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We designed a 'Morning Edition' fragrance – and learned why perfume sales are up

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We designed a 'Morning Edition' fragrance – and learned why perfume sales are up

Customers walk-in to Olfactory NYC at their Georgetown location on Thursday May 16, 2024.

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In a well-lit storefront along the main drag of Washington D.C.’s upscale Georgetown neighborhood, Olfactory NYC CEO JJ Vittoria stands in front of a wall of perfume bottles.

The store is bustling with people on a mission to design their own fragrances. I’m here on perhaps the weirdest, and definitely most pungent, assignment I’ve ever gotten at NPR: to make a signature scent for Morning Edition and Up First.

The process at Olfactory NYC requires a lot of sniffing, and with the help of a personal scent-ologist, customers leave the store with a personalized bottle of perfume for $85.

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To capture the essence of a daily morning news radio show and podcast in the form of a scent, Vittoria suggests a base with hints of lemon, white tea and bergamot — “fresh out of the shower notes,” as he describes them.

A scent-ologist smells a tester at the Olfactory NYC in Georgetown on Thursday May 16, 2024.

A scent-ologist smells a tester at the Olfactory NYC in Georgetown on Thursday May 16, 2024.

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Perfume sales have risen since 2018.

But how are fragrance brands drawing in customers in an era of digital shopping?

A new generation of beauty product lovers are discovering fragrances on social media, and perfumers are experimenting with creative ways to move their products.

Vittoria’s new Washington D.C. store joins three locations in New York and one in Boston. Vittoria knows his way around the scents in his store, but he isn’t a perfumer by trade. He has a finance background and saw an opening in the world of fragrance for an experiential format that can educate new “frag heads,” as he calls them.

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“Fragrance can be a very sterile experience,” Vittoria said. “I just felt like there was room to change that. You come in here, it’s bright, it’s colorful, it’s supposed to be inviting. We’re supposed to just have people walk up the street and get into the world of perfumery, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Customers sit down at the counter in Olfactory NYC in Georgetown on Thursday May 16, 2024.

Customers sit down at the counter in Olfactory NYC in Georgetown on Thursday May 16, 2024.

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Lauren Goodsitt, who analyzes beauty and personal care trends for the market research firm Mintel, says Olfactory NYC’s business model has hit on something consumers are looking for right now — the desire to smell unique.

She says people who don’t have the money to create a personalized perfume will use other techniques, like layering perfumes and scented body oils, to get an individualized scent.

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“The data really does suggest that consumers are interested in customizable formats and that they are using their fragrance as a reflection of their mood as well as their individuality,” Goodsitt said. “There is this need to smell different or to want to smell unique.”

A search for “#perfumetok” on TikTok yields tips on how to get there, as well as influencers touting their favorite fragrance brands.

Some of those brands offer discovery sets, or a set of sample bottles, so customers can more easily find a scent that fits them without ever having to go to the store.

Walter Johnsen, the vice president of product development at InterParfums, says social media puts information about the world of perfume right at people’s fingertips, which is leading to growing interest in the industry. InterParfums designs fragrances for brands like DKNY and Oscar de la Renta.

JJ Vittoria, CEO of Olfactory NYC, mixes multiple oils into strips of paper at their Georgetown location on Thursday May 16, 2024.

JJ Vittoria, CEO of Olfactory NYC, mixes multiple oils into strips of paper at their Georgetown location on Thursday May 16, 2024.

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Johnsen says he’s noticing people in their late teens and early twenties buying more different kinds of perfumes and using them more often.

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“This generation is basically saying that they are buying fragrances that they feel very personal about,” Johnsen said. “They buy fragrances that make them feel good,”.

Back at Olfactory NYC, 23-year-old friends Lauren Reyes and Andrea Mariscal Guzman are working on their perfumes.

Reyes says her mom has always had a signature scent — and she wants that too, now that she’s out of college and starting her professional life.

“I think that both of my standards in which I look also have to be represented in how I smell,” Reyes said. “I can’t look beautiful and smell not beautiful.”

Customers smell some of the tester fragrances at Olfactory NYC at their Georgetown location on Thursday May 16, 2024.

Customers smell some of the tester fragrances at Olfactory NYC at their Georgetown location on Thursday May 16, 2024.

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At the Olfactory bar, CEO Vittoria and I continue our quest to capture the aura of Morning Edition in a fragrance. He blots oils onto strips of paper and I sniff the combinations he layers over our base of lemon, white tea and bergamot. We settled on adding some grapefruit notes. It brings out the citrus to conjure a fresh, breakfast-y start to the day.

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It’s a combination of scents I wouldn’t have had the vocabulary to describe before setting foot in Olfactory, but does manage to make me think of the morning news somehow.

“You do still need a bit of that touch and smell kind of experience,” Vittoria says. “Smell is something that is very animalistic. It’s something that is very core to us.”

This story was edited by Obed Manuel.

Lifestyle

In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping

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In ‘No Other Choice,’ a loyal worker gets the ax — and starts chopping

Lee Byung-hun stars in No Other Choice.

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In an old Kids in the Hall comedy sketch called “Crazy Love,” two bros throatily proclaim their “love of all women” and declare their incredulity that anyone could possibly take issue with it:

Bro 1: It is in our very makeup; we cannot change who we are!

Bro 2: No! To change would mean … (beat) … to make an effort.

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I thought about that particular exchange a lot, watching Park Chan-wook’s latest movie, a niftily nasty piece of work called No Other Choice. The film isn’t about the toxic lecherousness of boy-men, the way that KITH sketch is. But it is very much about men, and that last bit: the annoyed astonishment of learning that you’re expected to change something about yourself that you consider essential, and the extreme lengths you’ll go to avoid doing that hard work.

