Where This People Editor Makes Custom Fragrances Downtown

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New York City has more stores than anyone could physically tackle, but somehow we always keep returning to the usual suspects. To break out of the rut, we've asked some local shopping and fashion gurus to provide their hidden retail gems—those unique stores around our fantastic city that we might not all know about. Cue the Beatles: We're about to get a little help from our friends.

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Alex Apatoff is the news editor at People StyleWatch, where she writes about topics like celebrity style and beauty. A fragrance lover herself, she shows us where she creates her very own personalized scents in the East Village.

Fragrance Shop New York is this tiny, cluttered little storefront in the East Village that you might walk right by. I bring all my out-of-town visitors here (after stops at Tokio 7 and Porto Rico Coffee) and they're generally skeptical of the space—until the magic starts happening. Whoever's behind the counter susses out your likes and dislikes, bringing you all sorts of combinations to consider, until all of a sudden your perfect fragrance is created and bottled. You get to name it and keep it on file to remix when you run out. And the best part? When anyone asks what you're wearing you get to wave your hand and say 'Oh, just something I had whipped up downtown.'

· Fragrance Shop New York [Official Site]
· People Style Watch [Official Site]
· All Shopping Confidential Posts [Racked NY]

Fragrance Shop New York

64 East 4th Street New York NY