Olfactive Flashback X.

The official odor description by Symrise says : highly diffusive, powdery-woody, with notes of ambergris aroma chemical.

Less official odor description: I am at age 10, I stand next to the corn crumbling machine, the white powdery notes of dry cob are mixed with the rusty metallic notes of the old apparatus. These two together, they echo the musty white walls of the chamber in my grandmother's garden. I am not happy, because according to my father, we have to finish crumbling all the corn in the old wooden storage behind the summer kitchen - all of them, by the end of our vacation. What vacation? - I am thinking...

My dissatisfaction is reflected by the dryness and the dark ambery aspect of the scent.

Perfumery is really miraculous. How else would it be possible that a single raw material smells exactly like one complete memory-flow?!

I swear I am smelling this the first time of my life!!!

...This was kind of the motto of my class while still in school following the initial perfumery training...

When there is more than 1000 raw materials ( naturals and synthetics together ) to know by heart, you of course, would expect that some of them are really resembling to one another. Indeed, sometimes, there is a tiny aspect of mustiness or a difference in the volatility that makes you know that these two samples are not the same.

On the other hand, day by day, you start to smell different nuances from the same sample you practiced on yesterday. Sometimes this discovery comes while doing blind tests, and that's the time when you would put your hands into fire for proving that this is a completely different raw material. Cause, no way, it smells so strong this time, so bitter, so etc, and you insist that you have been probably absent when the others learned this specific ingredient.

Here you are, some of my big discoveries from recently:

- Since when coconut aldehyde smells like celery?

- Why suddenly white musk smells like an ambery chocolate?

- How come bitter orange smells like humid tobacco leaves?

- Is it a bad sample, or lime oil DOES smell like marzipan?

- Since when chamomile smells like dry cognac?

Different nuances are sometimes linked to the humidity of the air, general weather or what have you smelled or ate just before. Sometimes, it is your nose becoming more sensitive to a special aspect, e.g. you detect more easily the spicy notes.

While these could be really confusing, apart from being an obligatory passage for all perfumers, it is going to be of a great help for formulation exercises. If you happen not to know that tarragon has a fruity side with green mango nuances, you will never end up with a relatively short, but beautifully natural, zesty, round mango accord.

Learning the different aspects of perfume ingredients is the basis for creating fragrances "in your mind". Once you can list by heart all the aspect of a certain perfume ingredient even if you are awaken in the middle of the night, you are ready to make intelligent perfume associations.

Olfactive Flashback IX.

There is this recipe that I wanted to try for such a long time now, and today I had enough time to finally make it.

I needed to cook the celery ( already cut into cubes ) first.

After like 10 minutes of boiling them, I realized that there is a beautifully ethereal, coconut-milky scent that is coming from my kitchen.

The scent with an instant calming effect took slowly over my apartment. It was tenderly sweet, not too sugary, with hints of sandalwood, enveloping me into a wonderful feeling of full peace and comfort. After a while, I wasn't smelling the celery aspect anymore, only a bit of earthy-ness reminded me of that perhaps, and I was back to my childhood.

I know I am not supposed to remember those times when I was still breast fed, but I directly had this scent associated with my Mother. Without any specific memory, I felt this amazing fullness, being in safe, being taken care of, nurtured, protected.

So either cooking celery made me unconsciously remember me of the times of being breast fed, or there was an angel passing by in Grasse.

January in Grasse

In the wintertime, Grasse smells like a juicy melon just taken out from the freezer.

Olfactive Flashback VII.

It was at my fellow perfumer's house.

She bought some alcohol for me from Italy - it wasn't a gift, it's a 1 liter bottle of pure (95%, ideal for perfumery) alcohol that independent perfumers are obliged to smuggle around with, because selling and buying pure alcohol is highly restricted in France.

She invited me over to her place to take it with me after spending a nice lunchtime on a terrace catching up with each others on-going projects.

We walked up to her door in the dark building that for some reason smelled like tomato leaf and not like amber or patchouli as any normal old dark building would smell like. We entered the small artsy apartment she rents. She showed me around and she invited me to the living room for a drink. There it hit me.

This time again, the memories were coming faster than my brain trying consciously make notes of the present olfactory notes.

I was young again, around 5, a few years after my grandfather died. We - My mum and a few cousin of mine - spent a few weeks in the summertime at my grandmother's house in a small village, "behind the back of God".

I was at my grandmother's kitchen.

I could clearly smell the dust on the shelf for glasses which were kept for guests only. I smelled the dark and bitter cacao powder in its soon-to-be rusty metallic container. I smelled the cheap light green paint and its uneven layers on the old month-eaten wood cupboard, where the dinner service was stored. I smelled these as if I was at grandmother's kitchen. Exactly the same proportions. Beautifully dosed. Round and alive.

Bringing me back all the carefreeness and greediness of my childhood in a blink of an nose.

How come a fortunate and rather rare alignment of some random fragrant molecules are powerful enough to take me back to a place so quickly, diffusing so many visual memories and emotions?

I never thought of that smell in the last 25 years! - In fact, I don't think I ever consciously thought of that smell at all...

I am not sure what it was. And it was only passing by lazily, and disappeared in a few minutes later. I will probably never really understand these flashbacks, but in this period of anxiety, extreme stress as well as creative/emotional roller - coasters; I don't think there could have been any scent more nurturing and cocooning to me.

Where is ScentTrek when I really need it?!

Brown butter

My skin smells like half cooked baby carrots on brown butter today. Sweet, rich, caramel-like, with a touch of earthy notes.

My Signature Scents

I create a lot of custom perfumes, and each and every client want The One Scent that would match their skin to perfection, their signature scent.

Everybody I know got into the eternel quest of finding their soul-mate perfume. Just like everybody wants to find their - normal - soul mate. The One. True Love.

I think your true love is The One you can fall in love many times during your life.

I personally cannot be loyal to just one perfume during my whole life. I also think that this expectation is irrealistic, by the way.

I need continous impulses again and again. It's in my blood.

Paralel to love affairs, in your life, you might have :

• bunch of perfume-crushes ( Chanel/Cristalline Eau Verte, Paco Rabanne/1 Million, etc)
• a few unreturned loves ( Casharel/Eden, YSL/Nude )
• a few of those that you admire from far but you know that it will never work between you and them ( Nina Ricci/Nina, DG/Light Blue, Guerlain/L'Heure Bleu )
• and some that turns from friendship to love slowly slowly ( Dior/Dolce Vita, Lutens/SMLR)

But you can only experience true love one or two times maximum during your life.

The perfumes I go home to are Hugo Boss/Boss Bottled and Viktoria Minya/Hedoist ...and they always welcome me with open arms.

Hedonist sometimes punishes me for wearing other stuff for a few days by adding a sour layer to the divine floral one, but we always get back together in less than a week time and than I promise I won't be unfaithfull ever again ...until an attractive little thing turns my head (recently Hermes/Jardin Sur Le Toit ).

I also often go back to my ex lovers; I sometimes crave the presence of Kenzo/Jungle, or I cannot wait to go home and put on Rive Gauche Pour Homme. I recently took another try with some exes with who I felt we have unfinished businesses (Laura Biagiotti/Sotto Voce ).

With JoMalone/Lime and Basil I had a bad liason, but there is something about her that drives me crazy and makes me do the same mistake again and again.

Im into orgies too every now and than, and I would put on just anything that looks a bit good from the outside. Than I have this urge to conquire, so if there are no perfumes around, I staisfy my ignoble desires with any showergels or hair sprays. My nostrils are always open for any new opportunities.

In fact, with perfumes, I am a total bisexual bitch.