Smell & Tell | Inside the Writer's Study (A Mystery in Seven Scents)

Une collaboration visuelle avec l'intelligence artificielle qui n'a donné lieu à aucune « hallucination » grâce à Nano Banana ; un phénomène pour le moins rare. Cela n'aurait pas été possible sans les principes mathématiques du cubisme et écouter la musique d'Angine de Poitrine tout en donnant des consignes à l'IA (vivement recommandé). Et voilà! Apologies if I butchered the French language; I'm a non-French Michelle.

EVENT

What: Smell & Tell | Inside the Writer's Study

Where: Ann Arbor District Library (D/T Branch, 4th Floor)

Evening: Tuesday, September 8th, 6:00 PM-7:30 PM  

Daytime*: Wednesday, September 9th, 1:30 PM-3:00 PM                                  

A study door in the museum is left ajar. Curiosity gets the best of you, and you decide to enter the room. The first thing you notice is a cloisonné box sitting on top of a meticulously organized desk. The room is immaculate. Everything is in its place except for the box. There's something different about it. 

You lift the lid and discover seven glass vials. The wood-lined box smells familiar, but you can't quite place the smell. The atmosphere in the room speaks to your senses as you consider whether to open the vials and smell them. After all, you weren't exactly invited. 

It's then that you notice a small note card beneath the vials that reads, "Each of the seven vials contains a specific memory from this room. Take good care of them and allow them to breathe once in a while. When you're done smelling them you'll understand why." 

With an invitation like that, how could anyone refuse? Especially you, dear reader. Step into a writer’s study for an evening of olfactory intrigue as we evaluate the essence inside each of the seven vials on fragrance blotters and solve a mystery. 

The Smell and Tell series of art+science programming is led by Michelle Krell Kydd, a trained nose in flavors and fragrance who shares her passion for gastronomy, sensory evaluation, and the perfume arts in Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling.

Notes & Curiosities: 

Daytime Smell & Tell events at the Ann Arbor District Library are new in 2026. The addition was sparked by growing interest in Smell & Tell programming across ages and life stages in the Ann Arbor community. Smell & Tell debuted at the library in June 2012. It's been many trips around the sun since then.

Research Paper Puts Sensory Evaluation in the Higher Ed Classroom

Armonía (Harmony) by Remedios Varo (1956)

A peer-reviewed paper I co-authored with collaborators at the University of Michigan is published in the current edition of the Journal of Statistics and Data Science in Education (JSDSE). The paper outlines a pilot educational module at the University of Michigan that integrates machine olfaction into an undergraduate deep learning course. By combining chemistry, machine learning, and sensory evaluation, the curriculum challenges students to work with subjective sensory data, demonstrating the feasibility of teaching multimodal data science.

The inclusion of sensory evaluation in a deep learning course is novel as far as papers accepted by JSDSE go. The good news is that our pedagogy-driven endeavor doesn't end with our paper. Dr. Ambuj Tewari received a second New Initiatives/New Instructions (NINI) grant from the University of Michigan that will allow us to take our findings to the next level (which is why I'll be busy teaching this summer). 

Curious? Read the paper and sniff out the facts in the sensory evaluation portion. Readers of Glass Petal Smoke who work in the flavor and fragrance industry will appreciate it. Perfume fans may also find it interesting, and don't have to worry about decoding a research paper. It's all about learning in small incremental steps. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

Citation: Han, Y., Kydd, M. K., Ward, J., & Tewari, A. (2026). Teaching Machine Olfaction in an Undergraduate Deep Learning Course: A Pilot Integrating Chemistry, Machine Learning, and Sensory Evaluation. Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education, 34(3), 372–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/26939169.2026.2665103

Notes & Curiosities

Teaching 100+ students in a large auditorium how to evaluate smells using fragrance blotters was and remains one of the most satisfying teaching experiences I've had at the University of Michigan to date. It proved what I've always known by experience; that sensory evaluation is a powerful multisensory teaching and learning tool when combined with other disciplines. The sense of smell is memory's sense; it doesn't get more pedagogical than that.

I have many students to thank with regard to the evolution of Smell & Tell lectures, especially those that were part of summer boot camps held by MSTEM Academies at the university. Thanks also go out to students who invited me to give a TEDxUofM talk in 2015 (a talk that resonated with a wider audience after the COVID-19 pandemic) and students who shared their anosmia and congenital anosmia stories with me after the event. 

BTW: One of the reasons why Dr. Tewari and I ended up collaborating was the presence of my TEDxUofM talk online; the rest, as they say, is history.

I would be remiss if I didn't thank the Ann Arbor District Library for saying yes to monthly "Smell & Tell" events in 2012, and every year afterward. There isn't a day that goes by that I don’t forget how much creative freedom the library gives me. Honestly, writing this post makes me feel like I'm dreaming with my eyes open.  

Eau Maybe: Inspiration for Dr. Carruthers Character in The Devil Bat (1940)

Bela Lugosi as Dr. Carruthers, a perfumer, in The Devil Bat (L),
and Dr. Wallace Hume Carothers, a chemist, as himself (R). 

