Bath & Body Works is hoping to entice you into its stores this weekend with an offer of a free bottle of a new fragrance.

It's called Beautiful Day Eau de Toilette, and you'll receive a free .24 oz. bottle.

Today's freebie is a really, really nice one that I found in way back in one of my file cabinet drawers. It's Vera Wang's Look perfume spray, a perfect scent for a strong, confident woman who likes sophisticated fragrances with a lot of layers. Look has notes of lychee, Golden Delicious apple, lily, freesia, jasmine, vanilla, skin musk, oak moss and patchouli.

It would work ok for day wear, but I think it's more of a seductive scent that's ideal for night.

In department stores, this sells for $70. But it's free to the first person who leaves their e-mail address and tells me what city Vera Wang was born in.

Welcome back to the freebies!

Today's first freebie is really good one, especially if you love perfumes. It's Estee Lauder's Pink Coral fragrance, which is, honestly, quite lovely with notes of apple blossom, sweet peas and camellias. Ahh.
Really, it's a scent that you can wear throughout the year, not just in summer!

It retails in department stores for $39.50. But it's free here. Just be the first to post your e-mail address!

Check back throughout the day. I've got more to give away! And if I owe you a freebie from before maternity leave, don't worry. I'll get to it as soon as I figure out where all the products got to on my new desk!

I know. I know. I was skeptical too.

Perfume from a company best known for its jeans?

But True Religion for Women is serious perfume. It's clean and refreshing, not flowery or spicy. It has notes of pear blossom and musks that make it sensual but still still appropriate for day or night.

Even better than the smell, though? The bottle. Oh my. It's a beauty, with a big faux diamond in the middle of it. Really, it's a work of art in a Western-cowboy sort of way.

Cost at stores is $59. But it's free at the Fashion Plate to the first person to post on this blog. Don't forget to leave your e-mail address.

In honor of Lilly Pulitzer's upcoming 50th anniversary, we have the perfect Friday Freebie: a 1.7 ounce bottle of Beachy, one of the company's new fragrances.

And if anything says Palm Beach sunshine, this is it.

First the bottle. Did you have any doubt that it wouldn't be cute, cute, cute? It made of light blue glass with a lime green and light blue floral print silk ribbon around the neck.

The parfum has -- get this -- notes of "watermelon, sunny citrus and marine air accord."

Marine air accord? If you know what this is, do tell.

It also has jasmine blossom, tiare flower, lush frangipani, a blend of sea crustals, golden amber and sweet vanilla.

At department and specialty stores, cost is $48.

It's free here! But only if you are the first one to post on this blog entry. Don't forget to leave an e-mail address.

 I wrote in today's paper about a new perfume that alleges to have captured "the essence" of UNC Chapel Hill.

Sorry, the story isn't a scratch-n-sniff, but you can still read it here. 

The idea in creating a collegiate perfume is to capture scents that make folks nostalgic for their alma mater and their college days.

I needed an expert, so I asked Chandler Burr to chime in on this. Burr is the perfume critic for the New York Times.

Yes, really.

I didn't catch up with Chandler before today's story ran, but he was nice enough to call and leave me a message. Essentially, he said colleges, their campuses and their locations, have distinct things about them - colors, themes, characteristics - that all play into a scent.  Perfume makers would consider all of that when trying to come up with a college-centric scent.

He said in part: 

"It isn't, in fact, a stretch to make a scent that makes people nostalgic for their college days. If you went to college in the 80s, it was Drakkar Noir. If you went to Yale, there's an Ivy smell. Of course, if you went to San Diego State, it would be a lot different than if you went to Harvard."