By Julia Train
Smells have the power to transport people back to specific times and places. If you wear a certain perfume for a significant event, whenever the scent is smelled later, the brain remembers.
Renée Junewicz does the opposite by using her childhood memories to inspire the perfumes she makes.
One of her signature scents, “Time Can Wait,” nods to the summers she spent at her grandmother’s house in Ventnor.
Her father, a career Navy carrier pilot, moved the family every four years, but each summer, Junewicz and her older sister would be sent to their grandmother’s house at 6907 Atlantic Ave. in Ventnor, giving their mother a reprieve from caring for all five children.
This rhythm of relocation and return made Ventnor feel like the family’s emotional home base, a constant in an otherwise nomadic lifestyle.
Junewicz’s parents were Trenton natives, but their families maintained summer homes along the shore for generations.
Over time, Ventnor became the central location for family gatherings and childhood memories. It was there that Junewicz experienced formative milestones, like her first job selling saltwater taffy across from the Steel Pier, and lazy afternoons spent swinging in her grandmother’s concrete backyard, surrounded by honeysuckle.
Despite living in several states, including Texas, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Louisiana and New York, Junewicz’s ties to the Shore remained strong.
Even during her father’s Navy deployments, her family always returned to the same hospital in New Jersey for the births of Junewicz’s four siblings so that her mother could give birth with the same doctor.
In 2020, Junewicz turned her memories into something more tangible: perfume.
After studying perfumery in Grasse, France, she began developing scents based not only on classical accords but also on personal stories.
While traditional perfume design often separates roles between the perfumer, evaluator and client, Junewicz is all three.
Her first two signature scents, “Sincerely, Coronado” and “Time Can Wait,” marked a departure from her early student work and launched what would become her brand: Scent and Story NYC.
“Time Can Wait,” her most popular fragrance, channels her childhood summers in Ventnor. The scent captures the honeysuckle from her grandmother’s tiny backyard, peach pie memories and the long, barefoot walks from Ventnor to Atlantic City to save on bus fare.
“It truly does bring me back to long walks on the beach. I would walk from Ventnor to Atlantic City because I didn’t want to spend the money for the bus when I worked at Fralingers because I made so little — I think I made $1.35 an hour,” said Junewicz. “[When you’re young,] you think these summers are never going to end and, unfortunately, they do. So it really is, for me, sort of conjuring summers that will never end.”
She said the goal was to create an olfactory time capsule.
Each fragrance in the Scent and Story NYC line follows a similar storytelling model. The scent names, ingredients and compositions are designed not only to evoke Junewicz’s past but to resonate with others’ nostalgic experiences.
Although the original brand was called “Ébauche Fragrances,” a reference to underpaintings in classical art, the name evolved into Scent & Story NYC. Junewicz said she decided on the change because “Ébauche” confused many customers, and the rebrand better captured her mission: to tell stories through scent.
She works from a home studio in Manhattan, where she has set up a full lab with the necessary equipment to blend and test fragrances. Her creations are primarily sold through e-commerce, though she occasionally collaborates with boutique retailers and leads in-person workshops. These classes allow participants to mix their perfumes while learning the fundamentals of fragrance design.
Junewicz also authored a 50-page guide to perfume-making, inspired by frequently asked questions during her classes. Available for free on Kindle Unlimited, the book explains the technical side of perfumery, from structuring top, middle and base notes to understanding how raw materials interact.
As a perfumer, Junewicz continues to evolve, often stepping outside her floral and chypre comfort zone to experiment with fruity or woody scents based on customer feedback.
Despite the complexity of formulation and chemistry, each bottle remains a tribute to memory, place and time.
From honeysuckles to peach pie, Junewicz has transformed the ephemeral essence of summer into fragrances designed to linger far longer than the season itself.
