Bond No. 9 High Line, the World's First Railroad Perfume

When we conducted our informal fragrance poll during our recent HERMÈS giveaway contest, the winner and other entrants selected a BOND No. 9 fragrance as their go-to scent. Now, there's a new perfume in the line for you to try!

Launching in March, Bond No. 9 High Line ($145 or $220, depending on size) was designed to evoke the images and smells of wildflowers, green grasses, and urban renewal. As we have come to expect from Bond, that's a quirky image!

I'm going to let them tell you about it - their words are charming.

Since when do new neighborhoods arise in New York? Hardly ever. After all, this city is already jam-packed with just about every kind of community imaginable. So when a new part of town appears, you can be sure we’re in for something completely different. Like our latest and most dynamic neighborhood, the High Line, which serves as the subject of Bond No. 9’s Spring 2010 Eau de Parfum. An improbable aerial walkway lined with concrete planks and railroad tracks, landscaped with meadows, wetlands, and wildflowers, the High Line hovers 30 feet above street level as it meanders along its route from the Meatpacking District to the former 34th Street rail yards - sometimes bridging its way through buildings along the way. Lately too it’s begun serving a daily parade of New Yorkers and visitors wanting both a respite from and a fresh take on our non-stop kaleidoscopic city.

Bond No. 9, purveyors of New York neighborhood fragrances, has long been enamored with the High Line and its perfume possibilities. A scent that conveys a whiff of urban wildflowers and a hint of industrial grit, with bits of Tenth Avenue energy and Chelsea gallery style added to the mix - the idea intrigued Bond. So they set about creating Bond No. 9 High Line.

The result is an androgynous floral-marine bouquet, contrasting the hardy flowers and greens that grow along the High Line’s route with intriguing notes from far away. The scent starts off with a prairie grazing weed - purple love grass - mixed with citrusy bergamot and zesty Indian rhubarb. The perfume’s floral heart is composed with red-leaf rose, Lady Jane tulips, and grape hyacinth. Its lingering base notes combine bur oak - from the sheltering tree that thrives here - with imported sea moss to evoke the Hudson River’s proximity, along with musk and teakwood, to remind us that Bond No. 9 High Line is a metro-perfume.

The textured silkscreen surface design on the clear glass High Line bottle furthers the beauty-emerging-in-a-gritty-urban-industrial-environment narrative. In the foreground, hardy blades of tall grass and determined fuchsia tulip buds sprout from gunmetal grey rail tracks (affixed to the bottle as a metal plaque) displaying the name, High Line. As for the Bond No. 9 token logo, it appears raised in relief as a backdrop.

Bond No. 9 has joined forces with and became sponsors of Friends of the High Line, the nonprofit organization that spearheaded and oversaw the revitalization and reuse of this abandoned rail line in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. For more information about the High Line and Friends of the High Line, go to www.thehighline.org.

Appearing on-counter in March 2010, Bond No. 9 High Line will be sold at the four Bond New York stores, Saks Fifth Avenue, and at the Bond Web site.

I'll be on the lookout for this one. I love makeup and fragrances with a cause! It gets better. Bond wants your empty perfume bottles for recycling - all of them! Just take your empty glass perfume bottles, theirs or anyone else’s, to Bond No. 9 boutiques and Bond No. 9 counters at Saks Fifth Avenue nationwide. They will take care of the rest. And by way of an eco-friendly thank-you, they will give you a refillable pocket spray free with any purchase.

Photo courtesy of Bond