 

  

Thirteen is a lucky number. Why? Because thirteen years after posting "Bella Lugosi was a Perfumer: Strange Oriental Perfume" led to a light-bulb moment that may or may not be a matter of coincidence. 

Bela Lugosi portrayed a perfumer named Dr. Carruthers in the film The Devil Bat (1940). There's another Carruthers, a real one, with a slightly different spelling of the same last name. Does one inform the other?

Wallace Hume Carothers (April 27, 1896 – April 29, 1937) was an American chemist, inventor, and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont, who was credited with the invention of nylon. 

Carothers' research into cyclic compounds led to the discovery of Astrotone (1934), aka ethylene brassylate, a synthetic macrocyclic musk used in perfumes. It smells powdery, sweet, floral, ambrette-like, woody and musky. 

Is there a connection between Carothers and Carruthers? Variants in the spelling of the last name exist (Irish and Scottish for the curious, with debates regarding what defines a real member of the clan). 

Consider the image that accompanies this post. One man is an actor pretending to be a scientist bent on corporate revenge with deadly aftershave, the other is a scientist performing his job. 

Did the accomplishments of Dr. William Hume Carothers inspire story writer George Bricker and screenwriter John Thomas Neville to use the chemist's last name for Lugosi's character in The Devil Bat? 

The discovery of Astrotone and year The Devil Bat was released are only six years apart. Whether it's probable deserves further investigation with respect to the history of perfume plots in film.

Notes & Curiosities:

Curious about industrial fragrance chemistry? This research paper is for you: 

David, O., & Doro, F. (2023). Industrial Fragrance Chemistry: A Brief Historical Perspective. European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 26(44). https://doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.202300900

To learn more about reading science papers, visit the March 3, 2025 post, and scroll down to the "Notes & Curiosities" section. You'll find helpful tools and a method I created for use at lectures called "Clouseau It!" 

Marcel Duchamp & Georges Perec Write a Faux Fragrance Article in the Afterlife

Image of Grey-Crowned Cranes by Frankie from Germany via Pixabay

Part I: The Article

A novel line of seven perfumes is created by an eclectic perfumer. Each is named “smell” in a non-English language. The olfactive noun appears in calligraphic script on each of the labels with a foreshadowing twist. Ingredients in the formula are procured from the country of origin where the language on the bottle is spoken.

Phonetic transcriptions of “smell” appear in English below a western or non-western word for “smell” on each bottle. This inspires a mélange of phonetic murmurations whenever more than one customer engages with an interactive retail display featuring testers and perfume blotters. Ensuing conversations are convivial and attract curious onlookers. 

The effect is choreographed by design. 

The perfumer considers the challenge of learning a new language from his own experience: “Mouthing a new language in an adopted country is akin to chewing sinewy meat while attempting to avoid notice. In contrast, the sound of customers articulating phonetic translations at the counter is musical, playful and guileless."

The MakeSense line of international “smell” perfumes is built on aromatic materials associated with a country’s landscape and culture. MakeSense has polarizing plans for the next iteration of scents, which arrive at counter on October 31st. The olfactive theme is "disgust and avoidance", and evocative of scent-shunning encounters. 

The perfumer relates the concept in a different light: “Focusing on liking or not liking a smell is about as valuable as arguing about which end of a magnet is more desirable. Opposite poles attract and similar poles repel. This defines a magnet's essence, its potential, its character. And in perfumery, as in life, character is everything.”

Part II: Fictive Truth

Belle Helaine Advertisement for Un Air Enbaumeé
Rigaud Perfume, La Rire no. 88, Oct 9, 1920

Duchamp and Perec don't engage in writing in the afterlife; they play with magnetic fields and randomly break glass in the homes of charlatans that charge money to communicate with the dead. (For the record, the racket made by the invisible Oulipo duo when they're engaged in spirited shenanigans reinforces a charlatan's delusion of power with respect to affecting the beyond. Within three months, they beg to be fitted with a straitjacket.) 

Once in a while, after a glorious mischief binge, the pair are permitted to smell something that each of them misses from their days of earthly existence. Perec misses the scent of a cigarette from a freshly opened pack of Galoises, and the infrathin of its trace in his mouth after smoking. This, despite the fact that smoking cigarettes resulted in an irrevocable trip to a columbarium at Pére Lechaise Cemetery at the age of 45, which offers an extended, albeit ironic, infrathin.

As for Duchamp, he misses the smell of sunlight streaming through a window as it warmed a spot on the wooden floor of his apartment at 33 West 67th Street in New York City, resurrecting the aroma of a bottle of tawny port that the previous owner spilled on the floor a year before Duchamp moved in, which in turn, made Duchamp want to drink the floor on several occasions. Whenever the urge became too strong, he was deterred by a pair of hangry skittering cockroaches.

Part III: Wine Pairing Recommendation

Glass Petal Smoke asked sommelier Jaime Smith to recommend a wine that best complements this post. (No offense to the spirit of Marcel Duchamp and his nostalgia for the sun-warmed residue of spilled port emanating from a wooden floor.) Smith, whose superpower is smell-color synesthesia, chose Pietradolci Archineri Etna Bianco DOC as an accompaniment to this post. The wine's flavor profile varies from one vintage to the next. Fruity, herbal, floral, mineral and savory notes are common. The profile grows more complex as the wine ages (it has an aging potential of 15 years).  BTW: Empson & Company offers a more detailed tech sheet here.

