Whenever I feel the need to seek out a new scent – when the season or my mood changes, whichever comes first – my greatest desire is to find one I get addicted to. Fast. Otherwise, really, why bother? If it’s not intoxicating you and significant others, even passersby, it’s not doing its job. I somehow always discover my scent doppelganger du jour via  Scent Bar (and its digital component, Luckyscent.com), not just my favorite place in Los Angeles, but one of the greatest fragrance apothecaries of indie niche brands in the world.

Founded and opened right here in L.A. by former graphic designers Adam Eastman and Franco Wright in 2006, there are now two L.A. stores (Hollywood and The Row), one in New York and more to come (like Brooklyn). This past Saturday, the store hosted what’s becoming a more frequent practice for the local perfume faithful: inviting international perfumers to come over to meet their constituency.

This summer, it was fashion muse/famed stylist Carine Roitfeld, with her Carine Roitfeld line of what they call in the biz “juice.” She played to a full house of scent lovers, and this past weekend, so did French perfumer extraordinaire Olivier Cresp – whose claim to fame includes recipes for major brands include Mugler’s Angel (the first “gourmand” scent), Estee Lauder’s Modern Muse, Midnight Poison and Paco Rabanne XS. But the line he and daughter Anais created in 2018, “Akro” (French slang for “addiction), based on delicious food smells, has a big scent bar presence, with fifteen scents in all.

The elegant Frenchman came over specifically to launch his newest, Crush, with layers of notes of lychee, roasted almond, Bulgarian rose.  Wearing a crisp salmon shirt to match the Crush rose theme, Cresp told @iCandyLA  he based the scent on his favorite vanilla rose macarons – edibles by any definition. Other Akro’s are based on tobacco, whiskey, chocolate, coffee, cupcakes, tea – and parties. As charming and delightful as his fragrances, we found Olivier to be a gourmand of not just food, but his addiction to perfume.