You know that nose-wrinkling experience of walking into a Sephora? Now, imagine if your morning commute was suffused with a similar barrage.
In what it’s calling an “aroma ad,” home goods and fragrance corporation Bath & Body Works is pumping vanilla and fresh pine scent from diffusers attached to steel girders in the tunnels connecting the subway beneath Grand Central Station in New York City.
As The Associated Press reports, commuters’ olfactory senses are being assaulted by the “Fresh Balsam” scent as part of a promotion campaign in collaboration with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
The so-called “scentigration” experience is meant to “delight consumers at every touchpoint,” according to a recent press release, inviting them to “experience fragrance wherever they are.”
But whether everybody appreciates an ambush by a cheap department store perfume while trying to navigate a busy subway station, let alone whether it’s really as safe as the company claims, remains unclear.
Should that really be part of the unwritten contract we agree to on public transit? As if being exposed to other strangers’ overzealous applications of fragrances in public wasn’t enough.
Some New York City commuters argue Bath & Body Works’ holiday spray application is an improvement over the familiar stink of an aging industrial space.
“It smells better than the normal New York City tunnels that we normally smell here,” one commuter told the AP. “So yes, I appreciate it.”
A separate commuter said the scent reminded her of “fabric softeners.”
Bath & Body Works isn’t just aiming to subject innocent commuters to its smells — it’s even looking to blast its holiday-themed smells in the faces of moviegoers at select theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
In short, it’s one thing to be exposed to fragrances when stepping into a store, but it’s an entirely different matter when you’re being exposed to them against your will in public spaces.
The corporation claims it has done its homework, reviewing the project’s safety during previous pilot aroma ads last year, per the AP.
The MTA’s director of commercial ventures, Mary John, told the paper that it hasn’t received any complaints so far. But considering NYC commuters have far more important matters to tend to — like getting to their destination — that’s not all too surprising.
More on fragrances: Scientists Issue Warning About Perfumes