The Meaning of Things Left Inside the Pages of a Book

Still Life with Guitar by Juan Grís (1920)

Once in a while, I find an unconventional placeholder related to memorable text or art in the pages of a book I’ve read. Something that seems new to me at first. Then I remember why I left it there. Beauty in the bricolage of life exists even if life is showing its fangs on the day you find it. Two recently encountered items stand out.

Item 1: Olfactory-rich text in the “Doldrums” chapter of Tristes Tropiques by renowned anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (left) and a light blue-green “Swimming SW6764” paint swatch used as a bookmark (right). The passage is beautiful, fragrant and highly sensorial. I long for a bottle of its perfume after reading it, a sentiment I had when I first came across the passage 12 years ago.

The traveler approaching the New World is first conscious of it as a scent very different from the one suggested back in Paris by the connotations of the word Brazil, and difficult to describe to anyone who has not experienced it. 

At first, it seemed that the sea smells of the preceding weeks had ceased to circulate so freely; they had come up against an invisible wall: thus immobilized, they no longer claimed the traveler’s attention, which was now drawn towards smells that were of a quite different nature and that nothing in his past experience enabled him to define: they were like a forest breeze alternating with hot-house scents, the quintessence of the vegetable kingdom, and held a particular freshness so concentrated as to be transmuted into a kind of olfactory intoxication, the last note of a powerful chord sounded separately as if to isolate and fuse the successive intervals of diversely fruity fragrances. This can only be appreciated by someone who has buried their face in a freshly cut tropical red pepper, after having previously, in some botequin of the Brazilian sertão, inhaled the aroma of the black honeyed coils of the fumo de rolo, made from tobacco leaves, fermented and rolled into several lengths several yards long. In the blend of these closely allied scents, he can recognize an America, which, for thousands of years, was alone in its possession of their secrets. 

But when, at four o’clock in the morning of the following day, the New World at last appeared on the horizon, its visible image seemed worthy of its perfume.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Tristes Tropiques. Trans. John and Doreen Weightman. New York: Penguin Classics, 2012, page 78.

Leví-Strauss’ words enter and exit the reader’s mind with the dreamy languor of incense smoke. Transforming the passage into a perfume (an ephemeral creation that triggers and inspires memories) makes perfect sense. The book, originally written in French, was published in 1955. Translations exist, but the same can’t be said for the creation of a perfume based on the excerpt—70 years later.

The second item I found is a pattern made by randomness. A train ticket covering a page of haiku is engaged in a visual dialogue with a painting on the opposite page. I didn’t make a connection at the time, as the ticket served as an ad hoc bookmark when the train was pulling into the Larchmont Metro-North train station in Westchester County.

Item 2: A Japanese brush painting titled “Shoots of the Horsetail Plant” by Saitô Shôshû (left) is situated opposite a New Haven line Metro-North Railroad ticket, circa early 2000 (right). The painting, which is next to four unseen haiku beneath the train ticket, uses the same shades of red and black ink found on the commutation ticket. The item on the left is art; the item on the right is art by association. 

I’ve taken the New Haven line infrequently and am better acquainted with the trees, shrubs, plants and long grass that grow alongside the riverside tracks of the Hudson line across from the Palisades. Though I recall specific seasonal views, memories of 14 years of commuting to and from Hastings-on-Hudson and Grand Central Terminal on the Metro-North have merged. 

My mind connects commuting experiences by type versus single experience, unless there's an experience worth recalling that breaks through the monotony of routine commuting. The fact that eidetic memory isn’t common makes sense as it would be a recipe for hell if we remembered everything. One part Sherlock Holmes knack, the other a not-so-friendly invitation into a well-fitting straitjacket with less time to live in the present.

It's interesting how the way we think and remember is reflected in the material things we hold onto. Each item saved serves as a potential catalyst for reminiscence that allows us to organize personal meaning with agency as a witness to our own life. 

This is particularly important when the people who raised us, the archivists of our lives, are no longer here to answer questions about our past that inform our present life. In this respect, meaningful things we save don't leave us empty-handed until we decide that they don't change the fact that unanswered questions are a part of life. 

"A New Day Every Day" (2014) by Sarah Nicole Phillips. The branching pattern of trees (dendritic) is found in nature and appears in the veins of leaves, the pattern of roots, and human arteries, veins and capillaries. The collage is designed using  security envelope papers. 

I've begun collecting security envelopes that accompany bills, the kind with designs on the underside that obscure the contents inside the envelope from being seen on the outside. Common designs include confetti, linen, burlap and crosshatched patterns printed in blue or black ink. Once in a while, a security envelope with an ornamental pattern arrives and breaks the monotony. 

I consider repetitive patterns in nature and stumble across an unexpected find. A recording of Salvador Dalí talking about logarithmic patterns in relationship to the unique spiral pattern of a rhinoceros horn (an obsession of his). 

Then it becomes clear to me. It's not the safety aspect of security envelopes that I'm attached to, it's the meaning of patterns and the way they connect and disconnect in earthly and spiritual ways. It's why I can't help wondering whether Dalí, an artist fond of using found objects in his sculptures and assemblages, left traces of his personal life behind in the pages of the books he owned. 

