Ever wanted to smell like wet concrete after a lightning strike? How about a barbershop fire that happened in the 19th century? Then, you’re in luck. D.S. & Durga, the fragrance and candle brand started by husband and wife Ms Kavi Ahuja Moltz and Mr David Seth Moltz, makes fragrances that take us to unusual places. Their Burning Barbershop scent, for instance, was inspired by the aftermath of a fire that destroyed the Curling Bros barbershop in New York in 1891 – think smoky notes of lavender, mint and Turkish rose, mimicking the shattering of burning hair tonics as they went up in the blaze. It’s intense stuff, and it smells fantastic.

Elsewhere, perfumers have also been taking inspiration from specific scenarios or places to whisk us away. Take 19-69, an innovative brand barely two years old that has built a reputation for making scents that take us to, among other places, Woodstock, a Chinese tobacconist and a scenic mansion estate on the Côte d’Azur. The Kasbah fragrance is inspired by the party scene in 1970s Marrakesh – sweet and heady, with lots of honey and sandalwood. Indeed, there’s something undeniably enjoyable about putting on a fragrance that smells like a walk through a Tibetan forest before you go out to dinner (see Creed’s crisp Himalaya fragrance with notes of grapefruit, lemon and gunpowder).

It’s also worth pointing out that the best innovations in the fragrance world, especially the ones designed to take you to imagined places, are usually the ones that come without the pretence. “We take our work seriously, but not too seriously,” the founders say on D.S. & Durga’s website. “If you can’t have fun doing what you dig, what’s the point?” When it smells as great – and as distinctive – as this stuff does, we’re inclined to agree.