Everything Mary J. Blige imbues her art with a personal touch and her first foray into fragrance world is no different.

Blige, 39, spoke to Women’s Wear Daily while on the set as she shot the ad campaign for My Life, her new fragrance with Carol’s Daughter, aptly named after her 1994 best-selling second album.

“I wanted my fragrance to be something special for my female fans,” says Blige. “I was crying out for help [during the time of the recording] because I was going through so much. And four million women said, ‘Mary, we’re going through it, too, but you’re helping us by calling on us.’ From that day on, I began speaking truths about my life, and about their lives, and everything around us. So it’s a special tribute to us as women.

“My fans and I are smart now. We know we’re smart now, but we didn’t know it then. We know we’re beautiful now, we didn’t know it then. We’re educated now, we didn’t know it then. We’re soft, we’re edgy—we’re all those things. And I wanted this perfume to represent every female’s everyday life.”

About developing the fragrance, she says: “I’ve never done it, but it was so much fun because I have a keen sense of smell. I knew exactly what I wanted and would ask for an incense smell, a musk smell, a wood smell. I also wanted florals, but edgy florals. Every day they would bring me blotters to test—after a while, everything started to smell the same, so I had to pull back.”

Steve Stoute, lead investor in and chairman of Carol’s Daughter (who also helps guide Blige’s business career) says Blige had free rein to create whatever she wanted. “No one said to Mary, ‘this is what the industry likes, this is what will sell.’ It was completely Mary’s creation, and she went through six different iterations before it was perfect. And that way, it really has become her fragrance. The endorser becomes the author.”

“At the end of the day, it’s for me,” Blige says. “So if I look ridiculous and not know what I’m talking about and not know what’s in my own fragrance, it doesn’t look good to people. When I was doing the [public service announcement for her charity, filmed earlier in the day on set] out there, I was saying education is power. That’s what I mean. It is powerful to sit here and talk to you and tell you I know what’s in my fragrance. I was there, putting it together.”

As an investor in Carol’s Daughter (along with Jay-Z, Jada Pinkett Smith and others), Blige has decided to launch My Life on the Home Shopping Network on July 31. It will retail for $46 for 1.7 oz. and be sold with a clutch purse.

Reminisce as you listen to Mary J. Blige’s “My Life”:

Source: WWD.com

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