Notes & Curiosities

It's not uncommon for secondhand booksellers to find personal items inside copies of used books sold by their previous owners. There isn't an all-encompassing word for the items found inside a previous owner's books as contents vary, though most are relics of life experience. Glass Petal Smoke leans towards "personalia" as it complements marginalia. Curious about what people leave inside their books? Begin by searching for "things booksellers find inside used or antiquarian books". 

Note to haiku lovers. The second "find" in this story was located in A Net of Fireflies: Japanese Haiku & Haiku Paintings, translated by Harold Stewart. 

Recommended Reading: The Forgotten Sense by Jonas Olofsson

Interview with scientist Jonas Olofsson, author of The Forgotten Sense

There are many things one can say about The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell—and the Extraordinary Power of the Nose by Jonas Olofsson. Exemplary is the first word that comes to mind as books written by academics don't always resonate with the public; no matter how remotely curious readers are about a particular subject, or how devoted the author is to sharing the latest information about a subject they deeply care about that resonates with others. 

Olofsson cares about the sense of smell and how smell loss has and continues to have an effect on patients who didn't find the support they needed when COVID-19 anosmia took hold in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. It's why he wrote the book, but there's more. Smell loss isn't new, but the number of people suffering from anosmia (whether they've recovered or not) is more widely acknowledged due to the pandemic and ensuing variants. It's a silver lining.

This silver lining is entwined with the fact that Olofsson has interest and compassion in amounts that exceed the boundaries of his native Sweden. This is reflected in the book's contents and the informed, conversational tone of the book, which draws the reader in like a good friend. The author bridges research (psychology, neurology and other disciplines) while bringing the reader up to date with regard to what is known about the sense of smell as it relates to health, quality of life and society.

I purchased The Forgotten Sense shortly after it was released in January 2025 (and plan on reading it again after I finish Sun City by Tove Jansson). The reason for the re-read is that books like The Forgotten Sense are rare when it comes to non-fiction books about the sense of smell, and that's as good a reason as any to recommend it on Glass Petal Smoke. Attendees at Smell & Tell: Get Inside Your Olfactory Mind will learn more about The Forgotten Sense at the Ann Arbor District Library on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, where I'll also introduce an analog smelling device called the Smell Rolodex. Ah, smell life...

Notes & Curiosities:

I discovered the video that accompanies this post after finishing The Forgotten Sense. It's a great way to get acquainted with the author, his research and the book. To learn more about Jonas Olofsson's research, visit Google Scholar and the website for the Sensory Cognition Interactive Laboratory, where Olofsson is Principal Investigator.

Are you a non-scientist that wants to master reading articles in scientific journals? The best way to engage with journal articles is to use naiveté as fuel for critical thinking. "How to Make Sense of a Scientific Journal Article" is an interactive tool that lists the components of a science journal article and explains their function/purpose. Simply click on each component (Overview/Abstract and Main Sections, Methods, Results, Discussion/Conclusion, and References) and scroll down to read the contents and learn more. This resource is part of the Know the Science initiative. 

Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau
via Encyclopedia Britannica

An informal, but effective approach to reading articles in scientific journals is a little something I cooked up called Clouseau It!, an homage to Peter Sellers in his role as Inspector Clouseau in Pink Panther films. Apply the following seven steps once you're comfortable reading articles in scientific journals:

Step 1: Investigate the Paper 

Step 2: Interrogate the Study

Step 3: Treat the Paper Like a Suspect

Step 4: Question the Method Used by Researchers 

Step 5: Confirm the Motives Based on Funding 

            (Conflict of Interest)

Step 6: Evaluate the Outcome in Relationship to the 

            Conclusion

Step 7: Look out for Cato Fong

Anatomy of a Tic Tac Orange Mint

The orange flavor of Tic Tac Orange Mints unfolds like the experience of eating an orange out of hand. Flavor chemists want you to think of the real thing even if the candy doesn't have the same form factor as orange fruit. The result? Candy plays pretend, and our brain consciously plays right along with it because candy tastes good, inspires memories and is fun to eat.

Mass-produced candy ensures a specific eating experience every time and that's by design. Candy is a form of comfort and reward across cultures. When you eat candy, you expect it to taste exactly like you remember it. The everyday chaos of adult life is sublimated by candy's constancy. Add a few childhood memories and it's easy to get hooked on candy when you’re decades past being a kid.

The flavor chemistry in Tic Tac Orange Mints is an industry secret, but if you read the ingredient list you can do a bit of flavor sleuthing and decode what you sense, but can't see. Orange Tic Tacs contain: sugar, maltodextrin, tartaric acid, natural and artificial flavors, rice starch, gum arabic, magnesium stearate, ascorbic acid, Yellow 6 and carnauba wax. So, what does this mean? A sweet and sour profile at a quick glance, but there's more.

The first ingredient is sugar (sucrose) and that means sugar is used in the greatest quantity compared to ingredients that follow it on the ingredient list. Sugar is followed by maltodextrin, a polysaccharide that improves texture, taste and shelf life. Maltodextrin isn't sweet on its own. Amylase, an enzyme found in saliva, breaks down maltodextrin, which is absorbed by the body as glucose.  

