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JUN 25 2026
Searching for the Smell of ‘90s-Era Dykehood
BY CHARLOTTE DELUMPA-ALEXANDER
I have spent a significant amount of time mourning a decade I didn't live through. Even if, by some miracle bestowed by Sappho herself, I had realized I was gay in the very same year I was born, I would have missed it. I am, of course, referring to the queer utopia of the 1990s–the one that thrived in the vibrant alleys of the Mission in San Francisco, or the hazy body-packed rooms of NYC’s Clit Clubs and Cubbyholes.
This pre-digital lesbian nirvana, illuminated by the likes of Michelle Tea and Chloe Sherman and scored by the screamy sounds of Sleater-Kinney, tugs at my gay little heartstrings at every turn. The mirage is so vivid, so close, though just out of my reach. Dive bars full of Jenny Shimizu types infiltrate my dreams–I yearn for shitty apartments shared by too many aspiring writers, streets papered with DIY punk fliers and Riot Grrrl zines. In a parallel universe, I ride the pillion of a butch’s bike; I run topless in the streets alongside the Lesbian Avengers.
Alas. To my dismay, I turned 26 this past March.
And in true Pisces fashion, I grasp at what straws I can in attempts to teleport. Scent is my time machine of choice–a spritz of Jasmin et Cigarette on my wrists as I read Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, the sweaty white florals and spicy tobacco mixing and mingling on my skin in step with Lawlor’s iconic gender-bending leading they-dy across early ‘90s queer America. I start a pile of Valencia Street-inspired fragrance samples–Fraaagola Saalaaata with its bubbly, femme, lipsmackers strawberry, or Seduction Theory with its all-too-realistic dive-bar bathroom dirtiness, nothing short of cigarette butts, sticky spilt cocktails, and shared saliva.
Eventually, though, it’s not enough. I long for something deeper–I crave a stronger hit. My fantasy is just that: a fantasy. I need a touchpoint, an authentic and tangible object of my desire. What exactly were these 90s dykes-of-my-dreams actually wearing when it came to fragrance? I fall down the rabbit holes of internet blogs and threads in search of an answer, only to be met, again and again, with CK One–by far and away the most-mentioned “queer” perfume from the time.
Launched in 1994, the iconic eau de toilette is often referenced as the first truly “androgynous” fragrance with its refreshing, citrusy blend of bergamot, green tea, and white floral musk. Advertised for either “a man or a woman,” the minimal frosted bottle became a shining beacon of aquatic airiness and gender fluidity–a sharp contrast against the opulent more-is-more power-dressing and bombastic amber-heavy fragrances of the decade prior.
“Authenticity” was meant to anchor the black-and-white marketing campaign, featuring young models sporting short-cropped haircuts, perfect 501 Levis, and casual oops-we-didn’t-see-you-there styling. Speaking of Jenny Shimizu–the “diesel-dyke” mechanic-turned-model was featured across the campaign, her tattoo of a naked pin-up girl riding a wrench on full display. By all accounts, CK One was a smash hit, achieving its goal of becoming the essential everyday perfume for the masses that it set out to be. And even after over 30 years, it remains a defining relic of the times–fresh, shimmering, and eager to blur boundaries.
Calvin Klein, 1994
On paper, this fragrance wholly answered my desperate siren song for an authentic ‘90s lesbian perfume. I knew I had to get my grubby little hands on it. So when it finally arrived on my doorstep–shiny and new straight from the shelves of FragranceNet–I’d torn the clingwrap off with such reckless abandon, greedy like a kid with a new toy on Christmas.
But upon first spritz, I felt… betrayed.
It was exactly what it promised to be: a citrusy blast of fresh-out-the-shower dew drops. And somehow, that was the problem. An almost too-wearable quality left me aching for more. Where was the dirtiness? The grit and grime that plastered my bookshelf, my playlists, my daydreams? I longed for leather, tobacco, patchouli–anything to match the denim-clad, motorcycle-boot-wearing, buzzcut models in the ads. Not even a suggestion of something human reached my nose–no skin, no sweat, nothing that smelled like it had been anywhere or done anything. Jeremy Atherton Lin, in his memoir on 90s going-out culture, Gay Bar, put it best: it should have smelled "like the ditch between scrotum and thigh, or of mud or gasoline." Instead: astringent, unmemorable, department store.
Why such a disconnect? Perhaps because the image–the one of this 90s queer mecca Calvin Klein aimed to capture, the same one that I return to again and again, polishing like a cherished heirloom–is incomplete.
Possibly because the spaces I romanticize were not built for romance–not in the way I imagine. Refuge is a better word, assembled out of necessity with nowhere else to go. Many were running from something–the darkness of unaccepting families or towns that had no language for who they were. And even once the sun finally shone, for those who did make it–to NYC, to San Francisco, to London, to Tokyo–shadows followed.
The AIDS epidemic was rewriting every room with absence, stealing lovers, friends, and chosen family at a devastating rate. Untreated addiction and mental health crises were woven into the fabric of daily life, leaving the destruction of grief in its wake. Sex work was often not so much a feminist choice but a consequence of being unhireable, unhoused, cut off. Those bohemian, confined, shared spaces were pieced together out of need. Partying offered reprieve–drugs and alcohol, crucial coping mechanisms. The 35mm shots are beautiful because the people in them–their resilience, their spirits, their communities–were beautiful, not because the circumstances were.
"Perfume was expensive, so not something that would have been a main focus for many, if any. It was all about the music."
