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LONDON - Not content with flogging us their albums, their films and even their wardrobe cast-offs, celebrities are tapping into that most personal of attributes - smell - to get their fans to part with even more cash.
The launch of a new perfume this week by Kate Moss kick-starts a rash of celebrity scents.
Coleen McLoughlin's eponymous perfume goes on sale next week.
Even those whose public profiles have taken severe knocks - Paris Hilton and Britney Spears - are gearing up to boost their multi-million-pound franchises with new scents that experts believe will prove that their pulling power in stores more than matches their capacity to sell gossip magazines.
Women's fragrances are worth around 600 million pounds a year in the UK alone, according to the research firm Mintel.
And with celebrity perfumes luring ever younger consumers, analysts expect growth to continue at around 6 per cent a year.
Jill Hill, a perfume expert with more than 30 years in the business, said: "Celebrity fragrances have expanded and democratised the market.
Using celebrities to launch a new scent is an easy and quick way to position a new fragrance."No perfume house knows that better than Coty, the French company that kick-started the trend for celebrity-backed scents with Glow by Jennifer Lopez back in 2002.
That is why it is backing the latest addition to Kate Moss's burgeoning business career: her eponymous first fragrance.
The scent was unveiled this week to instant praise from the perfumerati.
Her style-icon status will ensure that Kate, which goes on sale in September, will be stocked by even high-end retailers, which tend to shun mass-market celebrity scents.
Daniela Rinaldi, head of cosmetics and concessions at Harvey Nichols, said of Kate: "It's lovely.
It has that Kate Moss handwriting, just as her fashion does in Topshop." Sarah Jessica Parker, of Sex and the City fame, is the only other celebrity to be granted floorspace by the upmarket department store group.
Industry sources estimated the fragrance Kate, which blends lily of the valley, magnolia and roses, will generate sales of around 25m pounds in its first year and up to 40m pounds in its second.
Firms are rushing to produce their own celeb scents.
Christmas sales at Superdrug saw a celebrity scent n from Kylie Minogue n knock traditional big sellers such as Calvin Klein off the top spot for the first time.
And in the US, the rapper Sean John "Diddy" Combs's scent Unforgivable sold more bottles than any other women's or men's fragrance.
Lura Turin, author of The Secret of Scent, said: "Celebrity fragrances are still growing just as strongly as ever."
Despite the glut of new scents, including ones from fragrance virgins Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera, John Bailey of the Perfumers' Guild believes their impact on traditional perfumes will be muted.
"Chanel No 5 endures because it is a classic, but celebrity fragrances just come and go."
Ms Hill added: "They come in like a star, blaze for a while and then fade."
- INDEPENDENT