The next ingredient, tartaric acid, is found in grapes, bananas, tamarind, citrus fruits and wine. Tartaric acid's salt is potassium bitartrate, aka cream of tartar, which can be mixed with sodium bicarbonate to make baking powder. Congratulations! You've entered the realm of food science by investigating a candy ingredient list. 

Pour yourself a glass of wine and congratulate yourself as you toast the wonders of tartaric acid! You've graduated from Sweet Tarts, Fun Dip and Smarties Candy Necklaces, all of which include a combination of malic acid and tartaric acid to create delightful puckering effects that turned you into a candy lover in the first place.

Natural and artificial flavors cited in the ingredient list for Tic Tac Orange Mints are just that. Specific molecular constituents used to shape the candy's unique taste and flavor are akin to a family recipe for pasta sauce. Family members who know the recipe pass it down from one generation to the next. In the food industry, proprietary knowledge and trade secrets are protected by legal and binding non-disclosure agreements. You don’t share them with anyone (it’s a “take-it-to-the-grave” kind of thing).

Ingredients used to flavor candy are natural, "nature-identical", and/or synthetic. Chemical compounds and single molecules that scream "oranges" and those that support the chemistry of orange flavor define a Tic Tac "orange" experience. An example of a supporting ingredient in orange flavor would be a material with a zesty green aroma associated with orange peel.

Gum arabic is ubiquitous as far as food applications go. It’s added to confectionary glazes and is also used as a probiotic. Rice starch smoothes the surface of candy coatings and has additional applications as well. Magnesium stearate, on the other hand, prevents ingredients from sticking to mechanical equipment in the manufacturing process. It's commonly used as a lubricant for tablets. 

Ascorbic acid is also on the Tic Tac Orange Mints ingredient list. You may recognize it if you've read the ingredients label on a bottle of vitamins because ascorbic acid is another name for vitamin C. This doesn't mean that Tic Tac Orange Mints are vitamins, so you can't use this fact to make candy guilt go away or use Tic Tac Orange Mints to raise Linus Pauling from the dead.

Yellow 6 is also known as "sunset yellow" in the language of artificial food colors. Artificial colors are shelf stable (they don't lose their color quickly over time and under the proper storing conditions). This could change as companies like Kalsec, which specializes in natural food color technology, offer stable natural color alternatives.

It's interesting to note that Orange Tic Tac Mints sold outside the U.S. are colorless (they're white) due to rules and regulations related to artificial food coloring. In Canada, for instance, Tic Tac Orange Mints are packed in a plastic container that's tinted orange to signal flavor expectations in the absence of Yellow 6 food coloring.

Carnauba wax (Copernicia cerifera) is the last ingredient in Orange Tic Tac Mints and it's typically used as a coating or glazing ingredient. It's also one of the first ingredients you'll encounter in a store-bought orange (before you get to the cash register where Tic Tacs galore are staring you in the face). Carnauba wax is used in a proprietary form of artificial fruit wax that coats and protects fruit that's packaged and shipped to grocery stores. 

Now that you know the story behind the ingredients in Orange Tic Tac Mints, it's time to do a little sensory evaluation on your own. The experience will tell you a lot about what flavorists do without saying a word. To get the most out of this or any other tasting exercise, make sure you take your time.

If you do the exercise quickly, you'll miss important flavor transitions that define signature candy tasting experiences. Bear in mind that flavor is defined as the intersection between taste and smell. If you are rushing or distracted, you risk having a one-dimensional experience that’s mostly focused on taste (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory).

Go somewhere where you can taste the candy without distraction. The experience goes beyond "sweet, sour, done, now give me another one". Pop a single orange Tic Tac in your mouth and savor it, noticing the sequence of sensations from beginning to end. Do this twice. Once for the ah-ha moment(s) and a second time to embed the experience in your brain as a reference point for future candy tastings. Writing down sensory impressions after the second tasting is a good idea.

Sensory evaluation requires focusing on sensations and memories inspired by the tasting experience. Imagine what chemistry class would’ve been like if sensory evaluation exercises were included in the curriculum. You wouldn't be reading this. You'd be a flavorist working at a lab bench creating flavors for candy. 

Mindfully tasting Tic Tac Orange Mints is akin to a candy-version of an orange from a flavor perspective. A sense of ephemerality sets in when you’re finished, but you can always taste another candy. Is eating orange fruit better than eating candy? Yes, but if you’re hankering for the perfect portion-controlled sweet, candy allows you to connect with flavor and memories, and there’s nothing wrong with that if you indulge in moderation.

Notes & Curiosities: 

 The acid in citrus fruit causes the mouth to water. The same response occurs when 

  you eat something that smells appetizing and tastes delicious. Common descriptors

   for orange fruit flavor are: acidic, citrusy, fragrant, fruity, sweet, tangy and zesty

Tic Tac Orange Mints were launched by Ferrero in 1974. The original Tic Tac mint was called "Refreshing Mints" in 1969 and was changed to "Tic Tac Fresh Mint" in 1970. 

