Disclosure first: we run Base Note, a luxury fragrance subscription that ships a 5 ml atomizer — roughly 60 sprays — of designer and niche fragrance every month for a flat $20. Bond No. 9 is one of the houses we carry, and we currently stock four of their fragrances. So we have an obvious interest in you finding Bond No. 9 interesting. What follows is an honest guide anyway, including the part where we say plainly that this is one of the most expensive-per-millilitre houses in mainstream retail, that the neighborhood names are marketing rather than information, and that at least one of the four is genuinely divisive. If you finish this and decide Bond No. 9 is not for you, that is a good outcome too.
If you only read one thing: Bond No. 9 names its fragrances after New York neighborhoods, but the name tells you nothing about the smell — the note list does. Of the four we carry, the split is clean. The Scent of Peace for Him is the hot-weather, office-safe, pineapple-and-vetiver one. FiDi is the year-round versatile one, peppery-citrus into soft woods. Bleecker Street is the sweet one — blueberry, caramel, suede — and it is the one people either love or find too dessert-adjacent. NoMad is the cold-weather evening statement, built on an oud accord with rose and amber. Buy on the notes, not the neighborhood.
The four at a glance
| Fragrance | Opening | Dry-down | Mood | Best season | Best occasion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Scent of Peace for Him | Pineapple, juniper berries, bergamot | Cedar, vetiver | Clean, bright, uncomplicated | Spring / summer | Office, daytime, everyday |
| FiDi | Black pepper, bergamot, mandarin | Musk, cedar, vanilla | Crisp, tailored, quietly warm | Spring, summer, fall | Office, daytime, most things |
| Bleecker Street | Violet leaf, blueberry, cassis, thyme | Oakmoss, suede, patchouli, amber, vanilla, caramel | Fruity-sweet with a dry, mossy floor | Spring / summer (we’d argue cooler months too) | Office, formal, evening |
| NoMad | Pear, quince, blackcurrant | Amber, vanilla, sandalwood (over an oud accord and rose) | Rich, dressed-up, deliberate | Fall / winter | Date night, evenings out, formal |
Those note pyramids are the ones printed on our own product pages. Hold that thought — note lists vary between the house, the retailer and the enthusiast databases, and we get into why below.
What Bond No. 9 actually is
Bond No. 9 was founded in 2003 by Laurice Rahmé, with its main shop at 9 Bond Street in the NoHo district of Manhattan — which is where the name comes from. The house opened with 16 “neighborhood fragrances,” and by 2013 had produced “over 60 fragrances, including exclusive co-branded fragrance productions for Saks Fifth Avenue and Harrods” (Source: Wikipedia, Bond No. 9, retrieved 2026-08-18). The same entry notes five eponymous New York boutiques plus distribution through Saks, Harrods, Bloomingdale’s, Hudson’s Bay, Isetan, Sephora and De Bijenkorf, and two FiFi Award wins — Astor Place and Brooklyn taking Fragrance of the Year in the women’s and men’s categories in 2009, and New York Oud taking Perfume Extraordinaire in 2012.
The neighborhood conceit is the whole brand identity, and it is worth being clear-eyed about it. A neighborhood name is a brief given to a perfumer, not a description handed to a shopper. Nothing about the Financial District smells like black pepper and mandarin. NoMad is a good example of how much the name can mislead: our own product page describes it in terms of wanderlust and travel, but the house means NoMad the district — North of Madison Square Park — which Bond No. 9 describes as “one of the city’s oldest districts, which has continuously reinvented itself over generations” (Source: Bond No. 9, checked 2026-08-18). Both readings are fine as poetry. Neither tells you the fragrance is an oud.
So: read the pyramid, ignore the geography. If pyramids are new to you, our guide to top, heart and base notes covers how to read one bottom-up, and our fragrance families explainer covers the category vocabulary.
