1965-1972
In Cher’s memoir she disclosed that Sonny would not allow her to wear any perfume at all. Yikes.
1975
In his memoir Gregg Allman famously said when he first met Cher she “smelled like I would imagine a mermaid would smell.”
[Fishy? No, I think he meant Hawaiian or something…like floral.]
This was at the Troubadour after one of his solo shows there in 1975. Allman said, “I’ve never smelled it since, and I’ll never forget it.”
1988
Cher introduced a perfume in 1988. (I wonder what mermaids thought of it.)
Fans liked it but the line didn’t last as long as other famous scents by Elizabeth Taylor (a department store brand since 1987) and Britney Spears (a retail store brand since 2004).
Here were the commercials for Uninhibited:
Launched in collaboration with the Parfums Stern company, Cher began selling her Uninhibited perfume in department stores. She sold her scent at department stores down the counter from Liz Taylor’s White Diamonds. The perfume tagline was “Bottled but not contained.”
A postcard said “experience a dimension of Cher never before exposed. Revealed in a dramatically sensual fragrance of scintillating glamour, voluptuous floral cast, intermingled with notes of oriental mystery and Casablanca lilies, Cher’s favorite flower. UNINHIBITED is your invitation to chance it all…and succeed.”
Who can resist the sweet smell of success?
The commercial was beautifully shot with images of Cher and a tent by the beach, in a black velvet dress and the Oscar dress, her hair piled high. Or in a white robe with a white towel on her head. “It’s a way to be expressive,” she says. “I didn’t fit in so I had to expand. Make it work for me.”
A tween Elijah practices his guitar licks next to her. “You can do anything you want to do…when will I be too old to wear my motorcycle jacket?”
In other scenes Cher is walking toward the camera, blocking supposed paparazzi flashes with her hands and telling us, “I’m really inhibited. I feel totally inhibited. There are lots of people inside of me.”
Unlike the infomercials, there wasn’t mass ennui over Cher’s perfume business. Some critics, like Alice Kahn, did write about visiting one of the Uninhibited launch events for the Los Angeles Times in an article called “The Sweet Smell of Excess.” She asked, “why do we want to smell like Cher? That was the question in my mind as I stood crushed in with 4,000 others sharing the new art form: celebrity department store visits. Forget Godot, we were waiting for Cher. ..is there not some cultural meaning in the cult of celebrity odors…I could understand wanting Cher’s looks, Cher’s job, Cher’s agent…we have all heard of the sweet smell of success; but who is to say Cher has bottled it?”
Kahn catalogues all the types of people at the event: “businessmen, old ladies, guys in earrings, Cher wannabies, preppies, mothers.” She continues, “Cher is an idol because she is the kind of take-no-prisoners lady who would never spend an hour in a dangerously crowded department store to get a whiff of Cher…if there’s a sucker born willing to pay to smell like Cher…it ain’t her.”
Did Kahn have any idea how over-populated the cult of celebrity perfume would get in 15 years? A short list includes fragrances sold by J Lo, Britney Spears, Jordin Sparks, Gwen Stefani, Celine Dion, Tim McGraw, Beyonce, Sarah Jessica Parker, Mariah Carey, Paris Hilton and Hillary Duff.
2019
In the article What Cher Has To Say About Beauty (2019) from Into the Gloss, Cher says “I like vanilla, it’s just a girl thing I think, but I also very much like something that’s spicy. I imagine there are people, I know there are people, who don’t want to have anything on them and I cannot even go to that place.”
Eau de Couture
Cher introduced another perfume in 2019 called Eau de Couture. It smelled similar to Uninhibited but was meant to be more unisex.
Here were the commercials for Eau de Couture:
There was also a set called the Decades Collection that came in rollerball tubes, color-coded glass bottles and potpourri cans. Each decade sold separately or as a set.
2020
This YouTube video “Cher’s Favorite Beauty Products that you can still buy today” (2020) also talks about a perfume Cher once mentioned: Pheromone by Marilyn Miglin.
