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Bushwick-Scented Candle Selling For $81
By
Jen Carlson
Published Sep 3, 2014
Modified Sep 3, 2014
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Sep 3, 2014
Modified Sep 3, 2014
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(Bushwick photo by Barry Yanowitz)
Used to be a time when you could purchase a candle that smelled like Bushwick at the local mom and pop shop for a handful of nickels, but those glory days are long gone. Candle prices are often ignored in the wider topic of gentrification, but the severe spike in novelty neighborhood scents is nothing to scoff at.
In 1999, for example, you could buy a Williamsburg candle for about a buck fifty, but sometime around 2005 that price started to go up at an alarming rate, and luxury candles with unnecessary design flare started to hit the market. And these days, pshhh, these days the only people who can afford a decent Williamsburg-scented candle housed inside of a refurbished wood holder are Bigwigs and Wall Streeters.
The candle companies often predict what neighborhood you will be priced out of next, something called "candlefication" in the multi-jillion-dollar industry. Know candles, and you know the city, insiders say. So it's with a heavy heart but unsurprising tone that we report to you that Bushwick is next on Big Candle's list.
OAK, one of the top luxury scent-shillers, has introduced a Bushwick-scented candle, which they're currently selling for $81.
They say that the candle is inspired by a time when you could afford to live there—well, here's how they put it: "Inspired by the Brooklyn neighborhood in the early 2000's: wood, oil, paint thinner, incense, booze, dust, ICR vs. Deth Killers of Bushwick, and artist lofts. Scent highlights include terpenic notes of drying oil paint on canvases blended with incense, dry cedarwood chips, and dark guaiac wood oil."
And don't even try to blame this on Lena Dunham, this is clearly the work of Zosia Mamet. [via Bushwick Daily]
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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