The Curiosity Chronicles

Curious About…Noses.

I’d love to be called a “nose.” A nose is someone who develops new perfume blends, ranging from the blends used in luxury perfume to scents which will be added to everyday things such as soaps and shampoos. There are thousands of noses in the world, but only around 50 are truly talented individuals, many of whom are famous in their own right. Top perfume companies such as Givaudan and Firmenich employ several noses to work on their scents, with others choosing to work independently, forming their own companies for the production and sale of fragrances.

The technical name for a nose is “perfumer,” with “nose” being more like a friendly slang term. In order to become a perfumer, someone has to have a natural aptitude for scent, combined with an extensive period of training. The best noses train in Grasse, France, a region which has been renowned for its perfume production for centuries, and it can take seven or more years to complete perfumery training, a mix of chemistry, artistry and lots of trial and error.

Traditionally, a nose would have trained as an apprentice, working with another perfumer, often a family member, to learn the tricks of the trade. In addition to being able to identify and blend scents, a nose must also think about issues like the cost of production, the stability of a scent after bottling, and how a scent will interact with other substances. Modern noses typically pursue advanced degrees in chemistry in addition to training in the scent industry, and many also study psychology, since psychology is a very important aspect of the perfume industry.

The services of an extremely talented nose can be quite costly. Jean-Claude Ellena, the creator of Hermes’ Un Jardin sur le Nil, was the subject of perfume writer Chandler Burr’s book “The Perfect Scent: A Year in the Perfume Industry in Paris,” which cataloged the journey, complexity and expense of creating a bestselling new fragrance.  Noses are capable of isolating and identifying thousands of scents, and they use a wide variety of resources to come up with scent blends suitable for a range of individuals. When creating a new fragrance, a nose thinks about who the scent will be marketed to, and where it will be sold, as people of different classes, genders, and nationalities prefer different scents. 

Working as a nose might sound romantic, but it’s also hard work. A nose must be hyperaware to all of the factors which can influence a scent, ranging from substances in the paper blotters they use to test fragrance oils to ambient odors in the laboratory. Most elite noses are assisted by support staff and apprentices who hope to learn the trade from a master.

Years ago I met “nose” Ann Gottlieb and she made a profound impression on me. Ann learned the art, science and business of fragrance under the personal tutelage of her mentor, Estée Lauder. She founded her company, Ann Gottlieb Associates, in 1983, and has developed top-selling fragrances for every market category, including three of the most famous: Obsession, Eternity and CkOne for Calvin Klein. She translates the vocabulary of fashion houses into the language spoken at essential oil houses, so everyone works in concert. She says: “It’s about listening and endless experimentation, about being fine-tuned to brands, olfactive trends and markets.”

What Of It? I rarely get job-envy, but this is one job that I would love to do. I think perfumery is a fascinating overlap between art and science and one of those rare art forms that is able to truly move us emotionally when it is done right. I remember the first time I smelt Obsession in 1985 and it was so evocative, primal and sexual that it stopped me in my tracks. To years later meet its creator was a real honor. I think nowadays in the hyper-manufactured world of beauty and fragrance, it is rare to find a human, analog skill at the center, one that simply cannot be replicated by a machine.

I Am Curious about crafts passed down from generations, about human, analog experiences in the middle of heavily manufactured industries, about the overlap between artistry and chemistry. 

Curious about…The Scent of Animals.

As I was driving yesterday I opened the car window and was immediately hit by a familiar, extremely strong and yet not totally unpleasant odor: fecund, slightly sour, like a cross between burning rubber and wet cut grass - after a few minutes I passed a dead skunk on the side of the highway, the source of the smell suddenly making sense. As someone who used to work in the perfume industry and has a strong passion for all things olfactive, I starred thinking about the smells of nature, how they have been harnessed for modern perfumery and how in many ways they act as a sensorial bridge between us and our mammalian cousins. First, worth looking at a few to understand their origins.

Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, fecal odor. However, as it ages, it acquires a sweet, earthy scent commonly likened to the fragrance of rubbing alcohol without the vaporous chemical astringency.

Castoreum is excreted from the castor sacs of the mature North American Beaver. Within the zoological realm, castoreum is the yellowish secretion of the castor sac in combination with the beaver’s urine, used during scent marking of territory. Both male and female beavers possess a pair of castor sacs and a pair of anal glands located in two cavities under the skin between the pelvis and the base of the tail. Today, it is used in trapping, as a tincture in some perfumes, as a food additive, or touted as an aphrodisiac.

The African Civet is an omnivorous generalist, taking small vertebrates, invertebrates, eggs, carrion, and vegetable matter. Like all civets it has perineal glands that produce a fluid known as civetone, which it spreads on markers in its territory to claim its range. Used in the perfume industry, “civet” was originally the name for the scent obtained from this species: Middle French civette, from Old Italian zibetto, from Arabic zabAd, civet perfume.