Tic Tacs have nothing to do with the paper and pencil game called tic-tac-toe that's played in a three-by-three grid with "x" and "o" marks. The sound made by the candy as it rattles in the container inspired Tic Tac's onomatopoetic name.  

There is no mint flavor in Tic Tac Orange Mints (though there's a green nuance that is more leafy than minty that shows up in the first half of the tasting experience). The term “mint” is used as an indicator of something a person eats for refreshment and/or mint-flavored mints.

Mindfully eating Tic Tac Orange Mints can be included in chemistry curriculum so that students grow up to be adults with a métier in flavor science.  More information on becoming a flavorist (and/or flavor chemist) is available from the Society of Flavor Chemists. 

If you're curious about the flavor industry read The Flavor Industry: From 1945-1995. This link takes you to the PDF download on the Society of Flavor Chemists website. The publication was put together by the American Sources Association on behalf of the Society of Flavor Chemists. 

Ethyl Maltol Goes to a Cocktail Party

Welcome to chemical anthropomorphism, where Ethyl Maltol attends a

cocktail party, meets a candy bar, and tries to help cousin Maltol make 

friends. Spritz your favorite gourmand fragrance and join the party. Best

read whilst eating cotton candy, caramels or a hearty slice of bread.

Ethyl Maltol Goes to a Cocktail Party 

By Michelle Krell Kydd

Cotton candy pink

Pantone 9 2 8 6 "C", 

not exactly a taste trigger. 

Let's start over again,

shall we?

Oh really, just call me 

by my true name. 

I’m Ethyl Maltol. 

How do you do? 

Dentist, hmm. 

Do you remember

the "cavity creeps" in 

the Crest toothpaste commercial?

No matter how many times 

they said "we make holes in teeth" 

it never stopped me 

from eating candy in the 70s.

So, you want to know 

my family name? 

I'm a Pyranone. 

Nuanced, yes, I admit it. 

Not that my ancestors 

had anything to do 

with The Inquisition, 

but the name does possess 

the mischief of fire in it. 

Don't worry, I don't smoke 

or keep matches on my person. 

How about you? 

Oh really? 

You’re kidding. 

Really? 

Now that’s a twist. 

You’re a Caramello, 

how sweet. 

A pleasure to meet you. 

Mother was a chemist, 

which explains my name.

If you look it up, 

you’ll see a string of descriptors. 

Sugar, sweet, caramel, jammy 

with a strawberry-like aroma 

redolent of cotton candy.

Yes, that’s me, 

C7H8O3 formally.

A circus, fairground or

seaside boardwalk memory. 

Pick one, two or all three, 

but don’t get your hopes up 

Caramello, 

as we might be related.

The fact you've heard 

about my cousin Maltol 

means we can at least be friends. 

Maltol was named by 

my uncle, mother's brother,

who's also a chemist.

It was mother who gave me

my first lesson

on maltol synonymy;  

"sweet, fruity and caramellic, 

with a hint of 

strawberry and pineapple." 

I oh, none of this makes sense 

unless you remember 

the sweet dry vanilla scent 

of late autumn pine needles

that carpet forest floors.

It’s a distinct aroma 

that replaces the

green coniferous smells 

of spring and summer,

an infrathin between autumn

and the first winter snow.

Did you know that

maltol got its name 

from the smell of roasted malt? 

In our family the metaphor

is even richer than that.

Cousin Maltol's maternal ancestors 

were brewers and bakers. 

Close your eyes, Caramello,

and imagine the smell 

of loaves of bread 

growing golden brown 

in a large oven. 

Now, add another layer of smells 

and picture barley slowly roasting,

heat caramelizing the grains

making genies of smells 

that make children of us all

to the point of forgetting 

that there’s more time behind us 

then there is in front of us, 

as we grow old 

and are slowly betrayed 

by bittersweet strands 

of our own molecules. 

Maltol says it’s why he can’t say no 

to bread, beer or single malt scotch. 

It's also why he collects rare

and obscure conifer essences,

and swears by Siberian larch.

That's a fine-looking glass

of scotch he's enjoying.

You can tell by the 

tulip-shaped glass. 

Shall we join him?

You can ask him about

his curious scent collection.

Just be sure to mention

that I told you about it,

if, and only if, the timing is right.

He's rather sensitive about it.

You'll know that he trusts you

if he shares a carefully folded copy

of a magazine article on pine trees

that he keeps inside his wallet.

He makes a new copy

every few months or so,

as the creases tend to tear.

The article was published

on September 1st 1959, 

which happens to be his birthday.

Sometimes, he jokes and

says it’s his birth certificate.

Notes & Curiosities

Image Credit: Candy-Floss Coneheads via Ylvers on Pixabay.

Inspiration for this post includes, but is not limited to: the poems of James Schuyler; chemistry; an article in The Atlantic by Nicholas T. Mirtov (September 1, 1959); and a description of a cotton candy smellscape in Joe Hill’s “Dark Carousel,” a short story that appears in Throttle. 

The air was redolent with the cloying perfume of cotton candy, an odor that doesn’t exist in nature and can only be described as 'pink' smell. 

