JJ: Congratulations on the perfume, it smells great. How’d it all start and could you tell us the whole process?
KP: Well, my friend Isaac [Lekach] from ‘Gigantic Perfumes’, which is named after a Pixies song. Really cool. I’m such a woman of detail, so I look for anything that’s going to give me a reflection of someone’s personality, you know – down to their clothes, their hair, their logo, their business card, and when I saw that I thought, “Okay, this guy is cool.” Then I found out that he edited a music magazine, his brother is a really cool guy. He’ll be DJing out party tonight, and I was like, all right, this isn’t just some stupid guy trying to hawk another product because I’m famous, you know? He actually cares and understands my fans and sees that I have a very strong opinion about all things. I always knew I wanted to branch out; it’s just about the right timing, about doing it my way ’cause I always want to do it my way.
JJ: How’d you know what you wanted it to smell like?
KP: I love all the types of scents that I incorporated in it. It has bit gardenia, citrus, jasmine which I love, and then it has sandalwood which makes it a bit ambiguous and different for me. I didn’t want it to be a complete knock-off of my favorite scents, so that meant there was a year and a half of me testing and basically me going into the labs in NYC where all the chemists are. It looks like a science class down there! I would ask for different things and quantities of it. I was very involved!
JJ: If you could bottle [your husband Russell Brand] into a bottle, what would it smell like?
KP: It would smell like perfection. Purrrfection! There’s a lot of puns I’m getting to use, which is really fun!
JJ: What if you could bottle Rihanna in a bottle?
Katy: She’s doing her own called Rebel Flower. I’m excited to see hers because she does things with a twist too and we’re always trying to push the envelope and raise the bar. I think it’s a different type of launch. Like tonight, we’re going to have a really fun party, but we’re in the middle of NYC and the bottle is, to me, so unique and I worked so hard on this.
I got so many different versions of the bottle and i was like “Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Yes, finally!” I was inspired a little bit by the way Jean Paul Gaultier does his perfumes in the women’s corsets and he has that the snow globe shake one and spray it; so i thought that was really cool.
JJ: You have 3 cats — Morrissey, Katy Purry, and Crusty. Would you ever do a perfume after the other two, Crusty or Morrissey?
KP: Well, Morrissey wouldn’t have that, you know? He can’t be bother with anything in life and Crusty is just a terror. She’s just a teenager, so until she grows up, I’m not doing anything for her.
JJ: Glee’s Darren Criss covered “Teenage Dream” — are you still rocking out to it?
KP: Yeah! I was so happy! I warmly welcome any kind of version, any kind of creative mind and they did such an incredible job. I’m always proud to be the writer of a song like that.
JJ: What’s next in the beauty landscape for you?
KP: I don’t know exactly yet. Of course I have an opinion and it’s a strong one as with everything I do! I’m always introducing things to my girlfriends and always watching out in the world of what’s happening and the buzz that’s going on on your site (JustJared.com) and other sites of course. I just want to see how Purr goes, see the feedback, and to see if my intuition was right.
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Katy Perry’s fragrance, Purr, is available at Nordstroms everywhere now!
