I'm a big fan of all of the amazing independent designers out there. In an effort to get inside the mind of the indie designer and find out just what makes all of these creative types tick, I present to you an ongoing segment I call Indie Designer Interviews.

Fragrance designer Diane Fisher is a woman obsessed. Obsessed with one singular scent: vanilla. Only she's come up with a variety of ways to make boring old vanilla seem...well, not so vanilla. Diane recently launched a new line of perfumes called Vmagique, all based around this common scent. I interviewed her to find out more about this new project.

How did you get started creating perfumes? Several years ago I started out with my own bath and body company but I quickly realized that my passion and strength was in the creation of unusual scents. I had more and more customers requesting signature scents. Before I knew it I was creating one of a kind perfumes for my clients. It was this very passion that led me to experiment and research with new raw materials including but not limited to plant extracts, absolutes, and distillates. I became fascinated with the the various aromas I could create. I have been on a fragrance journey ever since constantly creating and reworking scent compositions. After years of working on my formulas, the Vmagique line of perfume oils was born.

Despite the advances of virtual realism in today's technology, our experience of the world in binary is still fairly, well, limited to zeros and ones. Sure, you can create a life-like avatar who can eviscerate its neighbor with disturbing accuracy or learn to dance like Justin Timberlake, but when it comes to the smells of real-life, our computers are very beta.

According to a Business Wire press release from May 2007, an innovative software company in Alabama has developed the technology to change what it is that we smell when we sit down to our computers. ScenTeck Technologies released its Scratch-N-Sniff Pro(TM) downloadable software that allows users to experience aromatherapy through their speakers.

Designed as a way to heighten the sensory experience of the computer, the Scratch-N-Sniff Pro (TM) software combines a proprietary "Scent Card" that responds to sound triggers in your hard drive. Translated in to plain English, the Scratch-N-Sniff Pro sends inaudible waves through your speakers that are translated as scents rather than sounds.

ScenTeck Technologies argues that its digital aromatherapy, which comes in scents like Mountain Breeze, Passion fruit, and Patchouli, enhances productivity. And that sounds, or rather, smells, like a great innovation if you can overlook the oddity of inhaling instead of hearing a sound.

But what do you think? Would you want to smell sounds from your computer or would that be just a little too Meet-the-Jetsons for you?

(Full Disclosure: Uh, if this is a viral marketing campaign and not a real product, consider me duped!)

Just what you've always wanted! Now you can smell like your favorite pop diva with M, the new fragrance from Mariah Carey.

As an added bonus, she got naked for the ads -- just like she did for that less-than-alluring magazine cover last week. Can this woman not keep her clothes on? Although, it is worth noting that she looks about 20-years-old in this photo, no doubt due to the same magical Photoshop wizards that made Britney Spears look half-way decent in the press photos for her latest fragrance.

I have no idea what the new perfume smells like, and I won't be purchasing it to find out, but according to Elizabeth Arden (the manufacturer), the fragrance "translates the beauty of her musical notes into a fragrance that embodies her warmth, sensuality and glamour."

So if that's your thing, you can buy your own bottle of M here.

Remember that lady you passed on the street who's perfume was so foul that it made you gag for the next three blocks? Apparently she works in the planning department for the city of Detroit, and her co-workers aren't happy about it.

Either that, or Susan McBride is a big wuss. She's the one filing a lawsuit against the city, saying that -- due to her sensitive schnoz, and the inescapable stench of her co-worker's fragrance -- her work environment is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

McBride is looking for unspecified damages, and a ban on scents at work.

Normally I'm not a huge fan of petty legislation like this, but I can't stand it when you can smell a person's perfume (or cologne, for that matter) from across the room. It's gross, it's a public offense, and it needs to be stopped. So I saw go Susan! Win that lawsuit, and teach your stinky co-worker a lesson!

Perfume is supposed to attract, so what should we make of a perfume that is meant to resist?

A new scent sold in Lebanon was created for precisely this purpose. Only instead of resisting the people on the street with an unpleasant smell, "Resistance Perfume" makes good on its name with an oppositional political agenda.

Decorated with a photograph of Hezbollah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the perfume is said to be strong and musky. In addition to the photograph of Nasrallah, the packaging of "Resistance Perfume" contains a digitally manipulated image of a sinking ship meant to represent the Israeli warship which was damaged by an Hezbollah missile.

The perfume is sold for $1, and while it has marketed as a unisex product, Resistance Perfume is mostly worn by men.

I tend to switch out my fragrances by season. Summer is for citrusy and fruity scents, while during the winter I prefer heavier scents with a sandalwood or amber note. But I didn't realize until recently that I usually end up switching soaps too. In the summer time, I tend to go for lemon, rose or lavender. Once the weather starts getting chillier my choices shift toward the minty or spicy options. Some of my favorites for the chillier months include:

1. Sappo Hill Oatmeal Soap: It's cheap, it's good for your skin and it smells like oatmeal cookies.
2. My Beautiful Soap Pumpkin Spice: They sell this at my local market, it has a great pumpkin pie scent.
3. South of France's Rosemary Mint: The mint smell and slight cooling effect makes it a bracing choice on a sleepy winter morning.
4. Philosphy's Hot Toddies Collection: apple cider, eggnog and cocoa soaps, yum.
5. Singing Olive: I haven't tried these yet but the collection of wreaths and snowmen could put a grinch in a festive mood and come in scents like peppermint and "Christmas splendor."

When I think of someone who "rocks", silver-haired Ralph Lauren is about the last person who comes to mind. But that hasn't discouraged his company from trying to create a hipper, younger, fresher image with Ralph Lauren's newest fragrance, dubbed "Ralph Rocks!" (I giggle every time I say it. I can't help it.)

According to executive Signe Gammeltoft, Ralph Rocks! is geared towards that edgy, rebellious teenage girl, who's a little too unconventional and free-spirited for any of the other three Ralph Lauren fragrances. A citrus floral creme scent, Ralph Rocks! has nodes of passion fruit, kiwi, freesia and amber that, all in all, sound pretty yummy. Packaged in a bright orange bottle, the new perfume du jour will be available in 2,700 department stores starting in February of 2007.