Perfume Mists, Napoleon's Cologne, & Stéle Event

+TJ MAXX ONLINE, PERFUME NEWS ROUNDUPS

Nadia Kadri

Jul 17, 2024

Hello friends! Hope everyone is staying C00L in this crazy heat.

q of the day: can you guess where Napoleon stored his perfume bottle?

SOTD: NEST TURKISH ROSE BODY MIST thank god for perfume mists during these 100+ degree days: light, clean, fragrant, and somehow breezy…

‘FUME NEWS/EVENTS + MORE:

Fragrance & Book Launch at Stéle *TODAY* Wednesday 7/17 6-8pm.
Writer & Podcaster
Sable Yong
will be celebrating the release of her book, ‘DIE HOT WITH A VENGEANCE’ and the fragrance made with collaboration with Hoax Parfum accompanying it. A literary, olfactory love story. My pre-order of the book just got delivered as I was writing this!
Learn how to make your own candle at Maison 10 hosted by Fragrance Alliance Network’s renowned perfumer, Gus Romero, *TODAY* Wednesday 7/17 at 6-9pm.
Join Maxaroma in a black-tie event at the historic Liederkranz of the City of New York celebrating the release of The Merchant of Venice’s new EDP inspired by opera-singer Maria Callas on Friday, 7/19 7-10pm with live opera performances, scent and sip pairings, a venue tour, raffles, and more.
Really loving Korean perfumery ELOREA’s new collection, Timeless Legacy. I smelled it in the store a couple weeks ago and my favorite is GIT, a musky, fresh floral that has a perfectly balanced blend of rose, iris, and peony, and a dry down of lychee. Have you checked out their store plus cafe (!) on Spring St.?
TJ Maxx/Home Goods, etc are some of my favorite stores of all time, and the godforsaken day they cease to exist, as will I. If it couldn’t get ANY BETTER — their fragrance selection online is actually insane.
Is it the Summer of Perfume Mists?! As mentioned above, NEST New York released their iconic perfume oil scents into mists last month, Scent Lab (the customizable candle company out of NYC) added personalized perfume mists and “perfume potions” to their AI Algorithm-backed offerings. CEW Beauty also wrote about OUAI & Kopari Beauty’s recent launches into mists. You can’t simply blame TikTok trends for this — hair and body mists have always been around, they’ve always been loved, but I will say I’m enjoying this elevated version of them very much now.
Amina Mundi Apothecary is having a lot of interesting events at their participating locations including at Soho’s The Alchemist’s Kitchen this summer. (one of my favorite places to frequent recently).
Speaking of plant medicine — Local Brooklyn Apothecary Remedies Herb Shop also has some fun events and classes this summer, including herbal medicine workshops, perfume blending, and foraging walks.
Hermes is continuing their ‘Hermazing!’ series with one-of-a-kind ice cream experiences at Maison Madison 706 July 18, 24, & 30. Definitely need some ice cream this week.
Bergdof Goodman has a new hidden gem: a bespoke project in collaboration with Italian heritage brand Ginori 1735. As one of the leading brands in porcelain craftsmanship, Ginori 1735 channels artistry into sophisticated living objects, drinkware, and tableware with a mission “to forward a modern Renaissance, a rebirth and rediscovery of the pleasure, personal expression, and art of everyday life.” Now, they are continuing the expansion of the Italian maison into the lifestyle world with the opening of Café Ginori. The new Café on the lower level of the women's flagship will offer Italian-inspired staples immersed in the world of Ginori 1735's singular aesthetic. Ginori 1735 released their first home fragrance in March 2022 and is owned by United Perfumes, the company that helped expand the international presence of Trudon and Fornasetti.
Angela Hau
Speaking of beautiful stores.. I finally visited Stéle (pronounced Stell) in Williamsburg this past Saturday for the Marissa Zappas fragrance relaunch celebration. Tucked on Bedford Avenue, the new perfume boutique is not far from Brooklyn’s “perfume alley,” that houses many loved brands. But, Stéle is a breath of fresh air, and a perfume haven we did not know we needed.
As we approached the store, the sage lit outside already set the stage to help you relax into a vibe that you wanted on a Saturday. And oh, what a vibe it was. We were greeted with some bubbly, snacks, and lots of fragheads mingling and sniffing. The store is absolutely gorgeous - not just because it celebrates the art of perfumery - but because it also celebrates the art of stone masonry. Both founders, Jake Levy and Matt Belanger, have generational ties to stone masonry and they have taken special care in combining their love for it and fragrance in a unique way. The fragrances are decorated on walls, shelves, tables of stone and marble; you can see where they got their name from. Between the incense trays, marble burners and plates, you find a perfume you love and wonder if it will look just as beautiful in your home as it does on the marble.