@LadyofWahey, Fragrantica thread
And while wearing nothing does seem to be the most realistic answer, I found it utterly disappointing. I refused to accept. Forlorn and desperate, I dug a little deeper, taking my search to some darker corners of both the internet and the fragrance realm. Finally, I was blessed by a years-old Reddit thread: “'90s nostalgia - Indie dupe or similar?” It was within these online walls that I unearthed something so comically wacky yet so weirdly alluring that I said out loud, “Oh, fuck yeah.”
Enter, Fetish by Dana.
Yes, that Dana, of Love’s Baby Soft acclaim. Launched in 1997 and housed in a novelty bottle designed alla science-experiment-gone-wrong, Fetish boasts notes of powdery violet, ylang-ylang, grapefruit, lily-of-the-valley, amber, pineapple, and sandalwood. A promising lineup–and available for $20 max at the local drugstores of the time. Could this be it? My ‘90s grungy lesbian white whale? Although not specifically marketed as queer, Fetish appeared, at least on paper, to be crafted for the sexually subversive, its bottle literally dripping with innuendo.
Though, upon further inspection, a creeping sensation of doubt began to bloom. Disclaimer–I’ve yet to actually get my nose on this scent, though eBay seems to be overflowing with listings if you’re interested. However, I have a pretty good idea thanks to the faithful bloodhounds of Fragrantica. On Fetish’s page, the most similar perfumes listed are Issey Miyake’s L'eau d'Issey and Polo Sport for Women… and allegedly, people who “like Fetish also like” Tommy Girl and D&G’s Light Blue. Hm… Uh-oh. I’m sensing another CK One dilemma. Could this be yet another fragrance marketed as “provocative” just to land right in the ranks of the crisp, polished department store shelves? Or, in this case, the drugstore beauty aisle?
Then, it got weirder.
Speaking of marketing, in the commercial copy section on Fetish’s Fragrantica page, a foreboding quote reads: “[Fetish’s] commercial was controversial with its disturbing slogan, so it was subsequently removed.” Now, what could that possibly mean? Perhaps something featuring latex, chains, or whips? Dare I say maybe a flopped foot-fetish reference?
What I found was far more upsetting. Apparently, Fetish’s claim to fame lies in this disastrous string of words: “Apply generously to your neck so he can smell the scent as you shake your head ‘no’.” I beg your finest pardon? These horrific words–printed atop an adolescent model (quite literally), glistening with youth. There you have it–rape culture in a bottle. Now, I am the first to add-to-cart a controversial novelty fragrance–looking at you Sécrétions Magnifiques–but this is next level (derogatory). Hard pass. As Basenote Bitch said in her review, “No does not mean yes, and perfume doesn’t change that.”
Another reviewer on Fragrantica notes they were actually around when this was launched and explains that no one really thought this was controversial at the time, and the word “Fetish” was more so a stand-in for “love-obsessed.” They wrote: “As far as shaking your head ‘no,’ the implication was that guys would be chasing after you asking for dates or asking for your number in such droves that they'd be lucky to catch a whiff of you as your hair flipped away. They could've worded that better, but no one was losing their minds over this ad campaign back then, as the modern takeaway might suggest.” Important historical context, though it still raises a brow–even if no one else was back then.
I’d reached an impasse.
My search for the perfect, authentic, ‘90s-era dyke fragrance had stalled. CK One too clinical, Fetish too… unsavory. I did have some back-tracked success with Anna Sui’s signature fragrance–one that I’d purchased before my Michelle Tea-inspired idée fixe had fully taken hold. It was one of the only scents in my collection that had launched before 2000–though barely, hitting shelves in 1999–and Anna Sui’s purple-drenched whimsy-goth aesthetic indeed captured a certain ‘90s Mazzy Star spirit, adjacent to my lesbian-filled Valencia Street vision. But even this one, with its iconic black-framed, rose-lidded bottle and powdery peach-iris blend, wasn’t doing it for me. My heart wasn’t in it.
Perhaps because I’d already owned this perfume, it lacked that sparkly-new quality of buying something with a hyper-specific fantasy in mind. Or, maybe, my mistake was expecting a single perfume–especially one produced by brands backed by millions–to carry the weight of an entire era.
No fragrance could possibly contain every cigarette-stained dance floor, every cramped apartment, every misfit who left home searching for a place where they could finally exhale. It’s easy to read the audacious words of Michelle Tea or rewatch season one of The L Word for the millionth time and imagine a seemingly queerer, happier time. That’s the strange thing about memory–or lack of it. Sometimes we mourn places we never visited because we recognize ourselves in the people who were there. I came looking for a perfume that could carry that world and found something else entirely: something cleaner, blander, already sealed shut. Maybe it was never meant to be otherwise. Scent, for them, the dykes of my dreams, was not a portal but an afterthought—something worn between rent, work, and the business of simply staying alive.
I will continue to reach for my bottles and add samples to my cart in hopes they might transport me into another time, another room, another body standing under different neon lights. But I don’t need a time machine. I was never meant to walk those wheatpasted alleys. The party I thought I was late to–I actually don’t think I was invited.
Because I get to live a different experience as a modern 20-something lesbian: a calmer one, a gentler one, out in the open air and collaged from all those who came before me, assembled with great care and appreciation. It’s a privilege to get to wear this lineage every day like I wear my daily driver. Androgynous and patchouli–forward, of course, with just a hint of sweat and cigarette.
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