United Scents of America is a small company offering fragrances dedicated to the various United States of America. For its debut in 2011, United Scents rolled out an initial line of five fragrances: New York, New Jersey, California, Florida, and Texas. The company's press release states, "Everyone comes from somewhere, has a sense of belonging and calls some place home. United Scents of America is meant to to evoke nostalgia for the individual United States of America."
The idea of location-inspired fragrances is nothing new, but it still seems to have plenty of "mileage": from classic evocations of the City of Light, like Yves Saint-Laurent Paris (and, even earlier, Midnight in Paris) to the recent airport-coded creations of The Scent of Departure, we're offered opportunities to fantasize and to remember through travel-oriented fragrances. Even smaller houses like Bourbon French have focused on their scents of their hometowns (such as New Orleans). Of course, the tricky thing about this genre is that every person has his or her individual memories and expectations linked to a particular place.
Let's start with New Jersey, where I was born, grew up, and have resided on and off for a significant percentage of my life. Like many a Jersey native, I've gone through a love/hate relationship with my home state, ending up on the side of love. (Feel free to cue up some Bruce Springsteen here.) United Scents' New Jersey combines notes of fresh buttered popcorn, cotton candy, caramel, coconut, vanilla extract, peach, patchouli, and musk in an olfactory homage to Jersey Shore culture. Even though I don't regularly go "down the Shore," I've been there recently enough to assign a very specific location to this fragrance: it reminds me of the Asbury Park boardwalk where it cuts through the historic Convention Hall. Inside the Hall, beside the various souvenir stands, a vendor sells hot flavored popcorn that scents the entire arcade with its warm, salty-sweet aroma. If you buy some you can eat it as you walk back out onto the boardwalk, into the sunlight and the crowd of Coppertone-coated beach-goers.
United Scents of America's New Jersey is definitely a gourmand fragrance. Its first hour or two is a potent haze of caramel popcorn: it's so realistic that anyone nearby might think the wearer really was carrying some treats in her purse. There's also a dose of a buttery coconut (for the suntan lotion!) and syrupy vanilla. This particular sweet-on-sweet development is a bit too close to Pink Sugar for my taste, but if you're a fan of dessert-y perfumes, you'll want to try this one. Then, a few hours after I'd applied New Jersey, I really did enjoy the nuzzly vanilla-musk dry-down, which reminded me of warm milk. The scent had drifted away from the Shore, but it had become subtler and more comforting.
Have you made any Jersey-related jokes yet, by the way? Even my husband (who should know better!) teased, looking over my shoulder at the title of this review, "What does New Jersey really smell like? the Turnpike?" Well, ha hah, yes---but for me, a child of central NJ, it also smells like freshly-mowed suburban lawns and blacktop driveways, the air-conditioning of shopping malls, the chalk dust and hairspray and freshly printed "ditto" sheets of my public school, so on and so forth; you get the idea. That's what I mean about personal associations with any particular place. United Scents' New Jersey does remind me of Asbury Park, but that's certainly not the entire sum of my Jersey experience.
I've "visited" two other "states" from the United Scents collection so far. New York, which made the weakest impression of the three, has a strong apple top-note that must be an homage to "the Big Apple." (But hasn't DKNY Be Delicious already worked that angle? Not to mention that Bond no. 9 has pretty much cornered the market on the smells of New York City and the surrounding region.) After its top-heavy apple opening, New York features a nose-tickling strain of ozonic notes and a peach-melon-kiwi fruit-salad heart; not my thing, basically, although it will seem familiar and possibly pleasant to anyone who usually buys her perfumes at any of New York's many Sephoras.
Lastly, Texas is a gender-neutral blend of bright citrus (mostly orange) and sheer woods with an interesting cedary base. I might have expected a stereotypically big, showy floral or something that evoked dusty earth and woodsmoke (like Tauer Perfumes' Lonestar Memories), but this take on Texas will probably please a broader audience than something along either of those lines. Overall, I'm thinking of United Scents of America's fragrances as olfactory postcards. They don't say everything there is to say about a particular place, but they offer snapshots with wide appeal, and they would work well as souvenirs or gifts.
Is there any fragrance that reminds you of a place where you've lived or traveled? Feel free to tell us in the comments.
United Scents of America New Jersey, New York, and Texas are available for $58 (1.7 oz.) each at the United Scents of America website. Florida and California fragrances are also available.
Oregon: Coffee, hops, bacon and pine.
