SCENT AND THE CITY
All great love affairs involve unforgettable scents and the eras they defined.
Written by SABLE YONG
Illustration by DONALD ROBERTSON
They say, famously, if you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere. For native New Yorkers, this is one of those tricky doctrines that’s technically not untrue, but is usually followed by several invisible asterisks: one is a talent for adaptability, and another is a healthy sense of humor. Your definition of “making it” will likely reinvent itself more than once over your years as an inhabitant (and usually every time you move apartments).
New York also happens to be a very odorous place. Its range is impressive in breadth: the summer sun beating on fish market-soaked sidewalks of the Lower East Side, the perfumed air wafting out of the lobbies of the many hotel doors, the honeysuckle vines creeping around a chain link fence on the sidewalks—it’s all a spectrum. My personal activating scent is the Nuts-4-Nuts cart; the warm, sugary scent of roasting almonds makes me levitate in its direction like a cartoon. I think about scent the way many people think about diet macros or Love Island couplings, which is to say, daily and often with outsized emotional reaction.
I’ve parlayed my obsession with scents into a career in beauty as an editor and writer for the past 13 years, and as co-host of the scent-centric podcast Smell Ya Later. I’m lucky to have access to so many beautiful fragrances, many of which represented an era, who I felt I was during that time, and how we defined cultural context then. As I’ve just crossed the threshold of my fourth decade alive—and it’s fall, which always makes me a bit wistful—I’m taking inventory of the past years I spent finding myself here, and what those times smelled like. It’s not always been glamorous or easy, but we’ve had a lot of fun. From my first railroad apartment in East Williamsburg, to my second apartment bedroom in a well-situated but window-less (probably illegal) sublet, to my current beautiful apartment all my own… in a fifth-floor walk-up, it’s clear that friction is a feature, not a bug here.
If you need convincing, I always think of the lore of Madonna moving to NYC in 1978 with $35 to her name — and look at her now! Known to wear Robert Piguet Fracas, she’s said recently in Interview Magazine that her “main” scent is Frederic Malle’s Portrait Of A Lady. The dark, smoky rose scent is popular amongst fashionable crowds for a reason—it’s an exquisite floral that’s a little bit dirty as well.
There’s only one Madonna, though, and recreating her path to greatness isn’t exactly super replicable. But we can smell like her, at least—you can never have too many lucky charms in your arsenal. For me, that’s always been perfume. Perfume has always been my ideal charm for suspending that disbelief, a way to channel whatever persona will grant me the energy to make it here. Certain fragrances will have me walking harder, making demands, wafting my will out into the universe. It’s an invisible force field of aura, one that draws good energy towards you (usually in the form of compliments), radiating your presence to loom larger than the sum of your parts. And considering this city’s landscape keeps you in the mix amongst the people, that’s a lot of chance opportunities for meet-cutes, head-turning entrances, and (pedestrian) traffic-stopping encounters. There really is no better way to experiment with fragrance than to live through it.
Perfume will really show you who you could be, removed from your idea of who you think you’re supposed to be. Sometimes that’s a warm and inviting spicy amber, and sometimes that’s a sheer, fluffy cashmere musk. Perfume is especially good for creating a duality of perception, like wearing a feminine, chiffon dress and spraying on a smoky, leathery scent. Try Perfumehead’s 1360. It’s a warm, grassy leather that may read a bit Wild West upon first spray before it dries down into a velvety, effervescent crush of Moroccan rose, black pepper, moss, and osmanthus. (I’m likely wearing Doc Martens under that chiffon dress too). This kind of masculine-coded but deeply complex scent with a polished grit was exactly the kind of fragrance I was wearing in my early days as a beauty editor, when going against convention was what made perfume cool.
