Jennifer Aniston by Jennifer Aniston

There are many question marks hanging over Jennifer Aniston's eponymous perfume. Starting  with "why now"? and ending with the actual name of the EDP. It's easier to answer the latter. Originally, when the perfume was first announced last year it was called Lolavie and described as meaning "laughing at life". There were even press images of the bottle with the name Lolavie printed on it. The public reaction to the name wasn't very favorable. It was everything from LOL@Vie to LOL@Jen, so the name was scrapped and the perfume's launch delayed by a few months  (it makes me wonder if  Mariah Carey and Alicia Silverstone would have reconsidered the names they gave their newborns had they known what kind of internet tabloid ridicule would come their way).

There were a few rumors about a new name, many thought it was going to be Debut, probably because the new promotional material stated "Introducing Her Debut Perfume". Some people still mistake it to be the actual name, but it's not. The perfume is called Jennifer Aniston. It could have been worse.

In one of the many interviews she gave pre-launch, Ms. Aniston talked about her inspiration for the scent: her love of the outdoors, the beach air, California and how she wanted it to be a nonperfume. She also remarked (to the chagrin of many a lover of classic perfume) that she wished to get away from anything resembling her mother's Caleche. That was the first sign of what we were going to get in the the bottle (inspired by modern architecture and referencing the flow of a Frank Gehry building- wasn't that Brad's thing?).

Then came the big world debut at Harrods, of all places, at a highly inflated price that didn't reflect what anyone was smelling. New and fresh? Hardly.  Jennifer Aniston (the perfumes) opens up with that familiar department store barely-citrus note and becomes a watered-down floral, a gardeniafied lily-like thing that doesn't dare go all the way to tropic territory (I guess that's too perfumy for Aniston) and dries down to the most generic and cloying sweet plastic musk I've come across in recent months.

Bottom Line: smells like the last two seasons of Friends.

Notes (from Sephora): Citrus Grove Accord, Rose Water, Jasmine, Violet, Amazon Lily, Musk, Amber, Sandalwood.

Jennifer Aniston by Jennifer aniston ($39, 1 oz) is available from Sephora.