Katy Perry Spills All About Her New Fragrance, Killer Queen

The last time I saw Katy Perry, it was raining glitter. She was onstage during her California Dreams tour, and I was swimming in a sea of teens in full-on, arms-in-air, dance-party mode. Katy seemed almost superhuman up there: The sparkly Candy Land–inspired set, the over-the-top costumes, the rainbow-colored hair, and, of course, that powerhouse voice.

But when we meet in person, I find her remarkably... normal. It's just four hours before the global launch event for Katy's third fragrance, Killer Queen, and I've been whisked into an airy suite in Manhattan's The Mark hotel, where the Moschinoclad superstar awaits. Like a bubbly girlfriend you haven't seen in a while, she greets me with a warm embrace and even compliments my outfit. "I love this whole bit!" Katy says sassily, wagging her finger in a figure eight. She is at once charming and sincere, kind and strong, bewitchingly beautiful and Cali-girl cool—an unusual mix of traits for a star of her caliber.

For the "Roar" singer, who grew up as the middle child in a conservative Christian household in Santa Barbara, California, attention-grabbing fashion and beauty looks have always been her way of standing out. Katy's fragrance obsession, on the other hand? That runs in the family.

"I got my love for fragrance from my father. He is the king of cologne! It's the only thing he ever wanted for Christmas," she recalls with a smile. "When we were growing up we didn't have a lot, so we would all pitch in for one bottle of cologne that would last all year." Eight multiplatinum hits later, she says, "When he turned 65, I got him a basketful of 65 fragrances."

As for her own growing collection of signature scents, "I try to make things that are special," she says, lifting up her latest creation, a ruby red, jewel-shaped bottle. While the notion of celebrity scents isn't exactly novel, it's clear that for Katy, this project was particularly personal. "I was painfully, excruciatingly involved," she remarks on creating the warm blend of wild berries and white florals.

"So what exactly is a killer queen?" I ask. "A powerful, beautiful woman—that was kind of the woman I wanted to be when I was fifteen and heard the song," she responds thoughtfully, referencing the seventies rock tune by supergroup Queen that inspired the fragrance's name. The star adds, "It's the woman I feel like I am now."