'Fragrance is an art form': Talking and testing fragrances with Lucy Sun, @smell.the.artwork
We spoke about the online fragrance community, the differences between text-based media and algorithmic short-form video, and making scent more accessible.
Last Monday, I met with Lucy Sun (@smell.the.artwork) at a coffee shop on the Upper West Side. I first came across their work through TikTok, where they post fragrance content that’s deeply informed yet fun and accessible. “Fragrance is an art form, have fun with it,” Sun’s bio reads.
I’m a fragrance newbie, but I was especially excited to talk to Sun because I’ve encountered the online fragrance community in my own internet culture work—on TikTok, Instagram, Fragrantica, and even in memes styled like scent notes.
This issue is divided into two parts:
Part One is a conversation about fragrance basics, the online fragrance community, how text-based fragrance media compares to algorithmic short-form video, and recent trends in the space.
In Part Two, we test a few fragrances inspired by a Pinterest board I shared ahead of time. Sun also created a playlist to go along with them—feel free to listen along while reading.
You can find Lucy Sun on TikTok and Instagram at @smell.the.artwork. Additional links to their work are available here. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
PART ONE
PHONE TIME: Hi Lucy! I know you’ve been posting about fragrance on TikTok since 2022. Want to start by talking about your background and how you got into fragrance?
LUCY SUN: I lost my sense of smell in 2014 for about two years. I had a concussion, and I was very lucky to get it back. After that, I was very determined not to take my sense of smell for granted again.
Around the same time, two writers I was following—Rachel Syme and Helena Fitzgerald—started a fragrance newsletter called The Dry Down. They wrote about fragrance as an art form, as a personal experience, and as a cultural object.
From there, I read a lot more. It was around the time of the first Trump election, and it was nice to have a new art form to focus on.
I was definitely a TikTok user way before I started posting. I think I joined in 2015, when it was still Musical.ly. TikTok now has very targeted algorithms, so if I make a video like “What does Frutiger Aero smell like?”—it’s going to find an audience.
PHONE TIME: How do you think about building community through your content? What’s the reception been like?
SUN: I think “Nosevember” is probably my most deliberate form of community building. It’s a list of prompts, and I make content, but other people create content too.
There are many ways people can be interested in fragrance. I’m very vibes-first. My account is called “smell the artwork,” and I approach it from the place of fragrance as an art form. It talks to other pieces of art. It’s a product of its culture and its time, and it’s also very personal. I want to be accessible—because you can’t smell your screen. I try to talk in a way that others can understand, while still being very specific.
People can be intimidated by fragrance, so Nosevember is a way to give people tools to think about their sense of smell and feel confident. It’s inspired by Inktober, which is kind of the same thing—a list of one-word prompts, and people draw something. It’s intended to be creative and to share what you’re doing.
One thing I always try to stress is that this doesn’t have to be about fragrances. You can choose any smell—coffee or cleaning products, whatever. In a way, I feel like I’m an editor commissioning pieces on a certain topic, and that’s kind of fun. The purpose is for people to be able to participate and start to make connections.
PHONE TIME: My impression, as a fragrance layperson, is that you’re making it accessible without diluting anything. It feels very intentional. I think a lot of the fragrance community online or on Twitter can feel somewhat impenetrable. Obviously, it makes sense—people are talking to others with a similar level of expertise, but if you’re not in it, you’re like “What are people talking about?”
I know you have a really broad set of inspirations—from music, from ideas, from feelings. Does that come naturally to you or how do you look for the connections to fragrance that you include in your videos?
SUN: I feel like it comes naturally to a lot of people to start from the premise of “This is a piece of art, it talks to other art. If you like this movie, you should watch that movie.” Fragrance is another thing like that. And also, trying to help people make sense of it in terms of things they might be familiar with.
I run fragrance workshops sometimes, and there’s one called “Queer History Through Fragrance.” Some of the fragrances we smell are quite old, and people can have a hard time with that because it’s unfamiliar. There’s often a kind of feeling of disgust.
Robert Piguet’s “Bandit”—when I’m passing out the scent scripts, I play Lady Gaga’s “Judas.” I’m like, “Well, you’ve heard this song—that is, I think very much like what the creator of the scent intended.” That’s a quick way for people to understand what they’re getting into.
PHONE TIME: I’m wondering if there’s more of a gender diversity in fragrance lately, like in the same way that brands play with androgyny. Do you notice there’s more things that are not necessarily women’s perfume or men’s perfume?
SUN: When you go into a Sephora, there’s a wall that’s women’s and a wall that’s men’s and a lot of stuff in the middle. There didn’t really used to be that middle.
I feel like people who are really into fragrance—regardless of how they identify gender-wise, or how firmly they hold to their identity—are generally like, “Everyone should wear what they like.” There are changes over time in what gets marketed towards what gender. Tobacco, 100 years ago, was predominantly a women’s scent.
PHONE TIME: Yeah, it seems similar to how things in fashion are.
What is your process in making a video?
SUN: I can walk you through, “What does Frutiger Aero smell like?” That question was bouncing around in my head. It involved a lot of looking at old products and UI design, listening to Spotify playlists. I was also a kid on the internet, so remembering what that feeling was, and also looking at things that were released around the same time.
I landed on DKNY “Be Delicious.” This bottle looks a lot like the fruit iMac. I wouldn’t be surprised if the designer for this bottle had those iMacs on their mood board. This bottle is half chrome, half nature, with a friendly, blob-like shape.