Don’t worry, though, I am indeed like other girls! I’m not immune to smelling pretty for pretty’s sake. But when I do, I prefer it to be a multi-textured, layered experience. Contrapposto’s Melting Flowers has an almost psychedelic way of depicting a bouquet of florals, as if they’re made of milky wax. It’s a great scent to wear when showing a generous amount of skin because it really sings with body heat. The way it intermingles with the salt and sweat on your skin evokes a creamy, lactonic quality that makes me salivate. This scent could easily be categorized as a hot-girl scent, as it evokes the kind of person (we all know one) for whom doors open automatically, the exact thing they were just craving falls into their lap, and they can most often be heard saying, “Wow, everyone here is soo nice.” Yet as annoyingly blessed as they are, their presence is a pleasure. Some people are just charmed like that. Naturally, you’d want to cop their perfume so you too can catch some of that heat. This is a perfect scent to wear in the kind of situations when you wish you had the perfect comeback—like, say, running into an ex (always a threat in this city). A lingering trail of Melting Flower needs no punctuation.
You can only be an ingenue in New York City for so long, though (one calendar year). If you haven’t found your footing, someone else will—this is not a city for the wide-eyed and empty-headed. Learn from them! I’ve always admired a brassy dame, someone with tons of stories and life experiences, and the closet to show for it. They are audaciously fabulous and steadfastly adamant, their age of unknown provenance, as is their vast collection of vintage couture. They are definitely wearing MME Grey. It’s an opulent, big-hearted floral, heavy with dew but glisteningly multi-faceted like a crystal (allegedly—the scent profile particulars are a mystery). It’s a deeply glamorous fragrance for a deeply glamorous figure. I see this type of woman almost exclusively above 57th Street. I almost break my neck trying to peek into the parlor windows of her townhouse. Hey, a girl can dream, right?
I’ve never been an Uptown girl, but it’s fun to visit — to wander around the part of New York City most rom-coms romanticize. (Gossip Girl was basically a five-season campaign for the Upper East Side.) The streets widen with townhouses and historic residences, and there’s a more peaceful hush buffered by Central Park’s green oasis. Uptown runs at a less hurried speed than its southern neighboring communities. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always felt more energized downtown, which always has a bit too much going on. I have a sweet spot for my nightlife years (circa 2009-2014) spent in dark, humid basement venues in the Lower East Side and East Village. Each night of the week promised a different party, reliably attended by attractive locals who, at the time, I longed to be a member of, before realizing I was living on more of a Bushwick budget. Those parties weren’t known for their alluring aromas, but the mix of sweat, cigarettes, booze, and bar floor felt acutely electrifying. Specifically, the smell of the cool night air right before sunrise, when the afters are winding down, and there’s a prickly chill of goosebumps under the t-shirt of your impromptu dancefloor date. The scent of sleepy, unguarded affection (if he’s a gentleman, he’d have draped his leather jacket around your shoulders at that point) is intoxicating. It’s a downy, musky, mineral sweetness, faded cigarette smoke—or was that Japanese incense? It’s romantic in a quiet way. It’s the scent of Discotheque’s Next To Me Or Nothing.
I can’t actually remember the last time I stayed up to see the sun rise (or when I felt alive on less than seven hours of sleep). Now that I’m an adult —at least on paper—watching a new generation of young people moving to New York City and finding their way, I want to say to them: whatever happens will lead you exactly where you’re meant to be! Stay curious; it’s the detours that are often the most rewarding. And don’t concern yourself with what other people might think—New Yorkers are famously self-involved. It might seem like it’s impossible to make it here without a trust fund or whatever it is Madonna had to do to make it (pact with the devil, perchance?). But a healthy dose of delulu, self-confidence, main character syndrome, belief in one’s own ultimate fate—call it what you will—find a way to reliably channel that, and you’ll make it just fine. Did you know that Vyrao’s Ever 11 was made for this express purpose? Nobody really knows where confidence comes from, but this perfume might. Its delicious blend of black cherry, pink pepper, rose, leather, and vanilla is slightly witchy, darkly sexy, and neuroscience-endorsed to enhance self-esteem by 97%!
Normally, I’d say if anyone tries to sell you bottled luck in this city, run in the other direction. But, as previously stated, that happens to be exactly what perfume is for.
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Sable Yong is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY. A former Allure beauty editor, her writing can also be read in Vogue, New York Magazine, High Snobiety, GQ, The Guardian, Airmail, and more. She is the author of Die Hot With A Vengeance: Essays On Vanity and co-hosts the podcast Smell Ya Later.
