{"id":307745,"date":"2026-07-28T16:49:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T16:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/307745\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T16:49:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T16:49:55","slug":"what-does-a-brooklyn-summer-smell-like-this-crown-heights-entrepreneur-has-an-answer-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/307745\/","title":{"rendered":"What does a Brooklyn summer smell like? This Crown Heights entrepreneur has an answer \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are plenty of ways to remember a Brooklyn summer \u2014 a neighborhood barbecue, children cooling off beneath an open fire hydrant or long evenings spent chatting on the stoop. For Crown Heights entrepreneur Christine \u201cChriss\u201d Starchild and her home fragrance brand, Everything Chriss<\/a>, those moments can now be remembered through scent.<\/p>\n

After years of refining the idea, she recently launched \u201cBrooklyn Summer,\u201d a limited-edition candle designed to capture the feeling of summertime in the borough rather than a single place or event. Available exclusively at Franklin Makers in Crown Heights <\/a>and online, the collection pairs fragrance with photography, artwork, a curated Spotify playlist and a collectible bookmark to create what she described as a multi-sensory love letter to Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

\"BrooklynStarchild said she\u2019s been refining this idea for years, and the work has \u201cfinally\u201d come to fruition.Photo by Georgina Wu, Adora Creative Studio and courtesy of Chriss Starchild<\/p>\n

\u201cBrooklyn Summer is an idea that I\u2019ve had for several years, and I just couldn\u2019t materialize it,\u201d Starchild said. \u201cThe goal was to always highlight, spotlight, what summer in Brooklyn is all about and how everyday moments can feel like a movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those everyday moments became the foundation for the children.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was thinking of the vibe, it was block parties, community, neighbors and opening a fire hydrant and the kids outside,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

She recalled living in a Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone nearly a decade ago, where neighbors would gather around the grill on warm evenings.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember having some elder neighbors, and I\u2019d hear them, smell their grill, and I\u2019d say, \u2018Before you put that out, could I put some of my chicken on there for dinner?\u2019 And they\u2019re like, \u2018Yeah, bring it,’\u201d she said. \u201cThose kind of moments are really what I wanted to celebrate with this candle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scent behind \u2018Brooklyn Summer\u2019<\/p>\n

Instead of recreating literal Brooklyn scents, Starchild focused on the emotions she wanted people to experience.<\/p>\n

The candle blends cocoa butter, bergamot and musk \u2014 a combination chosen to evoke warmth, sunshine and lingering evenings outdoors.
\n\"BrooklynThe candle combines elements of cocoa butter, bergamot and musk.Photo by Jae Grumulaitis for Made in NYC \/ Pratt Center\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cocoa butter is the dominant scent, so it\u2019s warm, it\u2019s creamy, it\u2019s buttery,\u201d she said. \u201cThe bergamot is a citrus, so it\u2019s very light but also bright. And then the musk, to me, is the note that just stays underneath the whole scent.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the fragrance was carefully balanced to feel comforting while still reflecting the energy of summer.\n<\/p>\n

A multi-sensory approach<\/p>\n

But the experience doesn\u2019t stop when the candle is lit.\n<\/p>\n

A QR code links buyers to a nearly four-hour Spotify playlist featuring everything from disco and house music to Afrobeats, classic R&B and \u201890s hip-hop \u2014 the kind of soundtrack heard drifting through neighborhood block parties. <\/p>\n

\"BrooklynThe candle comes with a themed Spotify playlist and commemorative bookmark.Photo by Jae Grumulaitis for Made in NYC \/ Pratt Center<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted \u2018Brooklyn Summer\u2019 to be multi-sensory, not just in smell but also visual,\u201d the candle maker said. <\/p>\n

She added that the goal was to create \u201csomething for everyone\u201d that reflects the way generations come together during Brooklyn summers.\n<\/p>\n

A personal love letter to the borough<\/p>\n

Although originally from Queens and raised in Florida, Starchild said Brooklyn is the place where she truly built her life. <\/p>\n

\u201cBrooklyn made me a woman,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

After moving back to the New York area as an adult, she settled in the borough, where she met her husband, started a family and built her business.
\n\"BrooklynStarchild moved to Brooklyn permanently a decade ago and said it was the place that \u201cmade her a woman.\u201dPhoto by Jae Grumulaitis for Made in NYC \/ Pratt Center\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew there was nowhere else that I wanted to live,\u201d Starchild said. \u201cThere were so many pivotal and developmental things that happened to me here. I\u2019ve lived in a lot of places, and nothing compares to a summer in Brooklyn. <\/p>\n

She hopes future collaborations could celebrate the distinct personalities of neighborhoods across the borough, from Williamsburg and Greenpoint to South Brooklyn and Coney Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to collaborate and have someone in another part of Brooklyn share their image of what their Brooklyn summer is like and convey that through scent,\u201d she said. \u201cI specialize in helping people bring scents to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Brooklyn\u201cBrooklyn Summer\u201d retails for $36 on the Everything Chriss website and in stores.Photo by Georgina Wu, Adora Creative Studio<\/p>\n

For now, though, \u201cBrooklyn Summer\u201d serves as a reminder that the most memorable moments aren\u2019t always the biggest ones.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aBrooklyn is just so special and so important to me, and that I wanted to highlight and share it through these scents,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are plenty of ways to remember a Brooklyn summer \u2014 a neighborhood barbecue, children cooling off beneath…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1149,2091,4987,32486,98,100,99,116416,2025,102,2184,3468,116417,116418,68640,45893,232,610,18868,267,96836,9,24,12,63,2539,2990,103582],"class_list":["post-307745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-art","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-bedford-stuyvesant","tag-borough","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-candles","tag-community-news","tag-crown-heights","tag-development","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-franklin-makers","tag-home-fragrance","tag-kc","tag-kings-county","tag-lifestyle","tag-local","tag-local-business","tag-local-news","tag-made-in-brooklyn","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-shopping","tag-small-business","tag-summer-in-brooklyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}