The term ‘celebrity fragrance’ leaves a bad smell. What was once the sole preserve of Hollywood’s A-list has become an exercise for anyone remotely famous (or infamous) to put out something licensed and smelly – your Geordie Shore cast, sex tape connoisseurs, I’m Not A Celebrity, Get Me Off Your TV Screen and the like.

It’s easy to turn your nose up and sniff at the heavily discounted celebrity scents behind the till, but know that they equate to around 4 per cent of the global fragrance industry – or a cool $1.8bn, according to Yahoo Finance. Not all celebrity scents are created equal, either. Some are bad. Really bad. Others, however, have won awards for olfactory excellence that are usually reserved for the Chanels and Pradas of the world.

So in a bid to give credit where credit’s due, we’ve ranked some of the most well-known male celebrity fragrances, from those that belong in your bathroom cabinet to those that should go in the bin.

Sean John, Unforgivable

Unforgivable – a term that is both the name of Sean John’s 2006 fragrance, and a useful description of its god-awful marketing campaign. But despite reductive ads featuring P Diddy himself sans clothing in bed with another hip-hop honey, the scent itself is considerably more tasteful with fresh marine notes compacted with unexpected rum and birch leaf. It’s complex and seductive, and frankly nothing like what you’d expect.

It won men’s luxury fragrance of the year in 2007 at the industry’s influential FiFi Awards, and it’s still worthy of the honour today. That said, it doesn’t give you free licence to emulate Diddy’s wardrobe, too.

Buy Now

David Beckham, Beyond

Fragrance was the final frontier for David Beckham. After a string of abysmal scents (sorry, Dave), the release of 2015’s Beyond signalled a complete 180 to fall in line with the rest of Brand Beckham. No frighteningly gauche crown motifs, no Vegas-style gold bottles; just a fragrance that packs mojito chords with warm tones of patchouli and vanilla.