Last week I threw up (seriously) at these photos of Clive Owen on location in New Zealand, filming The Killer Elite With Jason Statham. He had a 1970s porno ‘stache, and it was the worst thing ever. Our once beautiful Clive no longer looked rugged, naughty and moist (‘tis how he looks in my mind). However, bippety boppety, one week later and he shaved the f-cker off! HURRAY!!! These photos are of Clive on Tuesday in Milan, looking dashing and handsome and naughty and moist (mmm…) at an event for Bulgari. He’s the face of Bulgari’s new cologne. Of course. Clive would be my choice if I was looking for a Man to be the face of a cologne. By the way, I nicknamed my vagina “cologne”. Wait, that joke didn’t work… nevermind. Anyway, Clive? While you’re there, can you pick my up some fabulous jewelry? And then bring it to me here, I’ll be waiting. While he was in Milan, he talked to Esquire – about the World Cup, and about smelling like a man. I think I just wet myself, seriously.

At last night’s Bulgari Man fragrance launch here, the courtyard of the Bulgari Hotel transformed into a kind of scientific pathway to arouse the nose, a walking laboratory of cologne combinations. In between drinks — drinks that in more than one case matched its drinker’s outfit (see photos below) — we walked through displays to see what actually made a new scent pop like a citrus, and for possibly the first time ever we actually know what “earthy” means. The result was surprisingly light and airy.

We asked our pal Clive Owen, after chatting about England’s World Cup performance so far (not so thrilled) and extremely strong coffee (apparently it’s killer in Melbourne, where he’s been shooting), for his take: “I’m thrilled. I really like it — for real,” said the face of the Bulgari Men campaign. “It’s fresh and elegant, very tasteful. I have a problem with a lot of men’s fragrances because they are very strong. Somebody somewhere thinks that masculine means powerful smells, and I find them overbearing and not very pleasant.”

So we went to try it on ourselves, and Mr. Owen was telling no lie. The scent lingers, but in a subtle way, mellowing nicely. Which fits with his philosophy on men’s fragrances and style: “I don’t like it when people are trying too hard, that goes for clothes, for acting, for everything. It’s just not good when it seems like you’re making too much of an effort.”

[From Esquire]

Oh, f-ck me, there’s video of the event too!

Jesus, I’m seriously not going to get any sleep tonight, I’m just going to be playing out a sexual fantasy of Clive spanking me while speaking in Italian – over and over and over. Isn’t he speaking in Italian to the Bulgari people? The Italian dude asks him something in Italian and Clive responds in Italian, I think. If you want to get obsessive about it, there’s this video too. The Clive part doesn’t start until about a minute in:

This man. Good lord. One last piece of Clive news – he just recently signed on to play Ernest Hemingway in an HBO movie, Hemingway & Gellhornn. Nicole Kidman will be playing Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s third wife. If Clive has to have pretend sex with Nicole’s frozen face, I might cry.

Clive in Milan, Italy on June 22, 2010, for Bulgari. Credit: Bauer-Griffin. Additional pic courtesy of Esquire here.