Memory's factory: A journey through scent

A walk across the perfume section of a department store is an assault on the senses: dozens of scents vying for your attention and your business. The military metaphor is apt, for perfume is a $15-billion-dollar-a-year industry and that kind of money triggers ferocious competition. Perfume is the most accessible high-end product, the entry-level to most luxury brands. It creates an atmosphere, which is then filled with clothes, bags, jewelry, shoes, and entire product ranges.

And yet for something so sensual, enveloping, and omnipresent, perfume manages to evade description. The olfactory scientist Luca Turin rhapsodizes on the “fresh, thyme-like angle” of lavender; the “sweet, powdery, vanilla biscuit” of coumarin; orientals with their “sweet, amber, vanillic accords enlivened with woody, animalic, or floral notes;” the “mouthwateringly fresh, deliciously sweet, and bracingly bitter” accord of mossy woods.

 Clever as he is, he cannot recreate those smells in our minds. When we try to describe a smell, words fail us; we are reduced to citing other objects. If you try to describe your classroom in the third grade, you might bring up the scent of rubber erasers, of paste in a jar, chalk dust on a blackboard, the scent of freshly-mown grass and fertilizer wafting through the windows on sunny afternoons — you are not detailing the smells themselves. But the words “freshly-mown grass and fertilizer” set off a little explosion in your memory, and suddenly your nostrils are filled with that exact aroma.

 In A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman muses: “It may be . . . that smells move us so profoundly, in part, because we cannot utter their names.” Smell is the most direct of all our senses, Ackerman points out. Its effect is immediate, and it is retained as long-term memory.

 Each of us has a unique scent; we may not be aware of it, but we inhale each other before we even speak or shake hands. Our impressions of others, their impressions of us, are formed largely in those first seconds. These are filed away as memories, to be summoned up repeatedly throughout our lives.

 How, then, do you choose the scent you wish to be identified by? How do you pick your olfactory fingerprint? Do you go by the most popular, most desirably-marketed fragrance of the moment — perfumes designed to let you “buy into the dream” of a luxury brand, or do you assert your individuality and embark on a personal quest to find that one fragrance that will define you?

If the idea of a quest appeals to you, you could begin your olfactory journey at Adora’s Fragrance Bar. Instead of salespersons accosting you with scent strips, wielding bottles to spray you with, or giving you unsolicited advice about the “it” perfumes of the week, the fragrance bar offers a menu you can peruse at your leisure. The scents are presented in glasses so that you can sample them as you would a fine wine. You can browse the perfumes and let them tell you their stories.

The story of Floris spans centuries: This British house has formulated scents for every royal European house. The gentleman’s fragrance Special 127 was created especially for the Grand Duke Orloff of Russia in 1804; its name comes from the page on which the perfume’s formula was written. More recently, No. 89 got its name from the Floris store’s address on Jermyn Street, London. It is the fragrance worn by that paragon of masculine elegance: Bond, James Bond.

Floris upholds tradition, Comme des Garcons perfumes defy it. These scents bottle up the most mundane aspects of daily life and transform them into something sublime: liquid memories.

Histoires de Parfums encapsulates in scent some of the most influential personalities of centuries past: the writers Colette and George Sand, Empress Eugenie de Montijo, legendary rake Casanova, the notorious Marquis de Sade, and science fiction pioneer Jules Verne.  Histoires de Parfums pays tribute to their accomplishments in fragrances named after the years of their birth.

  Etro uses the principles of Color Therapy to create fragrances to match specific personalities: the passion of red (Raving), the freshness of yellow (Lemon Sorbet), the innocence of white (VicoloFiori), and so on.

Maison Francis Kurkdjian (MFK) brings together the famed perfumer’s various productions: the perfumes, the bespoke creations for private clients, and an entire range of perfumed products including incense paper, scented bubbles, candles, perfumed bracelets, and even laundry detergent. MFK strives for a more authentic definition of luxury — not one based merely on price or prestige, but on the ability to take someone out of his workaday existence and give him a magical experience.

The Different Company of renowned “noses” Jean-Claude and Celine Ellena aims for nothing less than olfactory perfection; to this end they not only use the best ingredients but also the highest concentrations of natural essences on the market.

 Scent is an ineffable experience: These words are inadequate for the fragrances they attempt to describe. The only way to really know them is to try them for yourself.

* * *

 http://www.jessicarulestheuniverse.com

Twisted by Jessica Zafra

Pumping irony since 1994.