Get a Whiff of This

What smells come to mind when you think of New York? We’d say park euphoria, jackhammer dust, dancefloor heat, morning-after sheets and nodding junkie. Leave it to the romantic mind of excessively French and relatively young perfumer Olivia Giacobetti to idealize New York, inventing a trio of fragrances for her all-natural, organic fragrances: I Love les Carottes, Vamp á NY and Love Coco. They smell, respectively, like sweet carrots, lusty tuberose, and coconut and coriander. So maybe she had Whole Foods in mind. €76 each for 50 ml, at Colette in Paris

But just because we dusted off that “organic perfume” line-up like it was no big thing doesn’t mean you should take the feat lightly. The fragrance industry lags behind in the green crusade, perhaps because it’s pretty difficult to make a stable fragrance that doesn’t smell pagan without some sort of chemical frame. So we applaud Liz Earle, one of our favorite eco-conscious companies, whose new and first perfume, Botanical Essence No. 1, is one of those perky herb-garden fragrances that matures and mellows as it settles. You can spray the dickens out of it and no one from HR will pull you aside for a talking-to. $78 for 50 ml, on their website

• Posted Jun 18, 2010
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