When guests walk into the Harlem brownstone home of Kimberly Waters and her partner, Steve Kirkpatrick, they can expect a one-of-a-kind fragrance experience curated for them.
Waters founded Modern Urban Sensory Experience (MUSE) in the brownstone of a friend in 2017 as a luxury perfume destination. She created the space to give a unique experience as opposed to the sometimes less personable one customers, and customers of color in particular, might get in a department store downtown. Beyond perfumes, Waters is proud that MUSE has been able to grow into a communal space where people can leave feeling more whole.
“It’s warm and safe, and you feel like you can be yourself, very different from going into a traditional brick and mortar,” Waters said.
Waters balances her work as a pharmaceutical representative, and running MUSE on the weekends.
Soothing music, typically R&B or jazz, will play as guests enter the home on Edgecombe Ave. in the Dorrance Brooks Historical Community. Depending on whether they sign up for the browsing session or personalized MUSE experience, guests can test different fragrances, and may leave with a tote bag, and samples. Waters is proud to bring this experience to the Harlem community.
“A lot of people who wear fragrance look like me, but they had to jump on a train. They had to go elsewhere to buy their fragrance,” Waters said. “I wanted to create a space in Harlem, where people didn’t have to leave their neighborhood, community to go search for their next fragrance.”
Through the sharing of perfumes and scents with clients, Waters says guests can explore and find out more about themselves. She finds that people who visit will want to come back with family, and friends, as she says the MUSE experience is also for people to come together, and celebrate each other, using fragrance.
“I want to inspire people to incorporate some element of fragrance into their lifestyle,” Waters said. “I know the power of that.”
For customers who visit MUSE, fragrance often becomes a connector and a bridge that opens the door for deeper conversations and connections. An older woman looking for a gift for her daughter was able to talk with Waters about personal struggles, to which Waters was able to provide a comforting space for her.
Waters, 44, was born in Harlem and raised in upstate New York. She says scents from her mother, grandmother, and other women in her life always had an impression on her.
After graduating from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, she began a career in healthcare pharmaceuticals. Later, at age 27, after feeling stagnant in moving up the corporate ladder, Waters felt the need to pivot and began to engage in fragrance. She first created a blog called “Reminiscient” for women, where she shared about fragrances that she was discovering, and her experience at fragrance trade shows.
“I was using fragrance to help me figure out, not only who I am, but who I aspire to be,” Waters said.
While Waters was financially comfortable, she desired to dive deeper into the fragrance space, and the retail side, specifically, and was curious what made customers choose certain products. She began to work freelancing as a fragrance specialist for Coty beauty products at stores like Bloomingdale’s. She then moved to working for By Kilian, getting boutique experience at Saks Fifth Avenue.
In 2017, after the company was sold, Waters opted to create her own space, MUSE, which would fulfill that need she knew existed. With the backing of different connections and supporters that she made in the industry, Waters began to build it out and used her close friend’s family-owned brownstone on Convent Avenue. While she says it has improved, she notes that the Black consumer has always made a large swath of fragrance sales but was never included in the business side.
“They took our money, but they weren’t making us a part of it,” Waters said.” I just wanted to change that in my own little way, which was through retail.”
Navigating the entrepreneurial journey as a Black woman and creating a new space was not without challenges.
“For me, who wanted to carve out a different space, there was no black-owned retail destination that focused on luxury, niche, and artistic fragrance,” Waters said. “I didn’t have a path on ‘how entrepreneurship works’? I had to figure that all out, how to market and how to open an LLC.”
Once the brownstone was sold in 2019, Waters would discover her current space on Edgecombe Ave.
Working with distribution companies as well as indie brands to acquire her inventory, Waters has always been intentional about including several Black-owned fragrances, including Zernell Gillie and brands like Coco de Mer currently. Earlier this month, she hosted a showcase with the Black Girl Perfume Club, highlighting fragrances rooted in Black culture.
After eight years, Waters says she never imagined how MUSE would grow into what it has become. With over 7,000 followers on social media, Waters says more and more people are discovering and spreading the word about the unique MUSE experience.
“It’s become a very community-based fragrance destination, not just for New Yorkers, but from people all over.” Waters recently had customers from Brazil who had heard about the company and wanted to visit.
Moving into 2026, Waters says she is looking to make MUSE even bigger, including a block party and a podcast, and potentially creating a MUSE retreat house incorporating practices like meditation, as well as a possible MUSE fragrance down the line.
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Editor’s Note: This story corrects an earlier version that erroneously referred to Kimberly Waters’ partner, where she founded her business, the neighborhood she lives in, where she was raised, her alma mater, and her initial support.