As a child, Merryck Walker was always drawn to fragrances, be they certain perfumes or someone cooking.
“When something smells good, it really, really, releases all of these endorphins in my brain that are like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t stop,” she told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “I’ve always enjoyed it more than other sensory experiences.”
This weekend, the 29-year-old Clearwater High School graduate cuts the ribbon on a shop that not only embraces her lifelong obsession, but invites neighbors to dive in, too. The space facing Mirror Lake is just 483-square feet, but it marks a milestone for St. Petersburg which has never been home to a niche fragrance store like Super Memory.
Walker, who was born in Clearwater and grew up in St. Petersburg, can talk circles around the idea of how scent offers a special bypass for thinking unlike the other senses. Where it lands in someone’s brain is completely contextual, she added, explaining how certain smells might remind someone of an ex or a certain place or time.
Keep talking, and her degrees in microbiology and chemistry—and past life and a sommelier—start to come out as she illustrates how perfumes react to and reflect the innate flora and proteins on our bodies.
“It’s a whole microbiome, and it has yeast and bacteria and all those things cling on to different parts of the fragrance that another skin type might not,” she said, starting to namecheck fragrant grasses like vetiver, or ambroxan and vanillin notes that turn up. The way a perfume expresses itself really depends on the person putting it on.
“And because of that, I think it’s imperative to try perfume, get it on, try it for a few days, do a skin test, and then come back and get a full bottle,” she added.
In a world where a lot of what people wear now is dictated by department stores and online retailers that force people into certain lanes, Super Memory is built for a more analog experience.
The shop will be more creative and open, with 57 different fragrances from about 10 brands that span the globe. Almost an antidote to doTerra multi-level-marketing, Super Memory brings to St. Petersburg a highly-curated and carefully-vetted slate of fragrances—not unlike the way a specialty wine shop would be selective about what it does with its shelf space.
Each SKU will offer something unique, and range in price from $40-$300. Themed discovery sets will be $15 and might include three fragrances, allowing customers to try the most expensive stuff without having to drop a C-note. Samples will be complimentary with purchases, Walker told CL.
Fragrances, she added, are unisex in general. There are categories of scent that lean into certain demographics, Walker said, noting that woodsy, smoky and deeply aromatic scents have been categorized as masculine while floral, bright and citrus fragrances tend to fall feminine. But Super Memory’s offering mostly won’t follow those rules. Some chypre offerings will even start floral, progress towards citrus, and end with more of that vetiver quality.
Walker also likes that women have started to adopt men’s fragrances—and vice versa. At the end of the day, she added, “Any scent is for any person.”
Used to shopping alone, Walker usually spends an hour to 90 minutes inside any given fragrance shop. At Super Memory, there’s a small sit-down bar where she envisions helping customers and their companions start with a wide range of scents before using deduction to figure out what they like and sending them home with a sample.
“Get yourself out of the thousands of aroma molecules that are inside this room and go smell it outside of that context,” she said, adding that there will be an air purifier inside. “Take it home too, and see how it wears.”
Home is a subtle hallmark of Super Memory. The shop, in a way, is another breath of fresh air in a community where monied entities seem to break ground on residences and businesses on every corner.
Driven to give her hometown an experience that she enjoys in other cities, Walker got the LLC for Super Memory over the summer and signed her lease on Oct. 1. Friends and family have donated time and muscle to help build out the shop, but she’ll open the door without the help of investors. In a world that feels impossible at the moment, Super Memory’s opening offers some hope that a local person with a good idea and good credit score can do something special.
Walker, for her part, is most excited about creating a lane that hasn’t really been explored in St. Pete at all. Talking about scent, and getting to talk about the fragrances she wears gives her connection. In the best cases, guiding someone through the perfume-picking process creates confidence.
“It’s like buying a pretty new jacket, and having people like it. It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, cool. I picked it, thanks,” she said. “It’s a part of what I think is cool, and I’m glad you like it, too.”
Super Memory’s business hours, although subject to change as the shop gets going, will be 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Follow @supermemory_fl on Instagram.
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This article appears in Nov. 20 – 26, 2025.