Snif’s Newest Fragrance Will Transport You Straight to the Nail Salon

As a society, we really need to fix how we think about secret menus. Once upon a time, “off menu” meant something: a burger with onions for buns, or a coconut milk-based, very pink drink from a place where you were supposed to order a latte. The secret menu was a little weird, a little funky, and very much living in a place of “if you know you know.”

Thankfully, there are some brands that still honor the sanctity of this concept. Like Snif! While the fragrance brand obviously makes products for the masses (a milk scent that came with a campaign fronted by Rob Rausch, hello), there’s a special section of their website where things get a little funky. First there was Dead Dinosour, which was fronted by a gasoline accord. Now, they’re transporting us to the nail salon with their latest Secret Menu offering: Lychee Lacquer.

“I think people are looking for more than a list of notes. They want a fragrance to take them somewhere,” explains Snif’s CEO and co-founder, Bryan Edwards. “Lychee Lacquer has lychee, rose, jasmine, vanilla, and musk, but the real story is the nail salon. You get the fluorescent lights, the fresh mani/pedi, and that unmistakable smell in the air. You know the place immediately.”

Keep reading to discover everything there is to know about the sounds-weird-at-first-but-you-better-try-it new fragrance, which officially launches Tuesday, September 15.

The Inspiration

I can’t blame Snif for this (as mentioned, it’s a larger societal issue), but the brand’s last secret menu fragrance—while extremely fun and delicious—wasn’t too bizarre. Of course we all want to smell like Swedish sour candy.

According to Edwards, Lychee Lacquer takes Secret Menu “back to its weird roots.”

“Dead Dinosaur taught us that people love an iconic smell that is rooted in nostalgia and memory but may seem questionable after first to smell. We still have customers ask for ‘that gasoline fragrance,’” he explains. “The nail salon creates that same instant reaction. You know where you are before you even look up. We wanted to capture that familiarity without making something harsh or gimmicky.”

“Lychee and rose made the idea click. Pushed together, they create a juicy floral effect that brings nail polish to mind,” he adds. “Jasmine, vanilla, and musk make it beautiful on skin. It is weird and nostalgic, but still completely wearable. That is Secret Menu at its best.”

The Scent

The star of this scent is a photorealistic nail polish accord that the brand says was “built to capture the unmistakable scent of the salon itself.” It’s layered with juicy lychee (“think the candy dish by the register,” they added in a press release) to open things up with a familiar snap. At its heart, you’ll find rose and jasmine absolute—a flower delivery from a pleased client, perhaps?—while the base features vanilla and musk to reflect “the warmth of stepping back outside” after your appointment.

Edwards says the hardest part of developing this perfume was deciding just how far to push the nail polish accord.

“We wanted the instant recognition of a salon, without any of the sharpness of real polish,” he says. “Lychee and rose naturally get us close. They create that glossy, fruity floral effect, while jasmine, vanilla, and musk soften it on skin. We went back and forth on the intensity. Pull back too far and the idea disappears. Push harder and it stops being beautiful. The final balance still surprises you, but you want to keep spraying it. At the end, it is a power house, and we feel like it adds diversity to our palette.”

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How It Fits in the Fragrance World

So, how is this funky new scent going to fit into your fragrance wardrobe? And the perfume world at large?

Unsurprisingly, the nail polish accord is “without question” Edwards’ favorite note in the fragrance. And though it sounds... pungent?... it’s actually quite lovely.

“It is such a Snif note,” he says. “We love building accords because they let us recreate an entire experience instead of asking one ingredient to do all the work. You get that immediate flash of the nail salon, then the lychee, rose, jasmine, vanilla, and musk come through. It is juicy and floral, but still very easy to wear.”

Right now, we’re also seeing a trend of perfumers distancing themselves from gourmands. Save for Dead Dinosaur, all of Snif’s Secret Menu launches have had something to do with food. And while Edwards says gourmands will always be part of the vision there, this scent really does satisfy our longing to smell like things we’re definitely not supposed to eat.

“Secret Menu was never supposed to mean only food. It is where we get to build fragrances around recognizable smells people do not expect to wear,” he says. “Lychee Lacquer takes us back to that original idea. It is our first non-food Secret Menu scent since Dead Dinosaur, and it shows how much more room there is to experiment. That is really exciting for us.”

You can shop Lychee Lacquer ($68/30 mL) now via snif.co‘s Secret Menu and on Ulta shelves and ulta.com.