The NY woman I still think about & Blocki Perfume Co.

Some thoughts on signature scents and a fragrance house I'm a big fan of.

I was so happy to find this photo in my phone. This is her! I am pretty sure she made the clothes she’s wearing and I remember not wanting to gawk too much but I was pretty obsessed.

When we were in New York last September we stumbled into a men’s clothing store, some indie designer with ridiculously cool clothes with hefty price tags. A beautiful loud woman was seated at the bar and shouted a warm welcome as we walked in, yes there was a bar in this store, add to the list of things I love about New York. I could tell she was tipsy, but so were we. She smelled good, something familiar but rich and complex—I’m good at identifying fragrances but I couldn’t get close to naming this one. Amber and smoky with hints of cocoa and sandalwood and some florals buried in there too.

“What scent are you wearing?” I asked, telling her she smelled amazing. She laughed a deep throaty laugh.

“Oh honey I am not telling you!” It was her signature scent and she wasn’t going to give it away.

People are like that with their fragrances. I hated telling people my signature scent when I first found it, a scent you love becomes like a second skin, part of your personality, you don’t share it with just anyone.

I walked around the store while my boyfriend tried clothes on and stood next to her again as he showed us how things looked on him.

“Please, I begged her, you have to tell me what you’re wearing. I live in San Francisco, you will never see me again!”

She laughed at me and said, “If you can guess how many different scents I am wearing right now I’ll tell you the name of every one of them - but you can’t ever tell anyone else.”

“Deal!” I shouted a little too earnestly for New York. Pulling on all my psychic power, taking her in, she was extra in all the best ways— no way this woman would stop at three, and five just didn’t feel right,

“Four - I think you’re wearing four different fragrances.”

She looked at me and laughed that big rumbling laugh again.

“Well god damn it you’re right.” And then I jotted each name down in my notes app saving it there like a treasure. I knew two of the scents, had never smelled one, and hadn’t even heard of the fourth. 

A closer look at her amazing jacket.

I think about that woman a lot. I love people who love scents. It usually means they like a good story too, and appreciate how a fragrance can spark a memory or change a mood. It’s why I like spending hours in a perfume store. The questions that people ask, the way they describe what they smell, the lingering that happens as we eavesdrop on endless questions answered by the always knowledgeable staff.

We have two great perfume stores in San Francisco. My personal favorite, because it helped me appreciate fragrance in an entirely new way, is Ministry of Scent in the Mission, which used to be called Tigerlily Perfumery. I first stumbled into Tigerlily in 2015, I was overwhelmed by the beautiful bottles lining every surface, and then I started talking to the owner, Antonia Kohl, who graciously explained many of the different lines she carried, all with such interesting backstories.

I described what I liked (white floral big time then) and she pulled a bunch of scents for me to try. I left with several fragrances that day and one was Blocki’s For Walks, a violet-forward scent that has some dank forest notes. Not too powdery like a lot of violets can be, but woodsy and semi-sweet. I loved the name, it smelled expensive to me, and it WAS expensive, especially for me 9 years ago. I used it sparingly at first, it was a different type of fragrance for me, one with a strong point of view. Being literal I often put it on before I took a walk, it’s nice to have perfumes in your collection that you use for specific occasions. I liked the dry down of the scent, how it smelled on my clothes and my skin hours after I first applied it. I still have some of that original bottle left, and I still use it for mostly special occasions — I don’t know why because For Walks is an absolutely beautiful scent. But it feels private to me. I wear it some days when I am working from home, never to the office, I still sometimes put it on before a walk, and once in a while I’ll spritz it on before bed, very occasionally when I go out. I wore this one a lot during the pandemic, I think it made me feel safe and hopeful.

I am really sad that Blocki changed their bottle design. I love the subtle name on the glass bottle and prefer it over the big white label that feels much more generic. All Blocki fragrances have a heavy lid with some beautiful etching of symbols relevant to the brand’s heritage.

I went into the Ministry of Scent this week and as if magnetically pulled there the first collection I stood in front of was Blocki. I put In Every Season on one wrist, asked which notes were in it, and then explored many other scents in the store. Almost 40 mins later after several other scents were on my skin I kept going back to the inside of my left wrist where I had spritzed In Every Season. It was clean and light, floral but not obnoxiously so, complex like For Walks, and it felt like a great everyday scent. I could smell like this all the time and not be mad about it. I took that one home and do not regret it.

Blocki was known for being the first to put whole flowers in his perfume bottles, the family still has some of those original bottles and the flowers are perfectly preserved.

I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole with Blocki. They are one of the oldest fragrance houses in the U.S. (maybe the oldest actually), having started in 1865 by John Blocki. The house was revived by Tyler and Tammy Kraemer in 2015, Tyler is the great-great-grandson of John Blocki. Some of their fragrances are recreations of original scents from the line but many are inspired by the family history and stories. I’ve ordered their discovery set and will do a full review of all 9 scents! This was a great podcast interview with Tammy and Tyler, if you want something quicker Ministry of Scent has an interview you can read with them here. I’m eager to try their other scents and can’t wait to report back. They do so much more than florals, I’m especially looking forward to trying Press Club which is described as a spicy amber scent. The reviews I have read of it seem to transport people back in time.

For Walks
Top: violet leaf, mint, fir needle
Middle: violet and boronia flower
Base: orris, vetiver, sandalwood and cedar

In Every Season
Top: pink grapefruit, red mandarin and Calabrian bergamot
Middle: pearl tuberose, star jasmine and violet petal
Base: ylang-ylang, crystallized amber and chiffon musk

This was a long one! Thanks for reading if you made it this far. Do you have a fragrance house you’re currently obsessed with? Tell me!

Smell you later friends. xo