How did With Love…Hilary Duff begin? Hilary tells me the process of making her fragrance took about a year. “Making this scent has been one of the most exciting projects of my life,” she shares. “When I was a little girl, I used to love going into my mom’s room and playing with all her different perfumes to create different smells. So when I was actually presented with the opportunity to create my own fragrance, it was amazing.” Hilary says the beauty experts at Elizabeth Arden were great to work with because they wanted her involved. “They let me have total control—it truly is my fragrance. I picked all the notes, settled on the final blend and helped design the bottle, with input on everything from what it looked like to how heavy it was.”
The process of creating Hilary’s signature juice began when she met with Arden’s team of “noses” (chemists who are fragrance experts). They asked her to bring along a collection of her favourite scents (“I love fragrances with warm, oriental notes”) so they could get a feel for what she liked. After the initial meeting, the noses started presenting different notes to Hilary, getting her feedback on what was good and what wasn’t. “There are so many different aromas, I had no idea,” she laughs. “I think I smelled every possible type of wood note out there! Each one was unique and no two smelled alike.”
During this time, Hilary hit the road with her band, so fragrance testing became a long-distance affair. “Once I’d isolated some notes I loved, the chemists started to mix test fragrances, which they would send to me while I was touring. I would smell it, wear the scent for a day, or during a performance, then let them know what I did and didn’t like about it. I would give them my comments and they would tweak away in the lab, then send me another fresh sample.” She would also test samples on her friends to get their feedback on what it needed more or less of and how it wore on them. How many tries did it take to score a winner? “I think we had 115 trials!”
Once they arrived at the one, next came the task of packaging the scent. It’s no secret Hilary loves all things vintage—take a look at some of her red-carpet photos to see her vintage vibe. When it came to the fragrance bottle, she wanted something modern with a vintage feel. “There is this store I shop at near my house in L.A. called Play Clothes,” she reports. “They have all kinds of old, retro clothes and things, including a collection of old perfume bottles, the kind that look like they belong on your grandmother’s vanity table. I bought a bunch of these and they are what inspired my bottle.”
Dainty and delicate, the bottle’s glass is facet cut, which adds sparkle and light to it, and it’s topped with a citrine stone-inspired cap. The finishing touch: a gold rope ring around the bottle’s collar. “This detail is inspired by a gold antique ring I picked up at the Ivy, another of my favourite vintage shops,” Hilary recalls. “The design is simple and very feminine.”
As for the fragrance name, Hilary tells me this was the hardest part of the whole project. She had to come up with 10 potential names at a time, and each was checked for approval and copyright—if a product of the same name already exists, it’s a no go. Pretty much everything she came up with seemed to be taken, making her crazy! Then one day, while travelling with her mom in Europe, she looked at a note for her left in her room by the hotel staff, signed “With Love.” “Something about that phrase clicked with me. I think it is sweet and truly sums up how I felt about making this fragrance.”
With Love…Hilary Duff is said to capture the many sides of Hilary, so I ask her what they are. Her answer is a little coy, but also very clear. “A lot of people think they know all about me, but really they don’t. There’s a huge part of my personality nobody sees except my friends and close family. I think this fragrance brings together both my public and personal sides.”
For the entire time Hilary and I are chatting, I am testing her scent. I spritzed some on my pulse points in the late morning and it’s now shortly after 1 p.m., and not only can I still smell it, but it has dried down to a lovely, warm, sophisticated aroma—one I would definitely incorporate into my fragrance wardrobe. When I tell her this, she squeals with delight. “I am so glad you love it!” Would she like to do this all again to create another scent? “Definitely! If the day comes where nobody wants to buy my albums or see my films anymore, I want to be a nose!”
Just as I’m given the one-minute warning to wrap things, I toss a few quick questions out to Hilary, getting more insight into her many sides. Best thing about being a rock star? “Being onstage, travelling and the adventure of it all.” Worst thing? “Unpacking!” Favourite karaoke song? “Anything by Aretha Franklin.” Three desert island essentials? “My cellphone, my sister and my dog Lola.”
