{"id":362553,"date":"2025-11-07T16:31:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T16:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/362553\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T16:31:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T16:31:17","slug":"new-york-citys-olfactory-aims-to-keep-fragrances-accessible-through-custom-perfume-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/362553\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s Olfactory aims to keep fragrances accessible through custom perfume experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Olfactory's\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Olfactory\u2019s founder JJ Vittoria (right) spoke with amNewYork about keeping fragrances accessible for the average consumer.<\/p>\n

Photos courtesy of Olfactory<\/p>\n

What started as a way to make high-end fragrances available to the average consumer has grown into a custom experience that continues to expand across the country.<\/p>\n

Olfactory was founded seven years ago in New York City by JJ Vittoria with the intention of making high-quality luxury fragrances accessible and fun. Not only did Vittoria want to make the product have an accessible price point, but he wanted to give consumers access to how perfume is made.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had always had a passion for fragrance, and I had that family in the business, so I got to get all these little samples as a kid and played around with them. I always thought that there was a big difference between that side of things, which was more of the lab aspect of fragrance, where the perfumers worked and what they created, and what you saw in the retail experience of fragrance,\u201d said Vittoria. \u201cI wanted to make something that was at the same time fun but also a little educational and spotlighted the art of perfumery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who shop at Olfactory are able to completely customize their our fragrance that embodies their favorite scents. When you walk into an Olfactory store, you are immediately greeted by an employee who will take you through the customization process.<\/p>\n

Customers will start by picking out their favorite base scent, which were created by master perfumers and cover a wide range of scents found in perfumes. The base scents are available for purchase on their own if you so choose.<\/p>\n

\"Olfactory's<\/a>Olfactory\u2019s wall of base scents.Photo courtesy of Olfactory<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really wanted to have a line of fragrances that had to accomplish a couple of things. One, [they\u2019re] great fragrances on their own, so they don\u2019t have to be changed. Two, they cover the general spectrum of perfumery,\u201d said Vittoria. \u201cYou can never cover everything, but you want to have a couple of floral, a couple of aquatics, and some woods, and just to generally keep that and then have fragrances that can be built upon in ways that make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once you pick your base fragrance, you work with an Olfactory staff member to find the right scents to tailor your perfume to your preferences. Then, you can personalize your label to truly make it your own with several colors to choose from and have your own words stamped on it. The custom scent process costs $85 per perfume.<\/p>\n

Vittoria says that during the process, you may feel like you\u2019re taking in a lot of smells, but you\u2019re only scratching the surface.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the end of it, you\u2019ve smelled a lot, but you\u2019ve only smelled maybe 19 different scents total. Then at that point, you\u2019ve got a beautiful blend after only that many smells, and that\u2019s a pretty good process as opposed to just an unending number of scents that you could smell,\u201d said Vittoria.<\/p>\n

Olfactory currently has three stores in New York City, in the West Village (355 Bleecker St.), Nolita (281 Mott St.), and Williamsburg (101 N 10th St.). The brand has also grown to have stores throughout the country, with locations in Washington, D.C., Boston, Miami, Dallas, and Atlanta.<\/p>\n

\"Olfactory's<\/a>Olfactory\u2019s customization bar in their Williamsburg store.Photo courtesy of Olfactory<\/p>\n

Vittoria told amNewYork that though Olfactory was technically founded seven years ago, the brand had to restart in 2021 post-COVID with the opening of the Nolita store.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a new brand and we had an online store, which was mostly just people reordering fragrances they had before. Things went to zero in the store and we almost shut down the business completely,\u201d said Vittoria. \u201cWe started to really take off after that. We opened our second store in 2022 and now we have 9 in 2025, so really that\u2019s been the period of growth those last three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olfactory\u2019s online store has options for buying scents, lotions, body washes, candles, and scent palettes. Customers can still choose to customize their scents online, with a three-step process that you can purchase if you\u2019re starting from scratch, or you can reorder a scent you made in-store.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The shop also recently launched\u00a0its holiday collection<\/a>, which features limited-edition holiday scents, a scent-based Advent calendar, and a build-your-own gift set.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Olfactory's<\/a>Olfactory\u2019s holiday collection.Photo courtesy of Olfactory<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat ends up happening is people start wearing things all around the season, but it is nice to have a wardrobe. What\u2019s been awesome to see is people come and make a custom scent and then they make another custom scent because they feel like the one that they made is actually really great for a daytime scent, but now they can come and make one that they feel is more for nighttime,\u201d said Vittoria. \u201cThat\u2019s some that, in the US at least, has not been a thing for a long time. People have one scent that they will wear. But in Europe and the Middle East, people have a wardrobe of scents. There\u2019s no reason why you should have different scents for different times.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Olfactory continues to grow, in New York or beyond, Vittoria hopes to continue to spread the education around perfumery and help customers, whether they have never worn perfume before or are seasoned wearers, love the art of perfumery.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York is always our home. I love being in the stores and watching customers and how they enjoy the process. What\u2019s so great for us is the fact that so many of our customers are new to perfumery, they\u2019re new to fragrance,\u201d said Vittoria. \u201cThat experience aspect, it brings people in who are like \u2018Oh, I don\u2019t really like fragrance, I never wear fragrance, but I\u2019ll come for the experience.\u2019 And they become perfume lovers after the fact, and that\u2019s the really rewarding part of it, is watching people who\u2019ve become lovers of fragrance.<\/p>\n

For more information, to book an in-person experience or to purchase online, visit olfactorynyc.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olfactory\u2019s founder JJ Vittoria (right) spoke with amNewYork about keeping fragrances accessible for the average consumer. Photos courtesy…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":362554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,114176,175846,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,175847,98906,2107,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-362553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fragrance","10":"tag-jj-vittoria","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-olfactory","18":"tag-perfume","19":"tag-shopping","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115509375195381409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}