Hm… I would wear something like that in cooler weather, actually… as long as the bacon note wasn’t *too* prominent! 😉
Coffee, pine and hops makes total sense, but I had a different experience with bacon in Oregon: Seems like only transplanted Southerners (my husband) and foreigners (myself) eat bacon in Oregon without a fear of being bullied 😉
Oh, right, there’s always that. 😉
Jessica: Thank you. Thank you. One thousand times, Thank you!
I live in California, but I’m from and “of” New Jersey. I’m from Mercer County, but lived for many years in Ocean County and actually did spend much of every summer ‘down the shore’, including plenty of high school sojourns to Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk. I’ll be back for vacation in a little over a week. 😉
Not sure I want to smell like caramel corn, but thanks for the review and being such a defender of The Motherland. I wouldn’t have minded something that smelled like Jersey Tomato Leaf, but that’s probably a harder sell. Actually, my favorite Jersey smell is probably the delicious humid summer sea breeze when I’m crossing the causeway with the windows rolled down, going to the family bungalow in Surf City, Long Beach Island. I’ll take CSP Aqua Motu for that scent memory, though.
The other two you reviewed sound sort of generic, but it was cool to read the review; I hadn’t heard of this line.
Oh, LBI! I’ve been there two or three times. Very nice! I like your pick of CSP Aqua Motu, too.
Readers outside the USA might not know this, but NJ is very commonly the butt of jokes. I don’t know when that tendency started, and I’ve never understood it, even though I’ve lived in a few different states by now. And the people making fun of NJ rarely hail from anywhere particularly glamorous, either. It’s just a worn-out trope. (And, unfortunately, certain TV shows keep encouraging it…)
So, Joe, you are welcome! Just doing my part. 😉
Those “Jersey Shore” folks are actually New Yorkers. (Apparently the producer grew up at the shore and wanted to make a show about a certain type of obnoxious tourist).
There are few prominent energy facilities right near the Jersey turnpike whose emissions can be pretty sulpheric, and for many people that is their impression of New Jersey. (May be we can re-brand that co-generating plant as energy efficient use of resources). Ironically the state also has a large fragrance and flavor industry; that aldehyde or berry flavor for your new soda might well come from here.
I, am from Mercer County, an area of New Jersey which is remarkable for a superabundance of deer and Nobel Prize winners, and extremely well educated movie stars. (Is there a Jimmy Stewart cologne? If so, I want it).
I guess that means that any scent post card of this area would have to some musk (representing the deer), some “eccentric molecules” (for all those physicists) and some hemlock, which is pretty much the only plant that can survive all those deer.
Dilana! I love the idea of a “Route 1” fragrance that tips its hat to all the flavor-and-fragrance industries and pharmaceutical headquarters along the highway.
It’s true, certain stretches of NJ, like that that cluster of industrial plants near the Turnpike and the Parkway in north Jersey, are, well, pungent… but there’s also something weirdly sublime about them if you see their smoky towers all lit up at night.
One funny little thing about this line: it says that it’s “proudly made in New Jersey,” or something like that. So are many of the French-branded parfums that we purchase in the US, right? 😉
as a burlington county native, I too love the idea of a route 1/princetonian scent! I can picture it exactly as you described!
When I was young, my mother and I regularly visited one of her friends who lived near Pemberton. My smells of Burlington County are the old wood furniture of the friend’s antique shop, and the lemon oil she sold for keeping wood polished, and the tomato plants and chicken coop in her backyard!
small world jessica! I lived in pemberton twp during childhood (browns mills actually). Although I don’t have the same scent association as you!
…but Jersey has lots of lovely farmland. Little farms, fences of daisies and then — boom — Atlantic City just appears out of nowhere. It’s so fun. I loved the smell of orange bain de soleil, popcorn and salt that was swirling around on the boardwalk, enar all the cool psychics shops. And then, there’s the smell of the boardwalk and all the old, historic signs that are still used alongside the modern ones, wood long dried by salt and sun.
I though NJ was fabulous. I loved Atlantic City for its historical associations and that despite Trump’s perseverence, it isn’t an entirely gentrified beach city. It’s has a genuine, old school, seaside ambience. But weirdly enough, the one thing I did pick-up, was a distinctly caramel smell after the NYC smog was left behind. Not honey-roasted nuts kind of caramel smell, like a breeze of just hot sugar permeated the air. Odd.
Connecticut should probably smell like pine needles, really old wood/oiled teak, salt, rose potpurri and ambergris.
I’d try that Connecticut fragrance!!