What Bond No. 9 costs
This is the honest friction point, and it comes before the reviews for a reason. Prices from Bond No. 9’s own site, all checked 2026-08-18:
| Fragrance | 100 ml | 50 ml | Cost per ml (100 ml bottle) | Value of 5 ml at that rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bleecker Street | $470.00 | — | $4.70 | $23.50 |
| FiDi | $460.00 | — | $4.60 | $23.00 |
| The Scent of Peace for Him | $470.00 | from $295.00 | $4.70 | $23.50 |
| NoMad | $470.00 | $345.00 | $4.70 | $23.50 |
(Source: Bond No. 9 official product pages, prices checked 2026-08-18. Prices change; re-check before you buy.)
Two things follow from that table. First, a blind buy here is a $460–$470 bet on a fragrance you have smelled on a paper strip for 45 seconds, which is a bad bet at any price. Second, the per-millilitre figure is why we think this house in particular belongs in a sampling rotation rather than a shopping cart. Bleecker Street and NoMad are both listed as eau de parfum on the house’s own pages; every Base Note product page lists the concentration and country of origin, and all four of these are made in the USA.
The four, one at a time
The Scent of Peace for Him — the easy one
Notes on our page: pineapple, juniper berries and bergamot up top; currant buds in the heart; cedar and vetiver in the base.
Pineapple is the headline, and it is worth saying that this is not a tropical-drink pineapple. Juniper and vetiver pull it dry almost immediately, so the effect is closer to crisp-and-green than sweet. It reads clean, it reads fresh, and it does not demand anything of the room.
Who it suits: anyone who wants a warm-weather fragrance that will not become a topic of conversation. If you work in a shared office, this is the one of the four we would hand you first — the same logic our office-safe colognes guide runs through in more detail.
The honest caveat: fruity-fresh openings with a vetiver base are a crowded category, and this one does not do anything structurally surprising. You are paying Bond No. 9 prices for a very well-executed version of a familiar idea. That is a fair trade for some people and an obvious no for others.
FiDi — the versatile one
Notes on our page: black pepper, bergamot and mandarin orange up top; lotus and nutmeg in the heart; musk, cedar and vanilla in the base.
Black pepper over citrus is a sharp, adult opening — it announces itself without being loud. The nutmeg keeps a little spice alive through the middle, and then it settles into soft, slightly powdery woods with just enough vanilla to keep it from going austere. Our page tags it for spring, summer and fall, which is unusual across our catalogue and is the single best argument for it.
Who it suits: the person who wants one fragrance to cover most of the calendar. If you are building a rotation from scratch, a versatile spicy-woody like this is a strong middle slot.
The honest caveat: note lists for FiDi differ depending on where you look. Our page lists a base of musk, cedar and vanilla; Bond No. 9’s own page for the same fragrance also lists tonka bean, ambrox and amber in the base (Source: Bond No. 9, checked 2026-08-18). Neither list is wrong — published pyramids are editorial summaries, not formulas — but it is a useful reminder that a note list is a map, not the territory.
Bleecker Street — the divisive one
Notes on our page: violet leaf, blueberry, cassis and thyme up top; cedar, jasmine and cinnamon in the heart; oakmoss, suede, patchouli, amber, vanilla and caramel in the base.
That base is the story. Six materials, and three of them — amber, vanilla, caramel — are sweet. Blueberry and cassis up front make the opening read almost like a dessert, and then oakmoss, suede and patchouli arrive underneath and drag it somewhere drier and older-feeling. Bond No. 9 files it under warm and spicy, as a woody gourmand oriental.
Who it suits: people who already know they like sweet fragrance and want a version with actual structure under it. The mossy-suede floor is what separates this from a straightforward gourmand.
The honest caveat: this is the one of the four most likely to be too much for someone. If “caramel” in a base note list makes you wince, believe that instinct. It is also the one where the seasonal tagging on our own page — spring and summer — sits oddly with how sweet and heavy the dry-down is; we would reach for it in cooler months, and our fall fragrance guide explains why sweetness and cold air work well together.
NoMad — the evening one
Notes on our page: pear, quince and blackcurrant up top; rose, oud accord, violet leaves and orris in the heart; amber, vanilla and sandalwood in the base.
Fruit into oud into amber is a well-established formula for a reason: the pear and quince give you a bright, almost juicy first two minutes, and then the rose-and-oud heart takes over and the whole thing gets serious. The house calls it “a strong, sensual, statement-making oud, with modern fruity notes and luxurious amber” (Source: Bond No. 9, checked 2026-08-18), which is a fair description.
