Perfume Room

My quest for high quality, great-smelling fragrance that costs less than a SweetGreen salad is never-ending, and today I chat with Greta Pagel — the Fragrance Director of the brand I think does it best: Good Chemistry. Greta leads all fragrance development and strategy at Good Chemistry and ILLUME (including perfume, personal care, and home fragrance). We discuss what happened to some of our favor...

NY’s most creative, cult-fave sister-duo Susan Alexandra and Janie Korn are in the Perfume Room today! Susan is the creator of the ever-whimsical, kitschy Susan Alexandra brand — beloved for her colorful beaded bags, jewelry, and homeware (and celeb following), and Janie is known for her often-customizable, highly-destructible sculptures [read: candles] which are the perfect mix of nostalgic, chee...

Kimberly Waters, Founder and Creative Director of MUSE Experiences, is in the Perfume Room today! Recently featured in the NYTimes, MUSE Experiences is Harlem’s only niche fragrance retailer, as well as the only fragrance retailer in the city to operate out of an actual home (on the parlor floor of Kim’s townhouse), and thus, the only perfume shop (that we know of) where, as Kim mentions, you can...

Your Fave Fragrance Auntie, Funmi Monet, is in the Perfume Room! By day, Funmi is a licensed therapist and by night— a fragrance star. She's not just a fragrance content creator, she is a fragrance creator AND a content creator. In one short year on TikTok, Funmi has amassed well over 100K followers as well as launched her own fragrance, Exalté. UM, let that sink in for a sec. Funmi shares the fra...

Fabrice Croisé, Founder of Scents of Wood (TFF Fragrance Extraordinaire 2021 winner) is in the Perfume Room today! This revolutionary fragrance brand not only pays homage to trees and nature in every scent, it also flips the script on fragrance formulation. Rather than making the alcohol an invisible ingredient (as is par for the course), in Scents of Wood fragrances, it’s the star of the sho...

If you think your perfume collection is unrivaled, meet your rival, Josie Plumey. Not only is Josie an expert in fragrance retail, buying, and distribution, but with over 570 fragrances (inclusive of many rare vintage frags and formulations), she just may have the best personal collection in all of New York! We discuss what it means to be in the perfume distribution biz—Josie is currently the Sale...

Getting an inside look at what really goes down at a Fragrance house is rare, but this week, we’ve done it. I am so honored to be joined by Firmenich Perfumer Alexis Grugeon (creator of hit scents like Ariana Grande R.E.M. and Polo Sport Fresh) and Fragrance Development Manager Segolene Dewey (TFF Notables Class of 2022). You will learn about what they each do, how they work together (and apa...

Sommelier and Creator of Legally Wined Michelle Chen is in the Perfume Room today. Not only is Michelle a Certified Somm under the Court of Master Sommeliers, she is also a lawyer in New York — a combo I trust with my life.  We discuss the ‘guilty pleasures’ of wine, sexism in the industry, how to figure out which wines you like and the descriptors you need to know to discover more, best...

Today we are joined by The 7 Virtues Founder-Extraordinaire, Barb Stegemann. Barb is also a best-selling author, motivational speaker, one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, and has been a recipient of Ernst &Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. Her background prior to founding The 7 Virtues is a unique one, as it had nothing to do with fragrance. She discusses the inspiration behind...

Perfumer, Sommelier, Activist and Clairvoyant Yosh Han is in the Perfume Room today. Yosh has been at the forefront of decolonizing scent and her activism has led to major change in the industry; across the world, major stakeholders are officially re-classifying the o-word to amber (or ambré). We discuss why this change is necessary, the progress thus far, as well as how you (yes YOU!) can get inv...

Annabel Gat — Senior Astrologer at VICE, author of The Astrology of Love & Sex and The Moon Sign Guide, and co-collaborator of the fragrance Annabel’s Birthday Cake — is in the Perfume Room today! We get the lowdown on Annabel's personal inspo behind this stunning scent, discuss the birth charts of your favorite fragrances, and, wait ok this one's wild: if you’ve been doing weird things with y...

@thenichesampl er Valerie March, one of my favorite fragrance content creators, is in the Perfume Room today. By day, she explores bio-hazardous samples (she's currently getting her PhD in Tuberculosis research in Switzerland) and by evening, niche. Valerie shares the houses you NEED to know, her fragrance wardrobe theory and the five scents in her own collection that would make the cut, the molec...

CEO & Co-Founder of Otherland Abigail Cook Stone is in the Perfume Room today talking about the ethos behind all things Otherland: verve. Don’t know what that means? You’ll find out in this episode! She also shares the personal stories behind some of your favorite candles, the magical process of how each scent gets created, the time she showed up to her kick-off investor meeting with 3 pounds...

