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It's not every day you learn you have something in common with Cher, straight from the source. Maybe you do, too, if your taste in fragrances is rather specific. "I'm not a rose girl," she asserts over an audio-only Zoom call. But the scent itself isn't as important to her as the effect the scent has on other people. "I'm one that goes right for the jugular when it comes to perfume. I just like it to be potent — not like you get in an elevator and want to kill yourself kind of potent but just something that makes people remember you when you walk."
It's not like Cher has ever had any problem being noticed or remembered, but I fully get it when she says she doesn't "feel fully dressed" without a fragrance. And when you feel that way, well, you need a scent wardrobe — like the one we're here to talk about: a new collection of four Cher-branded fragrances inspired by and named after the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, respectively.
'60s Couture is a warm and dry floral; '70s Couture is an amber and wood scent; '80s Couture is floral and fruity; '90s Couture is a rich floral scent featuring peach nectar sandalwood that Cher describes as "heady" — that's why it's her favorite, which is "saying a lot" given her hesitance toward florals.
The collection is reminiscent of many of the fragrances Cher wore throughout each of those decades. "I remember [in the sixties] when Sonny [Bono] and I became famous, I used to take my mom's perfume," she recalls. Her mother was big on Dior Joy and "one with a Spanish lady on it," which I can only assume was Nueva Maja by Myrurgia. At the time, Cher also wanted to wear Tabu by Dana, which was known for being… well, taboo. "My mom said, 'Cher, good girls don't wear that.' I was like, 'Mom, come on.'"
Whereas our olfactory preferences are aligned, where Cher and I disagree is the singer-actor-comedian's icon status. "In my mind, an icon has always got to be old to be iconic. I can't think [I'm] old yet," the 76-year-old explains. When the i-word is applied to her in stories like this one, she's not quite sure what to think. "It's fun but I don't take it seriously because… does it mean you've just lasted longer than everybody else?"
I bite my tongue to prevent myself from arguing that you don't have to be a certain age to be an icon to any one person, let alone entire generations of fans, like she is — but one simply does not argue with Cher. So who does Cher consider an icon? Tina Turner (82, so you don't have to look it up) and her own 96-year-old mother. "My mom gets up and she puts her lipstick on and does her hair… my mom is beautiful and even now, [she's got] this amazing skin. She's a pain in the ass — and the hair, you cannot believe her hair. So my mom's an icon to me, and nobody else knows it, but I know it."
She will admit, however, that she's worn some looks over the past few decades that could be considered iconic — mostly by designer Bob Mackie, known for dramatic, ornate gowns. When I ask what she considers to be her most impactful looks to date, the naked dress immediately comes to mind. You know the one; she paired it with a purple smoky eye and pin-straight hair at the 1974 Met Gala and wore it on the cover of Time Magazine in March of 1975 (definitive proof that being an outfit repeater isn't a bad thing). She refers to it as "the dress that we call The Dress."
I expect Cher to instantly bring up another classic, the black cape and spiky headdress from the 1986 Oscars, but it takes her a while. And when she does, she calls it "my Oscar fiasco" from "the time I didn't get nominated for Mask." In said fiasco, Cher accidentally scared the hell out of Jane Fonda. She recalls walking around backstage at the ceremony, where the lights were apparently dim enough that it was near impossible to see where you were going. "Jane was coming one way, and I was coming another way, and my hat was really tall, and she didn't know what I was. She went, 'Jesus, Cher you scared me to death.' Then she backed up and went, 'I can't wait to see you come out in this.'"
I think, for a moment, that Cher is actually going to say she hated this look — which wouldn't have made any sense because look at it — but she clarifies: "It was beautiful. My cape was cashmere. I mean, Bob doesn't make anything that shouldn't be in a museum." She also says something that will forever live rent-free in my brain: "A lot of people didn't like it, but I thought it was totally cool." As if that's all that matters (and it is).
Another honorable mention goes to the glittering, beaded white jumpsuit, also designed by Mackie, that she wore on several occasions including the 1975 Rock Music Awards (and once with that massive feather headdress that, as we all know, didn't age super well). "It just covered your breasts and it was just two straps, which was fine for me, and it was all white and it was all beaded."
And, of course, there's that sheer black jumpsuit from the "If I Could Turn Back Time" music video, which took place aboard a navy ship. It was designed by — you guessed it — Bob Mackie, who initially didn't even want to take credit for the look because he didn't really do "that particular thing. He said, 'Don't tell anybody I designed this for you… Don't tell anyone, Cher,'" she recalls. "When I look at it, I think, 'Well, that's ridiculous. It's not enough clothes.'"
Fast forward to the present, and Cher is selling her Malibu home featuring a climate-controlled room for all of her wigs, which have played a massive part in many of these iconic looks and beyond. It's not something you put in your home unless you really, really love wigs (or, you know, are really, really rich). But as it turns out, there's a reason Cher is so emotionally attached to them.
"Once upon a time…" she laughs before recalling her time on The Sonny & Cher Show. "My [real] hair was as long as it was in the intro, but then I would have to jump from that… to five other [looks between skits]," she says. "When we first started doing it, no one could handle my hair." Thankfully, Cher eventually met German hairstylist and wigmaker Renate Leuschner, who would become Cher's master of quick-change hair for the show.
The desire to instantly change from one hairstyle to another would stick with Cher for the remainder of her career. "When I'm on stage, I make my costume changes in about two minutes, and everything gets whipped off. If I couldn't wear a wig, what would I do?" If you were to ever suggest simply pairing the same hairstyle with multiple outfits, Cher would probably clutch her metaphoric pearls.
But the story goes far beyond that. The one time Cher wasn't allowed to wear a wig, her real, very precious hair paid for it. "When I did Mask, the director said, 'You can't wear a wig. You have to dye your hair because I will know if you're wearing a wig.'" She remembers wanting the role badly enough that she went along with it, which she would end up regretting big time. "I had black hair, and he wanted it to be red, so when I came out of the [hair salon], I had black hair with big red polka dots in it, and I was hysterical."
As you probably already know, you have to bleach hair that dark in order to then dye it red. For anyone with naturally dark hair, that's a disaster waiting to happen. Cher's hair was so damaged she had to see another hairstylist she calls a "hair doctor," who told her she could save Cher's hair but not without drastic maintenance. For a while, Cher ended up having half wigs made by Renate, but eventually "I was wearing a full wig, and I'd cut my hair into a white-blonde crew cut." She recalls going to said director's birthday party, where he'd seen the new look and guffawed. "I said, 'This is what I had to [do], ruin my hair, so you could think that you would know better than I could.' I didn't say to shove it, but boy, I wanted to."
What hasn't Cher done in the beauty department yet? That's a question even she can't answer. "Well, God, what else can I do? I mean, I've worn every hair color and style," she says. If anything, she wouldn't mind dipping her toes into the world of "bright, crazy colors" — but at the end of the day, she just wants to do whatever she finds fun at the moment. "I know that when I'm happy with the way I look, people that love me, they'll be happy, too."
The Cher Decades fragrances retail at $30 for 30ml and are available starting October 22 from walmart.com.
All products featured on Allure are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
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