Kylie talks love, confidence and the smell of success with Cosmo’s Beauty Director Ingeborg van Lotringen

Poured into a black YSL shirt dress and gold-zipped stilettos, Kylie is perched in her very French hotel room, surveying the display of pink glitterball-shaped bottles of her latest perfume on the gilt coffee table. “I feel as if I’m doing an infomercial!” she squeals, before cooing over the bottles’ dinkiness and pinkness.

            The perfume has been christened ‘Showtime’ – it’s fruity and floral, with a musky base and tangy berry top notes that add a bit of dazzle, The idea is it reflects the roar of the crowd and all the lights coming on at once at the start of the show, distilled in a bottle. “We’ve done it as best we can,” smiles Kylie. “If you could capture the instant when you burst onto stage in any form, let alone a fragrance, performers wouldn’t keep going out on the road. The high you get is irreplaceable.”

            Can she describe what it feels – and smells – like? “ I can smell my hair products, my clothes, my moisturiser… The routine of getting my hair and makeup done helps me focus,” she explains. “ My inner stage clock is activated when I hear the crowds coming into a venue, and it helps that I wear in-ear monitors because I’m closed off in my own world, concentrating on the task at hand. Then, it’s time for the long walk to the stage, the chanting crowds, the band striking up and my adrenalin taking over.

            “This scent pretty much catches that moment and, to me, represents the connection between me and my audience. And it has even more resonance because I started working on it just as I was coming back to the stage after cancer. It really reflects a memorable period in my life.”

            The launch of her third perfume in the space of a year, tied in with promoting an album, a line of bedlinen, a summer tour and umpteen other projects, could be seen as evidence of a woman seeking refuge from her demons in a relentless work schedule. But contrary to what some newspapers would have you believe, Kylie doesn’t strike me as someone left reeling by illness and boyfriend troubles. Instead, she comes across as someone who wants to get on with her life.

            “It’s like New Year’s resolutions, isn’t it?” she says when I ask if any of her priorities have changed since her breast cancer went into remission two years ago. “You’ve got your great to-do list and then, as life returns to normal, you slip into old habits. But what counts now is my new motto: ‘Why not?’ It you want to do something, do it, and stop dithering.”

            This applies as much to her personal as her professional life, it seems. “A good relationship should enhance your life, not take anything from it,” she smiles. “So if you asked me what I’d miss most about being single if and when I fell in love again the answer would be nothing. I wouldn’t give up anything… apart from wardrobe space!”

            And what requirements does this life-enhancing man need if he wants to catch her eyes? “Well, I’d probably lean towards someone dark and handsome,” she laughs. “Charisma’s important, but you can’t put your finger on that, you just know it when you see it. And humour goes a long, long way, too. Also, he’d need to know about the world I inhabit or be very understanding about my life. I imagine I’m not easy to date because of all the attention and strong.”

            Kylie herself never wants for confidence – or so it seems. How does she turn it on for the world when there are surely days when she tools like hiding under the duvet? “Oh God, sometimes I have to take it. I really do!” she says. “To an extent. I’m still winging it at times, but that’s what makes live performances so rewarding. Part of the fun, now that people believe in my abilities, is living up to their expectations. I’ve got all my experience and techniques to rely on now, and I know that whatever happens, whether it’s a technical hitch or a freak virus, I’ll pull it off. Insecurity is par for the course, but I overcome it by accepting that deep down I know what I’m doing.

            “Something that I read once and really relate to is, ‘There’s no short cut to learning your craft,’ and it’s so true. Confidence comes from trusting your instincts and knowing that you’ve earnt your self-belief through sheer hard work.”

            Ah yes, the Kylie Minogue work ethic. Was she born determined? “ It’s who I am and I can only think that it comes from my parents because my brother and sister are the same,” she explains. “ I come from a humble background and my parents worked really hard. So we know we just had to gat on with it and warn a living when we left school – I got an agent when I was 17.”

            What’s the best piece of advice she’s ever been given? “My dad spent years telling me I can say no sometimes – that I have a choice. It’s taken me a long time to get my head around that. But my biggest inspiration is probably my mum,” she says. “Not so much in words but in action.” Kylie’s mum, Carol, helps with her wardrobe when she’s on tour, but makes so little fuss that most of the crew don’t know who she is.

            Unsurprisingly, when I ask whether she can remember a time when she was truly happy, her thoughts go straight to her family. “I was eight or nine, with my brother and sister in summer. We had a pool in the garden and we’d lie on the hot concrete and leave our bikini prints on the ground. Then we’d eat watermelon. That was happiness.”

            ‘happiness’ by Kylie Minogue… If she’s planning a fourth fragrance, she’s already found its name!

            Kylie Minogue’s perfume, Showtime is available now, from £21.