So true about the farmland in the “Garden State.” There’s probably less than there used to be — whenever I do visit south Jersey these days, I can’t help noticing all the development — but the remaining farmland is beautiful.
joe, you’ve been in cali too long, we don’t use the word “causeway” here! 😉
Um, “The Causeway” is certainly what most everyone in that area calls the Route 72 bridge from Manahawkin to LBI.
Maybe it’s a shore thing. 😉
And I’ve definitely never heard the word in California.
I’ve lived in Ocean County most of my life, and so far as I know, it’s always been the Causeway. “Dorland J. Henderson Memorial Bridge” is just too much of a mouthful. (Sorry, Dorland. :D)
Although not born in Jersey, I’ve lived here most of my life:
1. Grew up in Camden County
2. Established my career in Somerset County
3. Now living in Monmouth County – And – My Asbury Park church is 3 blocks from the Boardwalk!
I know that most people associate NJ with the Shore and Turnpike, but if they ever took the time to go away from the beaches and the interstates, they would understand why we call ourselves “The Garden State,” for so many of our homeowners make an art out of gardening – both ornamental and edible, not to mention the wonderful farms that produce some of the best sweet corn anywhere. Where I now live, and further up North and West, horse raising is also a huge industry – so many elements that would contribute to a true to Jersey fragrance.
I love popcorn, but don’t associate it with NJ. I agree with Joe above that Tomato Leaf would make a nice theme for NJ, maybe add some sea spray, some garden flowers, and a bit of sun-warmed horse skin…
Operafan, I wish I’d ever lived near a horse farm!!
I’d love a Jersey-oriented tomato-leaf scent, too.
Wow, I would love to know how many other of these smell!
Peachy vanilla-milk for Georgia, as in homemade peach ice-cream, yummmm…
If / when they release a Georgia, it would *have* to include some peach, right?! Plus a Coca-Cola accord. 😉
God, you’re so right, Jessica, I forgot about Coca-Cola! 😀
Or Michigan: cherries and fudge?
Mmm!
I have a special fondness for frangipani because it reminds me of Sydney, where my family lived for a few years when I was growing up. There was a particularly glorious and fragrant frangipani tree that I’d walk past every day on my way to and from school. To a kid who’d just moved over from barren northeastern Wyoming, it seemed almost magical. I also loved the smell of eucalyptus.
I will be curious to see what United Scents comes up with for Wyoming; my strongest Wyoming scent-memories are of a particular oil refinery near Casper, and of the funky sulphuric odors that pervade Yellowstone’s geothermal areas.
I’ve never been to Wyoming, but I’ll be curious to see what they do, too!
Do you like Ormonde Jayne’s Frangipani? I think it’s a beautiful frangipani fragrance! I love eucalyptus, too, because my mother often kept some (dried) in the house.
Jessica, I wish I could appreciate OJ Frangipani — it sounds like my dream scent, but I ordered the discovery set only to discover that I’m probably anosmic to Iso E Super. The only OJs that I can detect much of are Iris Noir, Tolu, and T’aif, and even they seem muted.
I’m in Australia but am too far south for frangipani, unfortunately. But I was in Darwin, in the top end, a few weeks ago and the fraginpania were in flower and it was glorious. I keep meaning to try OJ’s Frangipani but somehow never quite get to it.
I unfortunately can’t smell OJ Frangipani (see reply to Jessica, above) but I seem to buy every other frangipani-scented product I come across! Last time I was in Australia, I found some delightful frangipani soaps and am now neurotically hoarding them.
Do you have any favorite frangipani perfumes or products, Annemarie?
I would love a fragrance that represented australiarna !!! Eucalyptus and campfire, billy tea and damper bread !!! A tabacco pouch and a ice cold beer !!! It would take an incredible nose to pull that one off!!
What is damper bread? I’m wondering if it is sweet and yeasty, or a dry soda bread or bisquit?
It’s a rustic bread cooked by swagmen drovers and stockman !! Cooked with basic ingredients like flour water and Milk !! I have always enjoyed eating damper as the white center is always soft and yes, a little yeasty , very australian:)
Read about it on wiki ! It’s a gem – very easy to make ,
So interesting!!
I would SO wear that. (Smell Bent had an Australian-inspired scent at one point — maybe it still exists — but it was mostly eucalyptus. No damper or beer, sadly.)
Thanks for these reviews, Jessica! I have a candle by Slatkin & Co. called Summer Boardwalk that smells rather like the description of New Jersey — though it has some “taffy apple” in it, I believe. You’re so right that scent associations with places are very personal. For example, I associate NYC with the smell of Apple Pectin shampoo and hot tarred pavement, because when I spent a lot of time there, I stayed with a friend who had a big bottle of that shampoo in her shower and the street outside her apartment had been freshly paved — and it was about 100 degrees out!