Hyraceum is the petrified and rock-like excrement composed of both urine and feces excreted by the Cape Hyrax, commonly referred to as the Dassie. After aging and petrifying over hundreds (if not thousands) of years, it is a sought-after material that has been used in both traditional South African medicine and perfumery.

A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal wax cells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen. It is used as an additive and fragrance for many products.

Deer musk is a substance with a persistent odor obtained from a gland of the male musk deer situated between its rectal area. The substance has been extensively used as a perfume fixative, incense material, and medicine, since ancient times. It was, and is still one of the most expensive animal products in the world. The name, originated from Sanskrit muṣká meaning “testicle”.

What Of It? Of course while many of these scents are now made chemically, for both conservational and cost reasons (after all, who really wants to collect whale shit…) their origins are fascinating. Tribal warriors and indigenous people still cover themselves with forest and animal scents to blend, mask themselves to unseen prey in hunting and to “become” part of the landscape. Even the modern redneck deer hunter covers himself with pungent deer urine so that he can get closer to his catch. The fact that these ingredients end up in fine fragrances and give them the necessary “edge” is yet another testament to scents ability to connect us to our limbic selves, allowing us to access our primal inner past lives. I love the fact that many of them are about marking territory - after all, if perfume is used to attract the opposite sex, make ourselves unseen (albeit in an invisible medium) and to signal ourselves to the world, what better way to do that than to burrow down into our evolutionary past and connect with our more deeply felt instincts?

I Am Curious about establishing connections to our limbic, “animal” selves, about senses and how they can do that, about scent, its mystery and power, about primal attraction, territory and our visceral sense of being.

Curious about…The Smell of Rain.

This morning I woke up here in Chicago and went outside: last night there were epic thunderstorm and today, broody clouds were scowling on the horizon. And then I smelt…that smell: the smell of rain, the scent of crackling electricity in the air, the sweet freshness tempered by the slightly acrid wet concrete - the smell…of Ozone.

Scientifically speaking…“The smell of rain is caused by ozone (O₃). It is commonly produced through dissociation of molecular oxygen (0₂) into two unstable atomic oxygens (2 O), each of which then recombine with molecular oxygen to make ozone. This dissociation can occur either by high-voltage electrical discharge or by bombardment with ultraviolet light. The high voltages which occur in thunderstorms create ozone within the cloud (even when lightning is not actively occuring), and this ozone is carried toward the ground by the downdraft in the thundercloud and blown out ahead of the storm, where you smell it and can tell rain is coming.”

In wooded areas, small bacterial spores called Actinomycetes are kicked up by thewater droplets and dispersed in the same way aerosol air fresheners work. These have a distinctive earthy smell. In addition, plants release all kinds of oils and congeners in response to their environment, including rain. Acid rain also plays a role as well. Acids commonly react with other chemical, and our built environment is full of chemicals, including gasoline and diesel, motor and food oils, paints and plastics, and lots more. These reactions release gases that can smell strongly.

 

For many, the most evocative ozonic is wet sidewalk concrete. Some rocks such as limestone also smell like this when wet. Science tells us it is the slow evaporation of calcium; small particles are released into the air which enter your nose, and there’s a gaseous calcium-containing molecule produced by interaction between carbon dioxide, water, and a calcium compound.

Fragrance company Demeter makes a single-note ozonic fragrance called “Thunderstorm.” Their website describes it (and the whole phenomena) beautifully: “Have you ever considered the olfactory side of rain? You know it’s coming, you can smell it in the air. It does seem that on summer days when it is hot and dry, with a thunderstorm brewing just over the next hill, you can `smell the rain.’ Well, you can smell something, but rain? Have you ever tried to smell this same rain in January when the ground is frozen solid? Not a chance, but when the ground and plants are warmer, you can smell something. What you really smell comes not from the air, but the ground! Plants release oils that enter the soil and blend with the other earthy odors. These odors are released into the air when the relative humidity at ground level exceeds 75 percent. Moist humid air will transmit odors far better than dry air. In these moist humid conditions we notice these odors more readily. And since rain is so often connected with moist humid air, we tend to associate one with the other. The Demeter Fragrance Thunderstorm captures this complex sensory moment perfectly. Like poetry, Thunderstorm is subtle and difficult to define, but real, with Thunderstorm reflecting the deep and violent nature of a summer storm.”

What Of It? There is something universal about this - I was in China a few months ago and noticed, after a particularly intense bout of rain, the familiar electric crackle-smell in the air; asking people about it, they all talked nostalgically about nature, happier times and the memories that it evoked. Fragrance manufacturers may try hard to recreate ozone, but there is something so indefatigable about it, hard to describe, deeply personal.

I Am Curious about nature and its ability to evoke profound sense memory, about universal experiences that each of us can deeply personalise, about nostalgic places, smells, and emotions. 

Curious about… Headspace Technology.

Headspace technology is a method of “capturing” the odor of a substance using an apparatus resembling a bell-jar. This allows perfumers to mimic the notes of flowers, plants, and foods which do not lend themselves otherwise to extraction.

