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The Es-Scents of Richmond

Maymont and Belle Isle can now be found in lovely one-ounce bottles.

The Es-Scents of Richmond
Pat Kane/Richmond.com
 Local entrepeneur Amy George is bottling up Richmond's favorite landmarks.

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Katherine Houstoun
Richmond.com
Thursday, June 22, 2006

It is said that memories are often triggered by sudden aromas wafting through the air. A honeysuckle flower, for example, might bring up long-dormant memories of Grandfather's farm, while a specific type of bug spray could take you back to the days of Camp Arrowhead.

These days, as you walk through the streets and neighborhoods of Richmond, you may find yourself being struck with memories from a number of different River City landmarks, including Maymont, the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and Belle Isle.

That's because the essences of these beloved Richmond spots have been carefully captured into one-ounce bottles of perfume, which are so affordable they just might start sprouting up everywhere.

Virginia Commonwealth University graduate student Amy George is behind the new scents, which also include Flowers in the Fan, a mixture of white dogwood, magnolia and honeydew melon; Kuba Kuba, a combination of pineapple, cool mint and spicy rum; and the Byrd Theater, featuring the scents of buttered popcorn, Milk Duds and icy Coca-Cola.

Popcorn-and-candy-flavored perfume? Really?

"They call them gourmand or foodie-type perfumes," said George, 24, who started Modern Atelier, which offers "handcrafted scent accessories for modern living" in February. "They're very popular right now. You absolutely can wear it, and you aren't going to walk around smelling like popcorn all day. It dries down to a sweet, slightly-chocolatey note."

George, who is working towards a master's in urban planning at VCU, has concocted more than 100 different perfumes, including flavorful "foodie" types, single-note scents like magnolia or honeysuckle, and complex blended fragrances. The Richmond-inspired scents were the next logical step.

"Being an urban studies major, I'm very inspired by all of the places I go…There are a lot of flowers and scents that are very iconic for Richmond: the dogwood, the magnolia, tobacco, lots of things. So I just kind of started out combining them," said George, who spends her days creating maps and spreadsheets at the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission.

While George occasionally sells her perfumes at local markets like the Bizarre Market and the 17th Street Farmers' Market, she does most of her business via Etsy, an EBay-type marketplace for all things handmade (modernatelier.etsy.com). There, she lists all of her scents, which she packages in artfully simple square glass bottles.

Of course, selling fragrances online has its inherent limitations.

"I realized after I started that selling perfume through the Internet that people have never smelled is really hard," she laughed. "You can't smell anything through your monitor. So I started selling a purse-size sprayer, which is about a third the size of my regular one-ounce bottle. That's when it really took off. I actually had to limit the number of samples people could buy because it was getting too overwhelming."

Her samples cost $4 a sprayer, while her larger bottles go for $12.50 apiece. George is currently offering a four for $40 deal on regular-size bottles on her Etsy Web site, which, when you consider how much consumers are paying for store-bought high-end perfumes (a one-ounce bottle of Stella McCartney's Stella perfume, for example, sells for $41 on the Sephora Web site), is quite the deal.

"The markup [on perfumes] is ridiculous," said George, who grew up in a small town outside of Kansas City with parents who encouraged a "do it yourself" lifestyle. "A lot of what goes into it is packaging and, of course, you're paying for the brand."

Though George's products, including an elegant reed diffuser ($15) which allows subtle fragrances to infuse the air via long, wooden sticks, are reasonably priced, she does not scrimp on the ingredients.

"I try to use the best materials I can," she said. "There are a lot of inexpensive oils that you could use, but I try to use ones that I know where they came from, especially with essential oils because there's a big difference between Bulgarian lavender and French lavender. It's kind of like wine, in that where it's grown gives it a certain aspect of how it smells."

If you find yourself flustered by George's many options, which range from single-scent notes to custom blends, you are not alone.

"A lot of the time, my customers write me and say 'I'm completely overwhelmed, but I like this, this and this,'" said George, who will also create custom signature scents. "And I can kind of see the scents in my head and immediately say, 'oh, you would like these.' So far, I have never been wrong. Once people take the plunge and realize that I have a good product and that I give good recommendations, they come back for more."

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