The planet’s richest man has sniffed out how to make even more money... by flogging perfume.
Multi-billionaire Elon Musk has launched Burnt Hair at $100 a bottle. Despite being plugged on his website as “the essence of repugnant desire”, 10,000 bottles have sold, netting the magnate a million-dollar payday.
The SpaceX boss tweeted that he was now a perfume salesman, saying: “With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long?!”
The unisex scent, described as smelling like “leaning over a candle at the dinner table”, is to start shipping in the first quarter of next year, so missing the lucrative Christmas market.
Musk, 51, is not the first big name to sample the sweet smell of scent sale success.
Flamboyant shock rocker Gene Simmons and his band Kiss may not smell too good after their energetic stage routines, but their perfume Kiss Her is a good seller with fans.
It has notes of mahogany, amber, musk, leather, lily, poppy, orchid fig leaf and pepper.
Die Hard star Bruce Willis, 67, launched a self-named fragrance for men in 2010. It was described as “woody”, “extremely masculine and unconventional, confident and strong as Bruce himself”.
Even the bottle was said to be “in the macho style”.
Lady Gaga, 36, was typically outrageous when she announced her first perfume, Lady Gaga Fame, in 2012. The singer, who had worn a dress made of raw beef two years earlier, said it would contain notes of blood and manly excretions.
Fortunately, Thierry Massee, of Coty, the company behind the perfume, tempered her vision.
He said: “She is a highly creative individual with very individual ideas. But we convinced her that we couldn’t really create those notes.”
But ingredients of the black liquid – designed not to stain and contained in an egg-shaped bottle held by slender claws – included “tears of belladonna” also known as the plant deadly nightshade, whose foliage and berries are toxic.
Animal rights campaigner and Queen guitarist Brian May, 75, worked with Sergio Momo, the founder of Italian brand Xerjoff, to launch his fragrance Save Me in 2021 to help protect endangered wildlife.
The fragrance, named after Queen’s 1980 hit, is said to have “deliberately earthy overtones – a hint of clean badger fur, some sandalwood and something a bit limey”.
Other rock greats also have a nose for business. In 2021 Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, 74, honoured the red Gibson SG guitar he nicknamed Monkey by launching Tony Iommi Monkey Special.
Anarchy
The scent for women and men is said to smell like rock festivals in the 60s and 70s but Tony added: “Don’t worry, we left the sweat out.”
In 2010 the Sex Pistols launched a lemon and black pepper smelling scent inspired by “anarchy and chaos” – pretty fragrant.
Sengalese-American rapper Akon, 49, launched a fragrance, named Konvict after his 2006 Konvicted album, in a gold handcuff-shaped bottle for women and a silver one for men.
There’s plenty of chances of getting a whiff of Donald Trump ’s power. The former US president, 76, launched scents in 2004, 2011 and 2015.
Even cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants has been busy in Bikini Bottom to create his very own scent for men and women. Predictably it is called SpongeBob.