Sugar used to make cotton candy is subject to heat and spun into filaments that are collected on a stick-like paper cone. Modern cotton candy, unlike the original version which looked like a white cloud, is enhanced with flavor-color blends. The smell of warm, spun sugar complemented by artificial flavors and colors shapes flavor expectations and smellscapes. 

Pink vanilla (Silly Nilly) and blue raspberry (Boo-Blue) flavors were created by Gold Medal Products Corporation. (They perfected American cotton candy machines with the inclusion of a sprung base in 1949.) The two historic flavors are archetypal and haven't lost their charm. 

The 2022 version of the Material Safety and Data Sheet (MSDS) for "Silly Nilly Flossugar" lists vanillin and artificial flavors in the ingredient list. Artificial flavors combined with vanillin aren't identified as they're proprietary. For the record, common ingredients used in various brands of pink cotton candy flavor include, but aren't limited to: ethyl maltol, ethyl vanillin, vanillin and furaneol. 

Knowing the identity and aromatic profile of a compound doesn't tell you how ingredients in combination behave with one another. This is where things get sticky for curious fans of cotton candy who aren't flavor chemists. Vignon's profile for nature-identical Strawberry furanone (aka furaneol) shows how versatile a single ingredient can be in flavors and fragrances, which clarifies a few things. 

The role of flavor enhancers in cotton candy can't be underestimated. They play a supporting role by amplifying what's already there. Maltol was isolated from the bark of larch trees and pine needles before it was synthesized in 1947.  Ethyl maltol was produced synthetically after chemists figured out how to synthesize maltol. Both materials enhance flavor and fragrance formulas. 

The application of ethyl maltol in perfumery began with Angel by Thierry Mugler (1992). On the flavor side, ethyl maltol enhances caramel flavor in confectionary. The aroma profile of ethyl maltol and maltol are in the poem that accompanies this post. 

Falco Riot and Octyl Fora Go Missing

Falco Riot, creator of Octyl Fora perfume, described the effect of his fragrant creation with a stale, twentieth century trope, “with Octyl Fora you're transformed into a living philter.” 

When questioned about the ingredients used in the AI-generated fragrance, Riot exhaled an aloof sigh, detaching himself from the question with another query in an attempt to appear avant-garde.

 “We're all made of memory and metaphor, wouldn't you say?” 

Eight months later, everyone who attended the Octyl Fora fragrance launch went missing, including Riot. Ten drums containing Octyl Fora concentrate, stored in an obscure warehouse district in the city, also disappeared. 

The team responsible for collecting evidence cracked the numeric code on the warehouse door. The numbers spelled “it smells" using an A1Z26 cipher. 9*20*19*13*5*12*12*19.

They should have known better. The code wasn’t a barrier; it was an invitation. 

Investigators examined surfaces in the empty, temperature-controlled room where drums of fragrance concentrate were stored. Handheld sensors analyzed walls, floors, cabinets and doors. 

Each device lost power after four attempts to read a surface. None of them detected an unusual compound before they stopped working. 

Clary Otafo, who'd worked with the team for 10 years, looked at his colleagues and rolled his eyes. 

“Emperor's new clothes, eh?” 

His eyes kept rolling. A low hiss escaped between his teeth. He fell to the floor and stopped breathing. A translucent vapor rose up from the floor and outlined his body like a chalk mark.

Ray Focolt, the youngest member of the team, closed the warehouse door as his colleagues fled ahead of him. The knob was ice-cold and stuck to his palm before the latch bolt released, and he could relax his grip. 

By the time he got into his car, Focolt barely remembered moving one foot in front of the other to get there. That’s when he noticed a strange feeling in his right hand, the same hand that closed the warehouse door. 

The skin of his palm was slightly raised in a quarter-shaped circle at the center. In the middle of the circle there was a line drawing of a nose. An angled slash ran through it. 

Focolt blinked a few times and looked at his palm in disbelief. 

The car seat next to him sank in the center. The impression was punctuated by a decompressing squeak of leather. Focolt was too busy looking at his hand to notice.

The image on his palm faded into itself and shimmered as it disappeared. He was about to start the car when he sensed someone breathing next to him.

“I know you can’t smell, Ray.” 

“What the hell?!” 

The radio turned on. Digital numbers veered left of the dial and stopped at the sound of John Lennon’s voice: 

 

We're playing those mind games together,

Pushing the barrier, planting seed. 

Playing the mind guerrilla,

Catching the mantra "peace on earth".

We all been playing those mind games forever, 

Some kind of Druid dude, lifting the veil. 

Doing the mind guerrilla, 

Some call it magic, the search for the grail. 

The radio went silent at “grail” as the passenger side door opened with a slow deliberate creak.

“Until we meet again, Ray. I have a little something to tell you.” 

Focolt shut the door, turned on the ignition, and sped off. He never got ticketed for running four red lights in a row on his way home. He didn’t get much sleep that night either.

Notes & Curiosities:

Artificial intelligence and perfumery were explored in a 2014 post titled "The Unstoppered Bottle of Perfume". "Falco Riot and Octyl Fora Go Missing" is infused with a 2024 ethos and hints of science fiction. The story is an intentional fragment. I'm formulating a scent to go along with it for a future Smell & Tell program at the Ann Arbor District Library. 