[Editor’s note: We tested this one!]
I think the scent lines up as well. I’d describe this as pretty watery. There’s cucumber, there’s watery white florals. I’d also describe it as very optimistic, which is a big part of Frutiger Aero. Then you have this apple note that doesn’t smell like a real apple. It’s natural but clearly synthetic, and the whole thing feels very fruity.
PHONE TIME: This is an interesting one too, because even people who might have been a bit too young to be on the internet during that time are still drawn to it. It feels so nostalgic and just like a better time to be online.
Another question I have is whether you’ve noticed any changes in the TikTok, Instagram, or online space since you started posting—anything that people are more interested in now?
SUN: I got into fragrance mostly through text-based media. I read a bunch of books, blogs, newsletters, and forum posts. So it’s been interesting seeing how algorithmic short-form video is different. There are pluses and minuses to both.
You’re right that a lot of creators and conversations online in text-based media can be very impenetrable. But I think it’s because, in part, you have to be intentionally searching for that. With algorithmically recommended short-form video, you don’t have that. I know my content is being shown to people with any degree of interest.
With text media, there can be a lot of referencing classics—kind of like how a film buff would refer to certain films. There’s a level of assumed knowledge, and when I was getting into fragrance, I found that really intimidating. Now that fragrance feels much more accessible, I’m very happy about that. But sometimes the conversations don’t have that historical context.
Short-form videos are a dominant advertising medium now, so the conversation gets driven by things that are new or recent, but that doesn’t necessarily mean innovative. I think having more background in the classics can help you recognize when something is truly fresh.
I don’t think a lot has changed within the online community, but it’s also very fragmented. So if there have been changes, I might not be seeing them.
PHONE TIME: Yeah, I think that fragmentation is true of many online spaces—it’s hard to assess what other people are saying.
SUN: People with less background in fragrance are definitely posting now, and I love to see it. I don’t think you need experience to say interesting things.
There’s been discourse about negative reviews. People say, “Influencers never post negative reviews.” I personally feel it’s because algorithmic short-form video just isn’t the medium for that. Because you don’t know me, I don’t know what your level of knowledge is.
Fragrance is subjective, but there are some qualities you can look at to say: this fragrance is original and well-constructed, and this other fragrance is a dupe that is falling apart at the seams. But that's way less important to me than like, let people enjoy things. I don’t want to make someone feel insecure about their fragrance, and then the next day, they lose their sense of smell.
PHONE TIME: Do you think there are differences between traditional fragrance journalism and the newer content creation space? I’m thinking for example fashion, has, maybe not necessarily an animosity, but a divide in that people are making different things. Different platforms afford different considerations.
SUN: There used to be a fragrance critic at The New York Times. There are people writing for print. You have podcasters. There are definitely different forms.
I don’t think people are snobby about like, "Oh, you don’t work at a fancy publication.” I think there’s a shared interest in making things accessible for everyone.
PHONE TIME: How do you see either your content or the fragrance space in general evolving in the future?
SUN: The tariffs are going to be brutal. I think fragrance brands are going to be taking fewer risks, raising their prices. People are not going to have as much money to spend. I think that’s going to be really interesting for the creator space. I’m already seeing a backlash over consumerism, and I feel like the tariffs will intensify that.
I’m already seeing more content around doing project pan, or swapping, or buy nothing groups. I try to swap as much as possible. I’ll be posting about that more.
PART TWO
Earlier in the week before I met up with Sun, I sent over a Pinterest board with some memes I made, as well as other images I felt represented my interests and general online persona. Based on my board, they brought a few fragrances for us to try.
They also made a Spotify playlist to accompany the fragrances and board, which I embedded above and am linking again here. I had never done this sort of fragrance testing before, so I really appreciated the chance to slow down and notice the different memories and feelings that each one brought up.
FRAGRANCE 1: Parfums Obim “Ultra Violet”
Kristin Merrilees: I like this one! I think some people might find it overpowering, but I don’t. It feels a bit sugary. It kind of reminds me of the store Claire’s—that’s a memory I have. I think the sugariness is something I gravitate towards more than other people. It reminds me of hard candy, like Push Pops or blue raspberry.
Lucy Sun: I feel like this is a very blue flavor. And it’s kind of fizzy.
FRAGRANCE 2: Versatile Paris “God Bless Cola”
KM: I like the first one more, I think. But this reminds me a bit of Lip Smackers. Like the lip balms. I used to be really into those, actually.
LS: This will come out a little bit more, but it’s like Coca Cola, popcorn. Like going to the movies. I feel like your board has a lot of things being in the wrong medium, like WhatsApp gelato. This is like going to the movies—the perfume.
KM: Yeah, I am really into all these social media-themed items where people find like, a Snapchat perfume. If I ever find those, I will obtain them. But yeah, mismatched objects is how I’d describe it.
FRAGRANCE 3: Guerlain “L'Heure Bleue”
KM: Okay, this one I don’t know how to explain. It seems familiar.
LS: It’s a very old fragrance. This is 1912.
KM: It seems like floral to me, but a bit sharper.
LS: I think it came out around the same time as Chanel No. 5. What you’re calling “sharp” is probably aldehydes, which are a bit metallic. Aldehydes, when they came out, were very modern. This has been described as kind of like a virtual pastry—like a cake with an exquisite texture.
You can find Lucy Sun on TikTok and Instagram at @smell.the.artwork. Additional links to their work are available here.
