When Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner opened their boudoirlike perfume shop in the West Village in 1995, they focused on hard-to-find fragrances — the kind they spotted in their friends’ well-appointed bathrooms. Today, their selection includes the Parisian perfumer Serge Lutens’s bold, spicy scents; the heady creations of the 223-year-old French perfume house Lubin; and the New York brand Nomenclature’s intriguing synthetic-molecule blends, such as a vegetal musk extracted from hibiscus seeds.

— Read more in The Beauty Stores, Near and Far, That Are Destinations in Their Own Right at The New York Times.