An “Aaliyah” perfume is being released.
This is huge because it’s one of a handful of projects that the Aaliyah estate—spearheaded by her mother, Diane Haughton, and her brother, Rashad Haughton—has participated in and OK’d.
The perfume is being released by the fragrance company Xyrena. A description of the project on the company’s website says that her mother and brother actually collaborated in the creation of the scent.
Xyrena’s CEO, Killian Wells, spoke about that collaboration in a statement he sent to MTV News. “From day one we worked with Aaliyah’s estate to ensure that every aspect of this release met their approval,” Wells’ statement read. “They appreciated that we wanted to create a fragrance that was really about Aaliyah, not just a generic scent with her name on the bottle.”
Although the perfume is unisex, it “leans masculine,” the description says, since Aaliyah liked men’s scents, corresponding with her street-but-sweet tomboy style. Five percent of the proceeds from the perfume will go toward the Aaliyah Memorial Fund.
Wells described how her brother, Rashad Haughton, was extra helpful during the creation of the scent, revealing that “Rashad provided us with a handful of colognes that Aaliyah frequently wore which we then used as inspiration, pulling notes from each that worked well together to create an entirely new formula.”
And presumably because the creation of the perfume involved Aaliyah’s family, it got the stamp of approval from one of the late singer’s closest friends on social media.
https://twitter.com/MissyElliott/status/643796519460708352
Wells said that both Missy Elliott and Timbaland will be receiving a bottle of the perfume. As will Drake, since the 6 God has expressed time and time again how much he adores Aaliyah.
Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
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