When a Town Smells Like Donuts: Gourmand Overload vs Perfume Pleasure

I love a good sugar rush, but if your street smells like a glazed cruller 24/7, that’s not a vibe. It’s an olfactory monopoly. In Haverhill, Massachusetts, residents told the city council that a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts facility has the town smelling like sweets all the time. Sean Wilson called it distracting. My sympathies go to his nose. There is a world of difference between a nuanced gourmand on skin and industrial frosting in the air.

As someone who tests vanilla bombs for a living, I think about proportion. A great gourmand perfume has contrast, a bitter edge, a cool breeze of spice or woods. Factory exhaust does not. It flattens the air. It bulldozes nuance. You get frosting without crust, icing without crumb.

If you love pastry and coffee in perfume, you do not need to live inside a donut box. Try these, which know when to purr and when to pause:

• Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau. Toasted bread crust, creamy woods, a lick of jam. It smells like warmth, not a sugar avalanche.
• By Kilian Black Phantom. Coffee laced with rum and dark chocolate, salty caramel for tension. Decadent, but with a grown up spine.
• Bond No. 9 New Haarlem. Maple coffee over lavender and woods. Urban brunch in a bottle, not a bakery blast.
• Maison Margiela Replica Coffee Break. Milky espresso, airy lavender foam, soft musk. Cozy without cloy.
• Montale Intense Café. Rosy latte with a long amber fade. Wear sparingly for maximum charm.
• Mugler Angel. The original gourmand troublemaker. Patchouli cuts the praline, which is exactly the point.
• Imaginary Authors A Whiff of Waffle Cone. Caramelized cone, vanilla swirl, balsamic woods. Nostalgic, then surprisingly refined.
• Dior Hypnotic Poison. Almond, vanilla, jasmine. More pâte d’amande than powdered donut, and it behaves.

I wore Jeux de Peau to a bakery opening last fall. Between oven-warm croissants and my skin’s toasted accord, the effect was joyful because it breathed. Real air and real contrast. That is what Haverhill seems to be missing. Gourmand is comfort. Overexposure is control.

Perfume should be an intimate choice that travels with you, not a cloud that colonizes a neighborhood. Love your coffee, your vanilla, your pastry notes. Just let the air have a say too.