Jill, I saw that Slatkin “Boardwalk” candle collection at B&BW, and I was tempted to buy some! As usual, a few were too sweet for me, but I liked some of the scents that evoked salt air or beach grass.
I have a feeling they’re not going to get around to my home state of Nebraska, or my home town, Omaha.
Ah, the aroma of fresh, warm insurance policies, baking under the summer sun!
Once I saw Bright Eyes with a friend in DC and painted on the ceiling are the flags for the original 13 colonies and the singer said “I don’t see Nebraska up there” and everyone laughed but I didn’t know anything about them so I didn’t get why he said that. My friend informed me that he’s from Omaha when I asked later.
I live in Northern Virginia and go to school in Central Virginia. They seem like two different states so I don’t even know what the inspiration would be. Maybe Jamestown (I’ve never been there).
lol! I’ve never been there, but I have to confess, Mutual of Omaha *is* one of the first things that comes to mind. 😉
You know, I was thinking that Ohio would smell like State Fair smells – very similar to the notes for New Jersey. Or crisp fall evenings with a touch of burning maple leaves (I guess that’s been done, though!). OK, spring with the scent of mud and that sudden smell of life emerging after the winter ice – the original Ralph Lauren reminded me of that, with its touch of iris, and also Hiris. Admittedly, iris seems terribly refined for Ohio!
Oh, I think iris can bear various interpretations, depending on what kind of iris note it is — green, silvery, earthy, etc.! I’ve only been to Ohio once, but I have a few good friends who are Ohio transplants. 😉
A long time ago, there was a huge papermill on the coast of Washington State, that spewed out fumes of sulpher and wood pulp and chlorine that drifted for miles around Tacoma. The regional airport was there, SeaTac, and you could hardly get to Seattle without being greeted by this noxious odor. The “Aroma of Tacoma” was famous all over the northwest. I haven’t been there for thirty years, at least, and I doubt whether it would smell the same, with all the EPA regulations, but I can’t forget that pungent odor.
I didn’t notice that smell on my one trip into SeaTac, but I *was* very tired at the time…!
Has anyone here been to Hong Kong? The very name of that city means “Fragrant Harbor.” The City does have a unique atmospheric odor that will hit you, along with the humidity, as soon as you deplane at the Airport.
If you walk around the main downtown area, the scent is present in varying degrees of intensity, with locally added elements. It’s a kind of woody, sweetish, bamboo, warm, mildewy odor, with an element of wood varnish or acetone at the high end. Restaurant odors, like steamed seafood and rice, tea and ginger, are mixed in, with maybe a little green seaweed drifting in and out. And a hint of sweet jasmine and green damp moss, as well, I think.
When I worked in international banking, I noticed that some of the Letters of Credit shipping documents, from some of the south east Asian ports would have a similar faint and pleasant aroma, so familiar but I have no idea what the scent actually comes from.
Fragrant harbour !!! I would want to sail a boat there 😉 I’m so pleased u let us know that , great discription btw. I have been to HK but didn’t pack my nose , it was when I was young, now I’m more in tune with my sence of smell
I visited Hong Kong many years ago, and I will never forget the smell you’re describing, Poppie. (I found it weirdly addictive.) Though I couldn’t begin to describe it as well as you have!
Poppie, I’ve never been to Hong Kong, but I love this evocative description!!
I have been to Hong Kong twice … and, unfortunately, my smell impressions in crowded cities tend towards picking out the stinky parts rather than the pleasant ones. That said, I did make it to Lantau Island, home of the Big Buddha; the surrounding greenery was refreshing.
the smell of a place changes with the season and sometimes the month and also from street to street-springtime on Benefit Street in Providence would be linden blossoms, for example. the possibilities are endless and the scents, too.
Argh, I really need to visit Providence… to go to the RISD museum, and just walk around town, and then visit some of the historic houses.
Summer in northern Minnesota: Conifer forest (pine and spruce, plus vetiver and non-sweet patchouli for the forest floor) and a buzzy aldehyde that resembles Deep Woods Off, with a side of lake water and a little edge of iron (specifically, the slightly sweet smell of well water in an iron mining area).
My current neighborhood: Eucalyptus, cypress, lantana (sort of a honey/beeswax note), pittosporum (like mock orange), pink and night-blooming jasmines, with fainter notes of brugmansia, freesia, magnolia, and car exhaust.
That makes me want to visit!