It was quite busy, with Jake and Matt jumping between chatting with all their guests, Zappas surrounded by fans, and appearances from Sable Yong & Emma Vernon from the Perfume Room Podcast. I was especially excited to see the stone masonry and try fragrances from Clue Perfumery, Neandertal, Maison d’Etto, Fischersund and of course Marissa Zappas. They have a small team of four - shoutout to Jack, whose first day it was (and did an amazing job!), and Amarel, who was absolutely wonderful in helping me discover Ormaie Paris, BDK Parfums - I fell in love with BDK’s Gris Charnel, Ormaie’s Tableau Parisien, and St. Rose French Poetry.
As the crowd starting trickling in and I began hearing a few heavy items fall, I saw myself out as I don’t have much spatial awareness and didn’t want to be that person. I’m definitely returning on an afternoon on a random Tuesday so I can smell these fragrances quietly and enjoy them. I can’t wait. If you are wondering whether you should or should not — the answer is 100% yes, you should Stéle.
I recently attended Fragrance Alliance Network’s Perfume History class based on the smell of Power—an analysis of French perfume from Napoleon through Napoleon III. Taught by the wonderful
Daisy Bow
, the class was an intriguing journey of perfume through conquest, revolution, colonization, and execution.
We smelled some fragrances that were incredibly close to their historic counterparts— from Trudon’s Revolution, a scent that transports you to a revolutionary night of cobblestones, leather, horses, musket powder, and smoky incense to Napoleon 1, an Eau de Cologne that has been unchanged since 1819 (certified by the Osmotheque, the world's perfume archive)—a cologne water that is so faint you can barely smell the botanicals in it and thus realize how far perfumes have come in terms of strength and sillage. The clean, fresh notes tell you how much troops, including Napoleon, loved to splash it on their shoulders, necks as bathing was not always an option during time of war. Napoleon loved to conquer and fight expensive wars, but it seems he also enjoyed spending on smelling good. Apparently, he even had a custom bottle made for him that he could slip into his boots when he was out and about. We also learned of Marie Antoinette, a woman wrongfully accused of the famous line: “Let them eat cake!” and smelled what could have been her taste. There was quite a bit of discovery about the scapegoating of women and the need to attack an enemy by tarnishing a woman’s reputation.
We also sniffed a few from Rance 1795, a house with 220 years of French perfume history. One in particular, Joséphine EdP, is an ode to Napoleon’s most loved woman. It opens with a sophisticated bouquet of sensual rose, violet, warmed with vanilla, velvety amber notes, and intensified by spicy and earthy pink pepper and incense. It is a seductive, lively, timeless scent you could easily associate with an aristocratic woman — but there is a mystery, longing, and darkness that reveals itself through its spicy, sensual woody bits, which seems very much intentional and perhaps inspired by the rather somber real life story of love and loss between Napoleon and Josephine.

There were many more surprises for your nose in the class and I don’t want to spoil it all — would highly recommend taking a class, or keeping up with the Fragrance Alliance Network to catch some perfume history.