Many critics have noted No Other Choice‘s satirical, up-the-minute universality, given that it involves a faceless company screwing over a hardworking, loyal employee. As the film opens, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been working at a paper factory for 25 years; he’s got the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect family — you see where this is going, right? (If you don’t, even after the end of the first scene, when Man-su calls his family over for a group hug while sighing, “I’ve got it all,” then I envy your blithe disinterest in how movies work. Never change, you beautiful blissful Pollyanna, you.)

He gets canned, and can’t seem to find another job in his beloved paper industry, despite going on a series of dehumanizing interviews. His resourceful wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) proves a hell of a lot more adaptable than he does, making practical changes to the family’s expenses to weather Man-su’s situation. But when foreclosure threatens, he resolves to eliminate the other candidates (Lee Sung-min, Cha Seung-won) for the job he wants at another paper factory — and, while he’s at it, maybe even the jerk (Park Hee-soon) to whom he’d be reporting.

So yes, No Other Choice is a scathing spoof of corporate culture. But the director’s true satirical eye is trained on the interpersonal — specifically the intractability of the male ego.

Again and again, the women in the film (both Son Ye-jin as Miri and the hilarious Yeom Hye-ran, who plays the wife of one of Man-su’s potential victims) entreat their husbands to think about doing something, anything else with their lives. But these men have come to equate their years of service with a pot-committed core identity as men and breadwinners; they cling to their old lives and seek only to claw their way back into them. Man-su, for example, unthinkingly channels the energy that he could devote to personal and professional growth into planning and executing a series of ludicrously sloppy murders.

It’s all satisfyingly pulpy stuff, loaded with showy, cinematic homages to old-school suspense cinematography and editing — cross-fades, reverse-angles and jump cuts that are deliberately and unapologetically Hitchcockian. That deliberateness turns out to be reassuring and crowd-pleasing; if you’re tired of tidy visual austerity, of films that look like TV, the lushness on display here will have you leaning back in your seat thinking, “This right here is cinema, goddammit.”

Narratively, the film is loaded with winking jokes and callbacks that reward repeat viewing. Count the number of times that various characters attempt to dodge personal responsibility by sprinkling the movie’s title into their dialogue. Wonder why one character invokes the peculiar image of a madwoman screaming in the woods and then, only a few scenes later, finds herself chasing someone through the woods, screaming. Marvel at Man-su’s family home, a beautifully ugly blend of traditional French-style architecture with lumpy Brutalist touches like exposed concrete balconies jutting out from every wall.

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There’s a lot that’s charming about No Other Choice, which might seem an odd thing to note about such a blistering anti-capitalist screed. But the director is careful to remind us at all turns where the responsibility truly lies; say what you will about systemic economic pressure, the blood stays resolutely on Man-su’s hands (and face, and shirt, and pants, and shoes). The film repeatedly offers him the ability to opt out of the system, to abandon his resolve that he must return to the life he once knew, exactly as he knew it.

Man-su could do that, but he won’t, because to change would mean to make an effort — and ultimately men would rather embark upon a bloody murder spree than go to therapy.

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Austin airport to nearly double in size over next decade

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Austin airport to nearly double in size over next decade

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will nearly double in size over the next decade. 

The airport currently has 34 gates. With the expansion projects, it will increase by another 32 gates. 

What they’re saying:

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Southwest, Delta, United, American, Alaska, FedEx, and UPS have signed 10-year use-and lease agreements, which outline how they operate at the airport, including with the expansion. 

“This provides the financial foundation that will support our day-to-day operations and help us fund the expansion program that will reshape how millions of travelers experience AUS for decades to come,” Ghizlane Badawi, CEO of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, said.

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Concourse B, which is in the design phase, will have 26 gates, estimated to open in the 2030s. Southwest Airlines will be the main tenant with 18 gates, United Airlines will have five gates, and three gates will be for common use. There will be a tunnel that connects to Concourse B.

“If you give us the gates, we will bring the planes,” Adam Decaire, senior VP of Network Planning & Network Operations Control at Southwest Airlines said.

“As part of growing the airport, you see that it’s not just us that’s bragging about the success we’re having. It’s the airlines that want to use this airport, and they see advantage in their business model of being part of this airport, and that’s why they’re growing the number of gates they’re using,” Mayor Kirk Watson said.

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Dig deeper:

The airport will also redevelop the existing Barbara Jordan Terminal, including the ticket counters, security checkpoints, and baggage claim. Concourse A will be home to Delta Air Lines with 15 gates. American Airlines will have nine gates, and Alaska Airlines will have one gate. There will be eight common-use gates.

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“Delta is making a long-term investment in Austin-Bergstrom that will transform travel for years to come,” Holden Shannon, senior VP for Corporate Real Estate at Delta Air Lines said.

The airport will also build Concourse M — six additional gates to increase capacity as early as 2027. There will be a shuttle between that and the Barbara Jordan Terminal. Concourse M will help with capacity during phases of construction. 

There will also be a new Arrivals and Departures Hall, with more concessions and amenities. They’re also working to bring rideshare pickup closer to the terminal.

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City officials say these projects will bring more jobs. 

The expansion is estimated to cost $5 billion — none of which comes from taxpayer dollars. This comes from airport revenue, possible proceeds, and FAA grants.

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“We’re seeing airlines really step up to ensure they are sharing in the infrastructure costs at no cost to Austin taxpayers, and so we’re very excited about that as well,” Council Member Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) said.

The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen

Austin-Bergstrom International AirportAustin
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After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’

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After years of avoiding the ER, Noah Wyle feels ‘right at home’ in ‘The Pitt’

Wyle, who spent 11 seasons on ER, returns to the hospital in The Pitt. Now in Season 2, the HBO series has earned praise for its depiction of the medical field. Originally broadcast April 21, 2025.

Hear The Original Interview

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