I don’t know if you’ve heard about a scent called Santal 33 by Le Labo—maybe you’ve read about it—but man, that stuff is everywhere. Anywhere south of 14th Street for sure, and now that the New York Times is on that grind, I suspect everywhere north of 14th Street is also fair game. If you don’t smell it anymore, it might be because your respiratory system relies on it. And hey, why fight it? It's a great scent.

However, it might be time that New York City updates its fragrance of choice (or at least adds to the list of cultish options). For this task, I’d like to endorse Mark Buxton’s Emotional Rescue. Why? Because:

• It’s one of those complex, multi-note fragrances that just makes you seem more interesting. The product copy describes the scent as “an acrobat perched over emptiness, one foot on the tightrope of life.” I would describe it like this: If you're someone who goes to a fragrance counter and asks for a “citrus' or a “woodsy' scent, Emotional Rescue is actually both—combining neroli and gooseberry with timbered notes like balsam. Very Aspen meets Tulum. This is a collector's fragrance, not a starter scent.
  
• Mark Buxton is an olfactory genius who has done work for Comme des Garçons, Givenchy, and…LE LABO. * *gasp * * You can smell his expertise in Vetiver 46 and CDG's 2 and 2 Man.
  
• It's always best to be an early adopter, right?
  

Also, New Yorkers love therapy. And what’s more therapeutic than a little Emotional Rescue? Your move, Santal.

—Brennan Kilbane

Photographed by Tom Newton.

Learn your fragrance ABCs (accords, base notes, and concentrations) with ITG's very handy fragrance term dictionary.