 I worked briefly in the perfume industry back in my early days as a designer and have always been fascinated by the language, processes and technology that surrounds this complex art form. I heard the term “headspace technology” in a meeting once and assumed it was marketing jargon, but later found out that it actually has amazing scientific and now, environmental, implications.

The origin of this technology is interesting: certain plants are so rare that it is too costly to harvest them to capture their smell in perfumes. When “odorous” molecules are extracted through the classic perfume distillation process (where steam is passed through the plant at high temperature, “stripping” away the essential oils), the resulting smell is often distinctly different from the naturally occurring smell. Headspace technology finds a way around this financial complication and technical difference: like a “smell camera,” it records a copy of the compound, allowing the chemist to study and subsequently synthetically recreate it.

There is a common misconception that natural perfumes are safer and superior to synthetic aromas. However, synthetic chemicals have been used in perfumery for almost a century without consumers being able to detect differences. In fact, synthetic chemicals are often less volatile than natural chemicals, which alter in smell over time. Often a synthetic copy of a scent can be far less complex than the natural occurring chemical compound, and now, with over-harvesting and environmental concerns taking precedence, there are social factors starting to take precedence as well. For this reason, perfumers often favor developing synthetic compounds that mimic natural scents, which is why headspace technology is so interesting. 

The other interesting application of headspace technology is its ability to not only capture the smell of a thing, but of a place: it has been used to analyze the interesting and evocative scents of locations and environments such as tea shops, classrooms and saw mills. After the data is analyzed, the scents can then be recreated by a perfumer to create a layer of sense-memory that the wearer than carry with them.

What Of It? To me this is fascinating stuff, with more than a whiff (pun intended) of H.G. Wells to it: I love the idea of a molecular bell-jar analyzing and recreating the smell of something: a rare Amazonian flower, a temple, a sunny meadow. The idea of a deeply scientific backbone creating something so ephemeral is fantastic. As I have said before, perfume is where art and chemistry overlap in really powerful ways, and headspace technology is at the forefront of that.

I am Curious about the overlap of technicality and artistry, the chemical re-creation of complex memory and emotion, the poetry of science.

Curious about…Sillage.

pr: (see-large) n: a perfume’s trail. The art of evoking a presence, to create a scent memory.

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousand of miles and all the years you have lived.” Helen Keller

I’ve been fascinated by smell my entire life.

Most of my earliest and deepest memories are to do with smells: the medicinal soothing twang of Calomine lotion being gently applied to my sunburned and sobbing back by my mother when I was four, the acrid stink of the Durians in the street markets in Singapore where I grew up, the thick mist on the kitchen windows that signified the overcooked brussel sprouts of the True English Christmas.

Recently I was in Chicago, staying at a fancy hotel on the Lake. I noticed everywhere I went that there was a nice, clean, kind of greeny-lemony-mossy smell; in the lobby, in the elevators, even on my towels. It smelt good, like a clean spring day should smell in your dreams. It was calming and reminded me of gathering brambles outdoors when I was a kid. I asked the manager what it was. It’s called “W-Essence” was the unfortunate answer. Clever - a viscerally-evoked nostalgia, to imprint more deeply the experience I was having. It stopped me in my tracks - could smell be the link in some way between the creation of mere “everyday” experiences and the deeper, more emotional, creation of memories?

Perfumery is a really extreme medium. On one hand, it is extreme science - molecular, chemical, technological, biological. On the other, it is poetry - extreme emotion. You’re designing an Obsession. The awareness of Eternity.A sense of Euphoria. 

Extreme science? Oudh is the rarest, most complex and therefore most expensive scent in the world. It is made from a rotting fungus that grows at shade-level on trees in Indonesia. It is said to smell “Like pure maths. Or deep space.” It is revered to be “like a star in eternal darkness.”

Extreme Chemistry? “Molecule One from new, underground brand Escentric Molecules, is no commercial blend. It’s not even a perfume really, more of a viral elixir. It’s just a clinical dose of a single-aroma chemical with a name as long as some distant galaxy’s. It comes in a menacing engineered bottle with strange light effects that shift in the dark. The aroma molecule is so complex, the body can only metabolize it very slowly so it appears to vanish, then reappear hours later, hovering like a stealth bomber over your skin.”  British Vogue

Extreme emotion? “Civet is a popular ingredient in a lot of perfumes. In concentration, civet reeks of the sewers of old Paris. In extreme dilution, maybe one part in a thousand, it’s the sweet tormented flesh of the sinner, and you want that in your fragrance.” John Galliano

Extreme art? Truffles are a missing link between fungi and animals. They contain labdanum, which is used in rare scent blends, particularly in heady Arabian perfumes. It is described as smelling hot and musky, “like the viscera of an odorous, hot furry little mammal in it’s last death throes. Crouching. Unknowable.”

What Of It? I’d love to understand better how to we design sillage. In other words, what can we learn and apply from the process of designing a fragrance that allows us to create not just experiences but lingering memories? 

I am Curious about the potency of harnessing the senses better, about the connection between scent, emotion and memory.