The President of The Fragrance Foundation, Linda Levy, is in the Perfume Room today! A beauty industry veteran and champion of change, Linda makes my list of top 10 fave people ever — and I’m in good company to feel this way; Frederic Malle has described Linda as the Lady…as in Portrait of a Lady. Yes, that one. We discuss all things Fragrance Foundation — who gets to be a member, its mission, wha...

COMModity, your fav once-defunct brand, is back and *thriving* thanks to RE-Founder, Vicken Arslanian (who also happens to be the CEO and Founder of Europerfumes). In this ep, we discuss *why* COMModity, how an initially ignored LinkedIn message led to this lightning in a bottle (pun intended) opportunity, the new ScentSpace Exploration Kit, Vicken’s personal faves (and least faves), the draconian...

It's *THE* big reveal. Musician and fellow fragrance lover Sasha Spielberg (AKA Buzzy Lee) is today’s guest and we vulnerably and generously REVEAL OUR FRAGRANTICA ALIASES (followed of course by dramatic readings of our most noteworthy reviews). Sasha shares the fragrance combo that gets her endless compliments—even from people who are triple-masked, her strict 3-month fragrance rule (and the subs...

The legendary Charles Gross is today’s guest. With over 831K followers on TikTok alone, Charles has left an indelible mark on the Internet, covering everything from lifestyle, to fashion, to beauty… and he’s just getting started. He is as kind and warm as he is incisive, and first and foremost, he is a tastemaker (of course Charles was wearing Baccarat in like, Y2K, and of course his third word af...

Today’s guests are THE ULTIMATE; I am joined by Jessica Matlin and Jenn Sullivan – the co-hosts of the award-winning beauty podcast, Fat Mascara. Jess and Jenn are true industry insiders; Jess is currently the Beauty Director at Harper’s Bazaar, and Jenn was most recently Beauty Director at Marie Claire. They are – on a personal and professional level – fragrance *obsessed* and in this hour, the t...

Perfumer Marissa Zappas is in the Perfume Room today. She brings such a unique perspective as she operates as an independent perfumer, but has classical training from having been an apprentice to Givaudan's Senior Perfumer, Olivier Gillotin. We discuss her path to perfumery, what ‘niche’ means (or doesn’t) today, the scent of our parents' divorces, Marissa gives me a smell test, I smell civet for...

Yes you read that correctly. In today’s ep, I am joined by perfumer, olfactive artist, and DJ, Maxwell Williams. We discuss what anal actually smells like (spoiler alert: he created a perfume inspired by the deed), why anal is (in fact) for everyone, the appeal of animalic scents, Fragrantica trolls and we why secretly love them, and how human sex pheromones are not a thing… yet. Maxwell discusses...

Today we are joined by Mona Maine de Biran – the creator/founder of one of my absolute favorite niche houses ever, Kierin NYC. And spoiler alert, I've also been pronouncing "Kierin" wrong this entire time. We discuss the inception and journey of this fragrance house – known for its unique, high quality, affordable, cruelty-free, vegan fragrances. We also talk about Mona's process of working in tan...

Hilarious comedian and content creator Lauren Servideo is in the Perfume Room today!! You may know her as Anubis— your fave vapid 400-year-old vampire, or the greeter at Brandy Melville; maybe Ethan’s Mom or Victoria. What you might not know however, is that Lauren is a fellow fraghead, with an extensive collection. In this ep, Lauren takes us through her personal favorites, her first fragrances,...

Ashley Hosmer is a beloved content creator known not just for her amazing eye for interior design, but for her nose for candles as well. In this episode, we discuss what Ashley's home smells like, how she went from a candle lover to tastemaker, plus Ashley gives us the low-down on all the candle jargon you need to know (by the end of this episode, you'll be casually weaving words like 'tunnel,' 't...

Spoiler alert: it's ambroxan! JK, lol. Though we cannot confirm (nor deny) that such a thing exists, in today's episode, Content Creator John Gonzalez (a TikToker with over 240K followers) reveals his behind-the-scenes method and criteria for creating content. Truly, it is the closest thing I’ve heard to a foolproof formula. We also discuss John’s foray into creating fragrances, the biz of co...

David and Kavi Moltz, the husband and wife duo behind D.S. & Durga, join me in today’s episode! David is the perfumer, and Kavi is the brains behind the brand’s modern aesthetic and packaging. We talk about the origins of D.S. & Durga, which scents they’re personally wearing most, David’s process and inspiration for creating the photo-realistic scents D.S. & Durga is so well-known for...