What Is Bond No. 9? Inside the NYC Niche Fragrance House

Bond No. 9 is a perfume house about one city. Laurice Rahmé launched it in 2003, named it after its first shop at 9 Bond Street in NoHo, and has given almost every perfume a New York name since: neighbourhoods, streets, landmarks, even the Hamptons. The scents are more conventional than the bottles. Wall Street is the fresh one to start with, Chinatown the most distinctive, and New York Oud the warmest.

Why Is Everything Named After New York?

Because the house is a love letter to the city at a specific moment. Bond’s own history ties its start to Rahmé’s attachment to New York and the city’s recovery after 9/11. The names make the line easy to collect: you can buy the street you live on. Bond has also worked with the Andy Warhol Foundation, which is where Silver Factory comes from.

The bottle is the other half of the brand: a squat, faceted star-shaped flask, painted in a different colourway for each perfume. You can recognise it across a room, which makes it an easy gift. The trap is choosing by neighbourhood. Bleecker Street smells nothing like the West Village, and the notes are the only guide to what’s inside.

Perfume	What it smells like	Main notes
Wall Street	Cucumber and sea air	Sea kale, cucumber, marine notes, lavender, vetiver
Chinatown	Creamy flowers with spice	Peach blossom, gardenia, tuberose, patchouli, cardamom
Bleecker Street	Green fruit over woods	Violet leaf, cassis, thyme, suede, vanilla
New York Oud	Rose and plum oud	Red plum, saffron, rose, oud, honey
Coney Island	A boardwalk cocktail	Margarita, melon, guava, chocolate, caramel
Scent of Peace	Clean and bright	Grapefruit, blackcurrant, lily of the valley, musk
Andy Warhol Silver Factory	Cool incense	Lavender, incense, iris, violet, amber

7 Bond No. 9 Perfumes

Wall Street

Wall Street is sea kale and cucumber, then an ozone-marine-lavender heart over musk, vetiver and ambergris. Cucumber is cool and watery, sea kale adds a green, salty edge, and the lavender keeps it clean. It’s an aquatic, the most straightforward perfume in the line, and the obvious pick for an office. One wearer loves the cucumber-and-seaweed combination; another gets mostly cucumber water, which is the risk with this style.

Check Price on AmazonShop Bond No. 9

Chinatown

Chinatown puts peach blossom, gardenia, peony and tuberose over patchouli, cardamom and dark woods. White flowers are creamy and heady, and cardamom is cool and spicy, so the pairing makes the flowers feel less like a wedding bouquet and more like a spice market at night. One wearer finds two sprays near the neck too much, which tells you how rich it is.

Check Price on AmazonShop Bond No. 9

Bleecker Street

Bleecker Street opens with violet leaf, cassis and thyme, then jasmine, cedarwood and cinnamon, over oakmoss, suede, patchouli, amber and vanilla. Violet leaf is sharp and green, almost like cut cucumber skin, and cassis has a catty, fruity edge. One wearer likes its clean fruitiness and soft patchouli, while another finds the green opening smells of fuel and wet grass. That’s violet leaf and cassis together: loved or not.

Check Price on AmazonShop Bond No. 9

New York Oud

New York Oud is red plum, saffron and orange zest, then oud, red rose and orris, over patchouli, musk, honey and vetiver. Rose, saffron and oud is the classic Middle Eastern trio, and plum and honey make this version jammy and soft. It’s an easy oud for people who think they don’t like oud. Our oud list has drier ones.

Check Price on AmazonShop Bond No. 9

Coney Island

Coney Island is the joke that works: a margarita accord with melon and guava, then cinnamon, chocolate and caramel, over musk, vanilla, cedar and sandalwood. It’s a whole boardwalk, from the bar to the candy stall. The fruit and lime keep it from being just a dessert.

Check Price on AmazonShop Bond No. 9

Scent of Peace

Scent of Peace is grapefruit and blackcurrant over lily of the valley, Hedione, cedar and musk. Hedione is the molecule that makes jasmine smell airy and fresh, and with lily of the valley it gives this a clean, glassy brightness. It’s the easy Bond to wear anywhere. The For Him and Natural versions are different perfumes.

Check Price on AmazonShop Bond No. 9

Andy Warhol Silver Factory

Silver Factory is lavender, grapefruit and bergamot, then incense, iris, violet and jasmine, over resins, cedar and amber. Warhol’s Factory was famously covered in silver foil, and this is the cool, metallic side of the line: incense and iris are both slightly cold, powdery materials. It’s the most unusual of the seven.

Check Price on AmazonShop Bond No. 9

Where to Buy Bond No. 9

Bond has its own boutiques and a store locator for other stockists. With a line this large and a price this high, samples are the way in. Our explainer on niche fragrance covers how houses like Bond differ from designer brands, and the guide to independent niche houses has smaller ones.