Grooming Garage: Smell Nice

There isn't a lot of middle ground when it comes to wearing fragrance: you either like to, or you don't. If I'm going to work, I don't like to leave the house without it, because you never know when you may be involuntarily squashed against someone on the T, and I'm horrified by the thought that I might smell bad to a stranger, especially during the warmer months. (It's this same reasoning that drives my effort to have mints or Listerine strips on me at all times.)

I generally don't have any interest in department-store stuff, though I have owned and worn Aramis Life and John Varvatos. For the last decade or so I've worn Banana Republic Modern off and on, which you can find these days only at BR outlet stores. I have no idea why they choose to sell it this way, but when I'm near an outlet store I usually grab a bottle or two. I also recently finished a bottle of Burt's Bees men's fragrance, which is distinctive and quite pleasant-smelling. (The Mrs. says it has a licorice note, and I think she's right.)

When I went to New York a few weeks back, one of the places on my list to visit that day was MiN, an eclectic apothecary/fragrance store that opened about a year ago on Crosby Street in SoHo. I accidentally overlooked it when we were there in November, and during the interim I read about a fragrance from Spain that I wanted to sample. It sounded like something I would like, and it's available from MiN's web site, but I couldn't imagine buying a fragrance without smelling it first.

It's called Alvarez Gomez Madrid, and it smells predominantly like lemon. (There are other fragrance notes, but I'm not good at articulating that sort of thing; you can read about them here.) The company that produces it is over 100 years old, and its products are all-natural. This sort of fragrance works well for me in the summer, because it's fresh and not at all perfumey (probably my biggest gripe with mass-market fragrances).

Even if you aren't interested in smelling lemony, MiN is still very much worth a visit. They carry a number of uncommon (and generally much more expensive) fragrance lines from around the world that are not as well-known, such as Acqua di Parma, Penhaligon's, and Santa Maria Novella, as well as several skin and hair care lines (including their own house line), razors, hair brushes, candles and home fragrances, and other sundry items of the sort you might expect to find in such a store. I recommend stopping in next time you're in New York.

And if you happen to end up standing next to me on the T this summer, I'll be the tall blond guy who smells like lemons.