Multihyphenate, multi-aliased, multimillionaire mogul Diddy recently announced another way you can smell like sweet sweet cash and Ciroq: I Am King, his not-at-all humbly named fragrance, which he celebrated -- again, not modestly in the least -- with ginormous billboards in Times Square and on Sunset Boulevard and a five-minute mini-movie/ audition, in which he cast himself in the role of James Bond and dedicated the fragrance to Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali, and Martin Luther King. Again, this is a moderate, unassuming campaign Diddy's running here.
I Am King is expected to pull in a regal $100 million globally in its first year alone. But what does I Am King, "a scent designed to inspire those who dream big and want to live large," according to the press material, smell like? Riding Jet Skis in a tux? Tossing fistfuls of hundreds off a yacht? Bar Rafaeli's leotard? Again, according to the press material, I Am King is "an untraditional fresh, fruity woody scent that combines clean notes with senusal fruits and warm skin nuances."
For those of you who majored in fragrancology (because pharmacology was all filled up), that aroma breaks down to notes of tangerine, orange, and cranberries, Imperial French Berry (wah?), Kir Royal and champagne, Mediterranean water accord (ahhhh), lemon cream, cedarwood, sandwood, and white moss. And clean-assed powderiness.
But, what does I Am King REALLY smell like, and HOW does that translate to the real world, if you will? I rounded up a few MTVers, and -- without telling them ahead of time what they were smelling -- squirted out a few king-sized spritzes and asked for their honest opinion. The general consensus: I Am King smells like girls, old ladies, and general Bitchassness.
Here's the breakdown:
James Montgomery: "It smells like clean laundry. It recalls fresh linens and Sunday mornings. i would definitely nail this. It also smells like bathrobes."
Jonathan Goldner: "If I knew a woman who wore this, I'd develop a crush on her. Is this Luscious Pink? What is this, and where can I buy it? It's too sweet for a man." Upon finding out it's cologne: It smells like Froot Loops."
Debbie Newman/ AKA Pop Cultured: "The intoxicating old-lady smell triggers a fragrance flashback to the (still-unused) bottle of Celine Dion Sensational I received three Christmases ago. Apparently, there was a shortage of coal that year."
Anonymous: "It smells like bad perfume. Like cheap perfume ... Oh no no no no no. I smelled all four Playboy perfumes, and all four scents smell better than that crap."
Control Freak, Remote Control Blog: "It smells like Drakkar. Like my boyfriend when I was 14. It smells pretty gross."
Nate Ford: "It's boozy and fruity. Like a boozy, fruity, teeny candy cocktail. Like an Appletini McDooDoo."
James C.: "It's a cologne? Oh f--- that! I wear sweet cologne but that s--- sucks. Ugh ... oh... OHHH!"
At that point, "James C." accidentally spilled a little I Am King and proceeded to wipe it on the wall of my cube. Now, after smelling it for hours, my nostrils are en fuego, and I'm starting to get angry IMs from people who work near me and even people who really don't work anywhere near me. So maybe that's what Diddy meant by "an explosion of intoxicating intensity."
Anyway, I Am King is available exclusively at Macy's ... or not -- it's sold out, because apparently a lot of people out there wanna smell like Diddy (that Daddy Yankee fragrance is still very much in stock!) -- and in many other places fine celebrity fragrances are sold beginning February 2009.
