Eat. Smell. Love.

I recently have observed that my nose is becoming very trained for food's smells. I developed this new skill within just a week time. I keep on amazing myself with directly recognizing the ingredients by having only access to the smell of the given dish.

It started with me going to the printing house to get my new business card.

Suddenly, I have smelled something unusually familiar related to food. It overcame the blue smelling black ink, the Cool Water of the designer working with me and the menthol smelling breath of the secretary who had a bad cold.

Sometimes olfactory memories just swiftly greet my nose and run directly up to my brain, quickly finding their own datasheet among the thousands of organised smells in my mind. I usually know immediately which memory I recall by that particular scent.

Strangely enough, this time, it took me a few minutes to find out when was the last time I smelled this before.

I did find it weird when I realized that I smell grated (!) potato in the middle of a printing house. I actually messed up my business card's design, that much I was focused on the odor itself.

I had no idea why my nose is insisting on grated potato and not just peeled ones for example, but as usual, my nose was right. The scent came from outside, just next to the printing house a women prepared a dish with grated potato and I could see the end result when passing by her shop with my freshly printed cards.

The other time, I passed to the toilet in my apartment, when the combination of cooked cabbage with tomato sauce was tickling my whole nasal system from inside. It was certainly not me preparing any dish with those ingredients, and neither did I have them at all in my fridge. Just a few hours later, my 3rd (!) neighbor brought me some taster from his choux a la tomate... that he - according to his testimony - prepared next to closed doors.

Just yesterday, I was going up the stairs and smelled Fois gras aux pomme, and get confirmed that the restaurant nearby had it as today's special. I even smelled the color of the apple that they have used for this plate. I knew directly that it cannot be a green apple ( too harsh, too sour and very crackling ) or a red one ( which is of some sweetness, more clean and somewhat woody ) and that it is possibly a yellow apple, with the earthy, soft, very matt characteristics.

This last experience made me remember Jean Claude Ellena, who used to tell me how he was able to tell if a lavender oil has been distilled in a glass, copper or other metal container just by smell of it. I think I am on the right track...

and I think I am more into food than Jean Claude, too.

Peony and Rose

As usually, we were discussing perfume accords with my fellows during dinner. We talked about how Rose and Peony were two accords widely used in perfumery in 2009.

Rose accord is used mostly to replace the 5000 EUR/kg priced Bulgarian Rose oil, and Peony for me was really just a "fresher", more trendy way to call the rose accord. There is indeed an olfactory difference: Peony is more soft, more spicy and citrusy than rose and lacks the strong honey effect of it as well. Probably because of that, I always think of Peony as the little sister of Rose, who only arrives until the knee of its famous sibling.

What if Peony is not a baby, innocent version of Rose, but Peony is Rose when it gets out of bed after sex with all her hair messed up?!

Ashley's way of seeing Peony marked me and urged me to go home and rework my baby-rose accord to become a femme fatale Peony. I love having creative friends!

Olfactive Flashback II.

It was in NYC this summer. I went to buy a pair of dance shoes, and as I stepped out of the shop, the smell of my first kiss hit me right on the face. More precisely, on my nostrils.

I started sniff around like a well trained hunting dog to discover the source of the scent and I realized it is coming from a middle age stranger who wears the same cologne than my first love, Endre, some 18 years ago.

I followed him for a few blocks while memories were standing impatiently in line on my mind, waiting to get their turn. I remembered that I made a deal with God, I told him I am going to believe He exists if Endre kissed me. Truth is, Endre did kiss me, but I am still having doubts about God...

Because of that scent, evaporating from the skin of an unknown and moderately distasteful stranger in NYC, I lived the moment again, when Endre took delicately my chin, lifted it slowly and softly kissed my lips. I remember I was concentrating so much that I accidentally left my eyes open.

I found again the taste of his mouth, the smell of his neck, the touch of his beautiful full lips. I couldn't help feeling light, careless and in love with Endre.

I begged my current boyfriend's sorry silently and let myself to enjoy to the fullest the scented memories so well hidden in my head until just now.

