New York City’s Elizabeth Street in Nolita is home to a surprising amount of niche fragrance destinations, from Le Labo to Aesop. It’s a perfume lover’s dream, the perfect place to meander with the nose leading the way. Scent Bar, located at number 244, is a must-see. It houses a colorful collection of various niche and independent fragrances, and is designed to allow customers to try new scents in search of something truly special.
“It’s a fragrance discovery experience,” says Vijay Uttam, Director of Retail and Training. “We organize our fragrances a little differently – not by brand, but by olfactory note.”
The light and airy space is set up like a bar to encourage a casual atmosphere. Scent Bar team members ask guests a few questions to find out what they like in a perfume, then begin curating their selections, choosing three to four for each free consultation. “We have them try it on the skin,” says Uttam. Customers can experience the unfolding of notes in real time, and then make a purchase if they desire.
At Scent Bar, you’ll find TikTok-trending scents like Maison Mataha’s Escapade Gourmande (inspired by crème brulée–it smells like a crumbly vanilla cookie); Liquides Imaginaires Blanche Bête (a milky floral that marries jasmine and tuberose with tonka, cacao, and vanilla); Indult’s Tihota (an unbridled, true vanilla that smells like brown sugar and vanilla extract); and Giardini di Toscana’s Bianco Latte (an addictively lactonic caramelized vanilla–my personal favorite). If you’ve been itching to try these but don’t want to blind-buy a bottle, Scent Bar is your solution.
What do the above four scents all have in common? They’re gourmands, meaning they smell good enough to eat. According to Uttam, sweet, dessert-like gourmands with pastry notes have been most popular the past few years, and not only with fragrance experts. Niche perfume, recently, has broken through to the general population, thanks to social media platforms. Formerly little-known brands from France and Italy are becoming household names for Americans and others around the world. It’s an exciting time.
“I think that what makes fragrance really popular now is the transportive quality that it has,” says Uttam. “We hit a boom during the pandemic where a lot of people were stuck at home, ordering samples from the website.” Fragrance has the ability to transport us to another time–another scent memory–and we can do so from the comfort of our own homes.
Scent Bar was created by the founders of Luckyscent, the online niche fragrance store. Discover the above fragrances–and many more–at luckyscent.com.
