The Olsen Twins’ New Fragrance Doesn’t Smell Like A Celeb Perfume

If a celebrity makes a fragrance, does that mean it's automatically a celebrity fragrance? That's the question we posed to ourselves earlier this week at the launch of Elizabeth and James' first fragrances. For the uninitiated, Elizabeth and James is the contemporary fashion line by Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen (not to be confused with their other lines The Row, Olsenboye, and StyleMint — how these women find a moment to sleep is beyond us).

Now, technically, this isn't the first time the actors-turned-designers have released a scent, since they had teen-themed ones back in the day. But, this is the first time they've done it on a more sophisticated level. The result is less typical "celeb fragrance" and more "fragrance that happens to have some well-known people behind it." And, there are two, actually: Nirvana White and Nirvana Black.

"After going through the process of the first fragrance and getting to a place where we loved it," Ashley says, "we felt like we were doing a disservice by not offering two, due to the duality of the brand having masculine and feminine qualities. It just felt right." White, a floral musk, has notes of peony and lily of the valley; black is a warm take on violet, sandalwood, and vanilla. We've had a sniff of both, and they're pretty and sophisticated — two reasons we're reconsidering the "celebrity fragrance."