Popping My Zitomer Cherry

With writer Marisa Meltzer.

Earlier this year, Glossy author Marisa Meltzer suggested we spend an afternoon shopping at Zitomer, and my response was an immediate “Yes.” I’d heard and read so much about the Upper East Side pharmacy-slash-department-store over the years, but, believe it or not, I’d never been. Gasp!

I grew up in New York, but I’m a Downtown girl, and Zitomer is the ultimate Uptown destination. “I hope my soul goes to Zitomer when I die,” Marisa recently wrote in her beauty newsletter, Soft Power. She described it as having a unique variety of “old lady whimsy” that you can’t get at drugstore chains like Duane Reade or beauty chains like Sephora.

Founded in 1950, Zitomer is filled to the brim with obvious pharmaceutical necessities like Band Aids and Tylenol, but also with odds and ends that are hard or impossible to find anywhere else, making it an IYKYK-type of place that never fails to surprise and delight. It stocks everything from German foot soaks to Italian toothpaste, to the $38 tortoiseshell made-in-France headbands that Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy reportedly favored. Plus, chew toys for dogs that look like faux-designer “Pawda” bags and Gucci monogrammed pill cases.

Around the same time that Marisa suggested we take a trip, Air Mail also assigned me a story on Zitomer’s recent renovation. So, it was official: I had to pop my Zitomer cherry.

Below is a dispatch from my adventure, which ended with me spending over $100.