Not another perfume review

Is it only me or the new Van Cleef and Arpels perfume, Midnight in Paris, does smell like a Russian sauna?!

Vintage

As a perfumer student, not only you have to be able to recreate Chanel number 5 - purely based on your olfactory analyses, but you also have to be aware of the main perfume trends of 2010.

One of the biggest trend of this year is inevitably the Retro feeling.

Some of the brands are going for the low budget solution and just over-advertising an already existing successful product, like D&G and Dior : I see more Light Blue ads nowadays than in its year of original launch, and Alain Delon looks more charming on Eau Sauvage billboards than back in the 60's.

On the other hand, we have Chanel No 5 Eau Premiere ( is that only me or it is really too much numbers in just one perfume's name?! ), the "new" Chloe In Love, and just recently Belle D'Opium from YSL.

Even Davidoff is hoping to reiterate the success of Cool Water - his best selling men's scent from 1988 -with Hot Water, a "red-hot oriental".

It seems that due to the economic recession, institutional perfume brands are playing it safe and reviving all their perfume blockbusters to capitalize on their success, by making a direct reference between them and the "new" products.

Fine with me. I have to say I like the vintage trend! I totally understand that consumers need some cocooning in this ever changing environment, and it totally works with me too. I recently created a new perfume based on Chamomile, Rose and Tea accords, which directly took me back to my childhood. Even though it was 20 years ago, after just one sniff of the perfume I truly felt the joy of not having to go to school - even though I had just been diagnosed with chronic sinusitis. The scent of chamomile an tea (with serious overdose of honey and lemon) reminds me of my fluffy bed back to my parents house and my mum nursing me.

Some say that the key of the success of Angel /Thierry Mugler is based on the direct link of childhood memories, in this particular case : sweets. ( I have to add that in my humble opinion, the little Brut / Faberge accord hidden in Angel did certainly help too! )

Even though it became trendy to frown at gourmand style perfumes, Angel is still one of the best selling fragrances in the world and its sophisticated little sister Nina / Nina Ricci, in green, candied apple disguise ( from the same perfumer ) is claiming its share!

However, contrary to the 1990's, when vanilla usually served as the central accord, now it is associated with many other ingredients, and the once harsh gourmand note is softened down with floral, woody or spicy accords.

Vintage responds to consumers who would like to reach back to their roots, taking what was secure from the past in order to be ready for the future. The trend offers authenticity and refers to past memories and events, or connections to "real values".

Taken into consideration the current changes in the economic, industrial, environmental and social environment, no surprise that vintage is one of the prevailing consumer trends!

Really, there is nothing wrong with vintage trend, I just wish not only see Chanel No 5 reformulated, but I wish good old days were back too, when the perfume legislation didn't restrict creativity and the ratio of synthetics and natural raw materials in a perfume bottle were closer to 1:1.

Functional Perfumery

Most of the companies creating fragrances for alcoholic perfumes have usually to deal with functional perfumery as well. The main perfumed household products are shampoos, creams, candles, washing powders, liquid soaps, detergents and air refreshers.

The perfume creation for these products is quite different from fine fragrances. Starting with the average price of one kg of perfume concentrate for functional purposes, it is usually never more than 5-6 EUR. Also, the dosage is typically smaller, e.g. for shampoos and creams on average maximum 1%, in the case of candles, it goes up to 8%.

There are specific obstacles to overcome while perfuming functional products, depending on the carrier base we use. For instance, while making a candle, you have to avoid using a whole range of raw materials that are not in favor of burning, patchouli -among others - is known to disturb the homogeneous burning process.

On the other hand, most of the citruses and very light -hence too volatile - raw materials could already evaporate when mixing the hot wax with the concentrated perfume. Perfumers have to take specific classes of functional perfumery to be able create sophisticated and easily adaptable fragrances for household products.

However, the funniest moments of any perfumer's training is actually the preparation of testing air refreshers. To test their performance, we usually create some disagreeable scents typical of any household. The main players are rotten fish, garbage, used cooking oil, and wet dog, but sometimes we would just open an old sample of civet absolute in the testing room for the same purpose.

If an air refresher is able to neutralize those scents, it is ready to be launched!