I’m not an avid traveler. Motion sickness, fear of terrorism, a simple but strong attachment to my own bedroom (husband and cat included) — all things considered, I’d rather stay home. But I can always journey through scent, right? Well, there are so, so many niche perfume lines named after geographical locations these days. Every time I see a new one, I recall a line from the film version of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” in which the main character remembers her young lover’s musical tastes: “He played me songs. The bands were new to me: Boston, Kansas, America, Europe, Asia. Travel exhausts me.”
For example: fragrance line Une Nuit à Bali recently rebranded as Une Nuit Nomade, promising a wider itinerary of global travels. They’ve followed their Bali-themed scents, oddly enough, with Une Nuit à Montauk, an olfactory homage to Montauk, New York. The mention of Montauk piqued my interest enough for me to order samples, because Montauk reminds me of 1) the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and 2) a long-ago weekend trip with the above-mentioned husband. (If Une Nuit Nomade had named this collection Une Nuit à Nantucket or Une Nuit à Santa Monica, on the other hand, I probably would have kept scrolling, exhausted…)