Who it suits: evenings, cold weather, and occasions where you want the fragrance to be part of the outfit. Tagged on our page for date night, evenings out and formal wear — see also our date night cologne guide.
The honest caveat: oud is not neutral territory. Wear this to a 9am meeting and you will be the most noticeable person in the room, and not in the way you intended.
So which one is you?
| If this is you… | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You want one bottle to cover most of the year | FiDi | Only one of the four tagged across three seasons |
| You work in a shared office and want zero risk | The Scent of Peace for Him | Clean, dry, low-drama, warm-weather friendly |
| You already own and love a sweet gourmand | Bleecker Street | Same pleasure, but with oakmoss and suede underneath |
| You want something for dinners and cold nights | NoMad | Oud accord, rose and amber — built for evenings |
| You hate sweetness in fragrance | The Scent of Peace for Him, then FiDi | Both keep vanilla and amber in a supporting role |
| You are new to fragrance entirely | FiDi | Broadest occasion range, least polarizing structure |
Where Bond No. 9 genuinely disappoints
Three honest criticisms, none of which we would expect the house to print.
The price is the product for some buyers. At $4.60–$4.70 per millilitre, you are paying for heavy decorated bottles, five Manhattan boutiques and a strong brand identity alongside the juice. Whether that is worth it is a personal call, but it should be a conscious one. Our piece on designer versus niche fragrance unpacks what that premium usually buys and what it does not.
The names encourage buying blind. “Which neighborhood are you?” is a fun question and a bad shopping method. Someone who loves the West Village and hates sweet fragrance will not enjoy Bleecker Street, and there is no version of the neighborhood story that warns them.
Published note lists are inconsistent. As above with FiDi, the same fragrance is described with materially different base notes on different pages. Treat every pyramid, including ours, as a summary written by a person rather than a specification.
How to actually test these
Spray on skin, not paper, and wait 30 minutes before forming an opinion. That is not a stylistic preference — the interaction between a person’s own body odor and a fragrance is measurable. In a controlled study where men wore their own chosen perfume on one armpit and a randomly assigned, equally pleasant perfume on the other, female raters found the self-selected blends significantly more attractive (Z = 2.37; N = 21; p = 0.02) and more pleasant (p = 0.01) (Source: PLOS ONE, 2012). The fragrance that suits you is partly a fact about your skin, not just your taste. Our pillar piece on why you smell the way you do goes deep on the mechanism, and our guide to sampling before you commit covers the testing routine itself.
The 5 ml way to do this
Here is the version of the pitch we are comfortable making. Trying all four of these at retail is roughly $1,870 of bottles. Trying all four through Base Note is four months at $20 — and the first month is 25% off, so $15. You get a 5 ml atomizer each month, about 60 sprays, which is enough to wear something through a full week of real life rather than a 45-second counter impression. You swap monthly, you cancel anytime, and every product page lists the concentration and country of origin so you know exactly what you are wearing. One flat price. Every luxury fragrance. Build your signature rotation.
If four months feels slow, that is the honest trade: the rotation model is designed for people who would rather be certain than fast. Our guide to how long a 5 ml atomizer lasts has the spray math, and if you would rather have the decision made for you, the scent quiz takes about two minutes. The full rotation is 32 fragrances across houses including Creed, Tom Ford, Parfums de Marly and Xerjoff.
If you are still weighing subscriptions generally, we wrote an honest comparison of the options and a piece on what people switching from Scentbird are actually looking for. Both name the cases where we are not the right answer.
The bottom line
Bond No. 9 is a genuinely distinctive house with a strong point of view and prices to match. The four we carry cover a real range: two daytime workhorses in FiDi and The Scent of Peace for Him, one sweet-and-structured outlier in Bleecker Street, and one cold-weather statement in NoMad. Every one of them is worth a week on your skin. None of them is worth $470 before you have had that week.
Pick the note list you like, not the neighborhood you like. Then find out what your skin does with it — and if you are still narrowing things down, our guide to finding your signature scent is the next thing to read.
— Jeff Theefs & Alex Cherne
Founder & Cofounder, Base Note