Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

Want to smell like Nicki Minaj? Well, the American Music Award-winning rapper hopes so. She has just launched Pink Friday perfume—just in time for Black Friday shopping.

Minaj has been in overdrive, trying to pump up her brand. Soon after joining American Idol, she launched her own reality show, “My Truth.”

To promote the perfume, which is named after her hit album, Minaj debut a television commercial that got mixed reviews. According to Huffington Post, AdWeek called the TV spot a “pile of cliches.” MTV Styled, however, though it was “amazing.”

The perfume, which is available at Macy’s, is $49 for 1.7 ounces. It’s supposed to smell like vanilla, skin musks and woods, but to our sensitive noses, it comes off like a good deal of bubble gum.

It seems almost inevitable these days that once a celebrity achieves a certain amount of exposure, a perfume will be on the way. Celeb scents aren’t just vanity ventures. The top 10 bestselling celebrity perfumes from 2010 brought in $215 million in the U.S., according to Euromonitor International. Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Fergie, Mary J. Blige, Rihanna and Kim Kardashian are just a few of the stars with perfumes on the market. But only a handful are actually successful.

The late Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds remains, since 1991, the top-selling celebrity scent, according to Forbes. White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor grossed $54 million in 2010. Oddly, Driven by hunky baseball star Derek Jeter ranked second with $27 million in sales. Third was Heat by Beyoncé, which earned $21 million in sales. Four scents tied next, each with $18 million in sales: Unforgivable by P. Diddy’s Sean John brand (which won the The Fragrance Foundation Award in 2007 ), NYC by Sarah Jessica Parker, Fancy by Jessica Simpson, and Harajuku Lovers by Gwen Stefani. Diddy’s scent does so well, he has two. The second is I Am King, which he launched in 2009.

Do you think Minaj’s Pink Friday will  join the top ten selling  fragrance list?

One thing to keep in mind when looking at this ad is that it wasn’t made for an American audience.

The Durex condom advertisement runs in India and promotes a birth control/STD barrier that is so thin it could leave a woman questioning whether a condom was used or not—as shown.

In the cultural subtext of India, sex is not discussed nearly as openly as it is here in the Western world, so the idea is that a man and woman probably wouldn’t talk to each other about protection but if the woman happened to see the condom wrapper, box, etc. she’d be pleasantly surprised to learn he used one, despite the fact that it wasn’t detectible.

Durex group manager for marketing and branding Vishal Vyas told Audience Matters, explained, “There is still a lack of education as sex is a taboo topic in India. People are opening up and talking about it as family planning, and sexually transmitted diseases have become major issues. We are and will always aim to spread the message of safe and responsible sex.”

Still a few sites—albeit American—have knocked the ad, saying pregnancy and STDs are not pleasant surprises any woman wants to receive and that there’s nothing cute about not knowing whether you’ve put yourself at risk for any of the above.

At the very least, the ad is clever in marketing the ultra-thinness of it’s product, but in a culture where people aren’t talking about something that they should in order to protect their sexual and reproductive health, I don’t think think giving them more reasons not to talk about it is the best route. But at the end of the day, sex education isn’t Durex’s job, they want to sell a product that gives people a feeling of security without the feeling of latex, and that’s what this does.

Do you think the ad sends the wrong message? Could it ever work in the United States?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

More on Madame Noire!

• Oh Na Na, What’s My Name? Celebs Whose Real Names Baffle Us
• Why Do People Think Tyler Perry is Gay?
• Robin Thicke Says Black Women Aren’t Better Off with White Men
• 10 Things You Don’t Know About Beyonce
• Ratchet Relatives That Can Make the Holidays a Hot Mess
• When Emo Rappers Collide

Just in case someone actually thought their lashes would look like Taylor Swift’s do in a new Cover Girl mascara campaign, Proctor & Gamble (P&G), the manufacturer behind the brand, pulled it.

In the ad for CoverGirl NatureLuxe Mousse Mascara, Taylor’s eyelashes have been enhanced to look even fuller than natural, causing the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus to rule that the ad was misleading.

The NAD asked P&G to verify claims that the mascara has two times more volume versus bare lashes and is 20 percent lighter than the most expensive mascara. The division also noted “implied messages” that consumers who use the product “would get lashes like those depicted in the advertisement and that the lashes depicted in the photograph were achieved solely by using [the mascara]…without post-production enhancement.”

I’m all for truth in advertising, but I don’t think anyone really expects their eyelashes to look like the ones on the models in print ads. Taylor’s lashes actually look less enhanced than some I’ve seen in other advertisements. Maybelline better watch out next.

(CNN  Money) –This is the first in a series of articles leading up to Fortune Brainstorm Tech, which takes place July 22-24 in Aspen, Colo. The articles will look back at the progress of companies that presented at Brainstorm in 2009 as well as look forward to those that will present this year. AOL was coming back with a vengeance, brand-new AOL CEO Tim Armstrong told Fortune’s 2009 Brainstorm Tech conference last year. He was fresh out of the starting gate, and had just done a 100-day “listening tour,” checking in with AOL’s global workforce. He was pumped, and ready to shake up the brand.

Read More…