Brittany Aldean Invited Me To Her Tennessee Estate To Try Her New Fragrance Line Before Anyone Else

My mother was a flight attendant, this glamorous blonde who I’d watch get ready for her globe-trotting trips. She’d tie her silk scarf, put on her high heels, and the last thing she'd do before leaving was spray her perfume. “Beautiful” by Estée Lauder. Her scent is the first thing I think of when I picture her, and it was the first thing I'd notice when she came home from working. Everyone's always talking about someone's "aura," and perfume is the literal version of that. It reaches someone before your words do and the right one makes people want to stand closer and bask in your presence. So when Brittany Aldean reached out and invited me to her estate in Tennessee to be one of the first to try her new fragrance line before it hit the market, I couldn’t resist. My Uber driver took me to the wrong address. Somewhere in the winding hills outside Franklin, I called Brittany's assistant for directions. "Look for the American flag," she said. Then it appeared. A 150-acre estate tucked into green hills, with a barn out back that could be on the cover of Architectural Digest and a 300-pound pig Brittany once rescued from the side of the road. That pig was living the life, like if Wilbur from Charlotte's Web lived like the Budweiser Clydesdales. Brittany walked into the room polished but easy to talk to, like someone who's been famous long enough that she doesn't think about it anymore. She's a former American Idol contestant, married to country superstar Jason Aldean for over a decade, a mother, and now, a founder. The brand is VADA, a self-funded fragrance line. The story doesn't start with Brittany, though. It starts with her grandmother. "My grandma was such an inspiration in my life, and so she always made it very apparent that you need to take pride in the way you present yourself to the world," she told me after our shoot. "And I just remember sitting in her kitchen, watching her sit at her little vanity and do her makeup. And then she would finish with her perfume. It was like she sealed the deal for the day, right? She was ready to go meet people and face the world, and I just felt like that was so amazing." Her grandmother’s name was Louvada, hence VADA. Perfume wasn't so much an accessory in Louvada's routine. It was the last thing she did before she walked out the door, and that distinction is basically the whole brand. If you've followed Brittany Aldean at all in recent years, you know she received a lot of heat after thanking her parents for not changing her gender when she went through her tomboy phase as a young girl, ending with, “I love this girly life.” Her underlying belief is that children should not have a medical gender transition before the age of 18. I, for one, have said the exact same thing to my husband. I was a tomboy, a martial artist (ironically so is Brittany, I learned), and then when puberty hit, you would have thought I invented the color pink. If my parents were “progressives,” I probably wouldn’t be here, married with children. Looking back at that brief but exhausting period of modern American history that finally seems to be reversing, the outrage to such a normal, healthy sentiment seems even more unhinged. She doesn't dwell on it, and she's not asking for sympathy. She and Jason are doing fine. But when I asked whether that period shaped her decision to start a company, she was direct: "I needed to stick to my values and to be honest, it actually lit a fire under me that made me want to start my own business and make decisions for myself.” She tells me she worked on VADA during that period, and it was ultimately a blessing in the end. The collection has three fragrances, and I got to wear all of them. I took this assignment very seriously, if you can’t already tell. Here's what they actually smell like. 1924 is my favorite and I'll say it plainly: this is the showstopper fragrance. It opens bright and citrusy, then drops into hints of leather before settling into something warm and polished. It has a sharpness to it that reads slightly masculine, which is exactly what makes it interesting on a woman. Brittany called it "a sexy fragrance" and "a statement piece," and she's right. If the three scents are archetypes, she says 1924 is "The Queen. Confident and regal." Muse is the subtlest of the three and Brittany’s personal favorite. It's a skin scent: bergamot up front, rose and jasmine in the middle, sandalwood and vanilla underneath. It's the kind of scent you only catch when someone's already close to you. Brittany designed it with her mother in mind, who worked in dentistry and could never wear anything strong. "It's great for flight attendants, teachers, women who can't necessarily wear anything overbearing but it's elegant and something people will love." Her archetype for Muse: "The Mother. She represents unconditional love." Georgia Dream is the youngest-feeling of the three. Fruity, floral, a little playful. Pink pepper, apple blossom, rose, peach, vanilla bean. Brittany calls it "the fun, flirty scent" and assigns it "The Lover. She lives in the moment and appreciates beauty." If 1924 is the one that turns heads and Muse is the one for the people already close to you, Georgia Dream is just for you. It’s a youthful scent. I asked Brittany who she made these for and she didn't name a city or a demographic. "It's not geographical per se but definitely the woman who is rooted in red, white and blue and has good values. Maybe she's raising a family or building a career but is faith-based." That's a market almost nobody in beauty is talking to directly. I asked her what advice she'd give to women who want to be more courageous. "I think it's important to lead with warmth. I think there's something really awesome about feeling like you're in the presence of someone who's just happy and inviting. I hope I'm that for people. I really try to be." Leading with warmth. That's what perfume actually does if it's any good. You smell someone before you hear them, and by the time they're talking, you've already decided you like being near them. Brittany's grandmother understood that at her vanity every morning. So did my mom. I think what Brittany’s trying to do is capture that in a bottle and build a brand around it. I walked out past Betty's Barn and down the driveway where my Uber was waiting. About a minute down the road, the driver looked back at me in the rearview mirror. "I'm sorry, but what perfume are you wearing?" “Funny you should ask.” VADA launches April 9, 2026, exclusively at vadaofficial.com .