ears off so I didn’t have to listen to him anymore. That being said, the latest Maroon 5 album is good pop music and I actually kind of like watching him on The Voice.

Now that I got that off my chest, let’s move on to the news: Adam Levine is the latest in the long line of stars to release his own perfume, despite the fact that he talked mad shit about celebrity fragrances and said they should be banned just last year. I guess things are different when the check is written in your name.

From WWD:

“I didn’t want it to be another bulls–t celebrity fragrance that I was hocking, that I didn’t believe in,” he said in a phone interview with WWD. “At the end of the day, I can definitely say I wanted to change the perception of that. On paper, I’m not a fan of the [genre], but I got excited having conversations with ID Perfumes,” his fragrance licensee.

The benchmark he set for himself: “I wanted to do something understated and elegant — something that people I revere in that world, like Tom Ford, would do, and something I’d be attracted to. I like basic fragrances. I didn’t want to smell like a department store. And there’s an intimacy level that you have to think about. You don’t really want someone to smell you unless they’re really close to you.”

Levine was pragmatic about the necessity of launching a masterbrand rather than a single fragrance. “We had to come to terms with the reality that we have a very big female fan base,” said Levine. “If you’re thinking with your business hat on, you have to think that a lot of the people who are initially checking this out are probably women. But at the same time, as a man, I wanted to create something that I would feel comfortable wearing.”

…

The women’s scent, a floral woody eau de parfum done with Givaudan, has notes of spice, Indian jasmine petals, Australian sandalwood and rose petals, with a drydown of creamy vanilla. The men’s eau de toilette, also by Givaudan, features mandarin, grapefruit and lemongrass accented with amber, sandalwood and cedarwood. Both bottles resemble microphones, in shape and with weighted caps of silver mesh and a black stem resembling the wire of a microphone.

With prices starting at $35 and going up to $65, Levine can swing for it if he thinks anyone but die-hard fans will buy that shit. I saw Britney Spears’ Curious on the discount shelf for $5 and even my, well, curiosity wasn’t enough to let me part with a fiver. Also, a microphone-shaped bottle pretty much assures that you’ve relegated this scent to the 8 to 15-year-old bracket. Even Bieber was smart enough to put his in some rose-shaped glass (though no one bought that stink water, either, outside of the kiddies).