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DUMBO Perfume Studio Offers Precious Oils for Make-Your-Own Scent

By Janet Upadhye | April 25, 2013 7:51am

DUMBO — New York City never smelled so good.

A 20-year-old musk, fossilized amber, myrrh, Moroccan jasmine, and beeswax absolute are just a few of the scents that perfumers Maria McElroy and Alexis Karl have in store for participants of their upcoming class, The Art of Perfume.

"Blending fragrances in a bottle is like mixing colors on a palette," said McElroy, co-founder of House of Cherry Bomb. "The scent becomes pigment, the body becomes the canvas. The nose responds to scent like the eye to color."

The two olfactory masters met while creating their own fragrance lines that are now sold all over the world.

Together they co-founded DUMBO-based perfume house, House of Cherry Bomb, to host classes and podcasts on the art of scents. They also create unique perfumes like Immortal Mine, made from "rare vintage ouds and ambers, subtle essences of smoke, touches of unknown incense and drops of night blooming flowers."

Their upcoming class leads participants through "an olfactory voyage along the Nile," as they explore the scents of Ancient Egypt. Karl will give a lecture on Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut, whom she calls the "the mother of fragrance production."

And while participants listen to Egyptian music they will get the chance to create their own bottle of perfume using rare oils from around the world.

"Fragrance is a tool of artistic expression," Karl said.

Students are in good hands because while this is House of Cherry Bomb's debut class, Karl also teaches regular fragrance classes, primarily for sight-impaired students, at the Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums.

Upcoming House of Cherry Bomb classes include Matisse and the Color of Scent, God Save the Queen: A Riot of Punk Perfume, and the Art of Japan and the Poetry of Fragrance.

Contact House Of Cherry Bomb at houseofcherrybomb@gmail.com for registration details.