Drugstore Cowgirl: Perfume Nite: The Revenge

Glow Jennifer Lopez versus Rihanna's Reb'l Fleur

Holly, Jeffrey, Ello Menopee, and I reconvened for Perfume Nite 2, this time joined by K.C. (30s, he/him) and Dave (40s, he/him) to discuss and debate two historically important celebrity scents: Glow Jennifer Lopez and Rihanna’s Reb’l Fleur, both obtained at Marshall’s in body spray formats for $7.99 each.

Glow premiered back in 2002 and immediately kicked off a renaissance of sorts when it came to the world of celebrity-endorsed perfume. Per Paper magazine, Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds perfume and its many flankers was considered an anomaly in terms of its success; celebrity perfume was simply not the staple product it is now. Jennifer Lopez’s Glow, which has an aggressively clean scent and was apparently meant to invoke the smell of skin fresh out of the shower, had a bottle based on Lopez’s body, an ad campaign that featured a blurred shot of her in a shower, and a little charm necklace reading “JLo” wrapped around the bottle. In 2020, Lopez told Byrdie “It was such a big deal for me to have created my own fragrance. And I remember thinking how cool it was to have my name on it with a little necklace and how meticulously I tested samples for it. It's such a special and distinct memory for me." Glow sold over $100 million worth of product in its first year alone and because of its runaway success, it has become de rigueur for celebrities, particularly pop stars, to release their own lines of perfume. As Sadie Stein wrote for Jezebel in 2010, Glow’s success set off a “scentocalypse”… “Apres J.Lo, le deluge!”