You would be hard pressed to come up with a time when Jennifer Lopez wasn’t on everyone’s lips. The singer, actress, entrepreneur, and mother has managed to dodge the dredges of irrelevancy by reinventing herself as the times change. And right now, she’s especially on the brain.
Her newest film, Hustlers, is selling out in theaters across the country. Her recent fashion week walk in the iconic Versace dress that created “going viral” for fashion moments has everyone enamored. And she just announced that she’ll be performing in the Super Bowl halftime show alongside fellow Latina sister Shakira in February. It’s good to be J.Lo right now.
But just in case that wasn’t enough for the masses, she just dropped her 25th fragrance, Promise. And she admits that she had a little help from a not so little entrepreneur when it came to the concept.
“About two years ago I was having dinner. I don’t know if you guys know who Warren Buffett is,” she joked to a room full of eager editors. “But he told me something that resonated with me. He said a brand is a promise. And I just feel like everything that I put out into the world has to be a promise. We have to have promises with ourselves. It’s really the foundation that keeps us going. It really made me think about life in a bigger way.”
Her fragrance franchise has made more than $2 billion in sales overall. And clearly she has a rich sensibility, because she admits that coming up with her fragrances has been instinctual and even sometimes unorthodox.
“Everything I do is inspired by what I love. I always just follow my gut,” she said. “In fragrance it’ll happen randomly. I’ll be walking by a wooden staircase on a day that it had just rained and there will be white flowers there. And I’m like ‘this scent is what we have to do—the mix of the wet wood with the white flowers and the rain. Can we put that in a bottle?’”
Just in time for the holidays, it makes for a great fragrance addition for anyone who likes variety, as it’s unlike her previous perfumes. With notes of wood and hints of fruit and flowers, it’s a sultry fragrance meant to make any woman feel sexy and beautiful, and like she has a purpose in life. And the interactive pop up shop created around it is not just a fragrance playground, it’s an experience.
You enter the exhibit in New York City’s Meatpacking District through a replica 6 train subway car, which is plastered with photos of Lopez in different stages of her career. From there you enter a display of the star’s iconic looks (including the aforementioned Versace gown). It sort of feels like a mini version of the Met Gala Costume Institute.
To tie in some musical fun you can also spit some bars like you’re Jenny from the block in one of the two karaoke booths. Be warned, they will send the song to you and you will have to endure your version of “Waiting For Tonight,” so keep that in mind before you jump in. And before it’s all done, you get to interact with the sweet smelling fragrance that you went there for.
“This was about understanding how important it is to keep the promises you made to yourself. Different moments create different fragrances and I’m hoping that [this] inspires everybody to have a different mood,” Lopez finished. “Hopefully when you put this on it takes you to a place that makes you feel how you want to feel.”