There are non-fictive elements in "Falco Riot and Octyl Fora Go Missing," one of which is the use of handheld sensors. They exist in real life and are rapidly improving. Portable spectroscopy allows samples to be taken in the field versus the lab. Curious? Get all the nerdy details here.

Scent in Film: The Scent of Earth by Amit Dutta

Scene in an Indian perfume shop from The Scent of Earth, a short film 
by Amit Dutta (2021). The film captures the essence of episodic memory.

The Scent of Earth by Amit Dutta utilizes stop-motion animation to explore the smell of rain on parched earth at the start of India’s monsoon rain. The narrator in the film articulates encounters with the aroma in childhood memory vignettes that reawaken and crystalize when he discovers a flask of mitti attar ("earth perfume") at a bazaar by chance. The essence, a codistillation of earthen pottery and sandalwood, is imbued with the scent of the landscape and a history of encounter with a centuries-old style of perfumery.

Smells, as an experience, aren't permission based. They are perceived as the autonomic result of breathing. We neurologically detect smells before we can describe them and it happens in a flash. Molecules that comprise smells make physical contact with olfactory receptors, generating memories and emotions before they can be expressed as language. James McHugh captures the liminal quality of smell when he writes: "Smell has the strange, almost paradoxical, nature of being both a remote sense and a contact sense." 

Amit Dutta brings a clear understanding of the embodied aspect of smell throughout The Scent of Earth. The voice and storytelling style of the narrator (it’s the filmmaker's) are gentle, relaxed and guileless. This makes the portrayal of smell relatable to anyone who’s ever experienced a meaningful scent in all its timeless profundity. Mitti attar is the catalyst for awakening memory and inspiring storytelling, which in turn touches on the art of perfume making in Kannauj. It’s a thoughtful admixture of scent, culture and film.

Mitti kulhad (earth cups) made from unfinished clay are fired in a kiln, broken into shards, and used to make mitti attar. Whole cups, which are designed for drinking tea, impart an earthy flavor. 

Viewers experience the transporting quality of smells through the speaker’s visual and articulated memories as they follow the narrative arc of the film. The script has a literary flavor when extracted from the film, which is just over two minutes long: 

"In my childhood, one smell that affected me the most was the scent of the earth when it rained for the first time after a hot summer. The smell was so subtle that sometimes I wondered if it existed at all. 

Everybody felt it, but no one ever expressed it. It was difficult to articulate that scent. I did not pay much attention to it and eventually forgot about it. 

Many years later, in a small bazaar, I saw a small bottle of perfume. The label was in Hindi and it said ‘Earth Perfume'. It made me curious when I smelled it; it was exactly the same smell that I experienced in my childhood. 

With it, memories of my childhood also came back, not as one particular incident, but as various assorted images. I saw myself going back to school in a horse-cart, my mother teaching at the same school, the school that was close to the border. 

There were a few destroyed tanks and bunkers, reminiscent of old wars. The broken tanks and bunkers had gathered dust, colorful flowers grew on them. Rain fell on those flowers and gave out the same scent. 

The shopkeeper told me that this scent was made in Kannauj, where they have been making it for centuries. What fascinated me was the scent, which I even failed to spell out, was experienced by someone in ancient India, who tried to capture it and succeeded! 

I bought that bottle, and with it my childhood—in a small bottle."

The duality of terrestrial experience (the smell of rain on parched earth) and the ability to distill the terrestrial (sandalwood and shards of fired earthen clay) bookend the narrator's sense of wonder at the close of the film. The Scent of Earth is a filmic ode to its namesake. What we are left with is proof that the extraordinary can be found in something as ordinary as dry earth that crumbles between the fingers like dust, and smells of the heavens in the rain.

Camel skin attar bottles from Kannauj are known as kuppi (aka khupi and kuppa). They're designed for aging attar. The skin breathes and allows water to evaporate. Mature attar is decanted and sold as perfume. 

Notes and Curiosities

The Scent of Earth is narrated and directed by Amit Dutta. Animation by Ayswayra S. Dutta. Sound by Sukanta Majumdar. English subtitles are available for the Hindi language film, which is 2:09 minutes long. The short film was uploaded to YouTube by Matra Publications on December 7, 2021, and is available for viewing at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJF0N0E7H4Q. 

Mitti attar is a codistillation of clay shards in sandalwood oil. The perfume resembles the smell of rain on parched earth, and possesses a distinctive touch of woody sweetness. Parched earth that accumulates moisture from rain smells more intense in nature than the aromatic outcome of a codistillation of clay shards in sandalwood. The profile of co-distilled "earth" in aged mitti attar smells earthy, dusty, and flinty. It's a softer aromatic expression of geosmin (aka petrichor) that emanates from freshly turned soil that’s familiar to gardeners and farmers. 

McHugh James. Sandalwood and Carrion : Smell in Indian Religion and Culture. Oxford University Press 2012. [A quote from page 25 is referenced in the second paragraph of this article.]

Shulman, David. “The Scent of Memory in Hindu South India.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 13 (1987): 122–33. [Read the section on vāsanā in the lower left-hand column, on page 123. It goes into beautiful detail with regard to the nature of smell memory from a Hindu perspective.]

Algorithm This: A Math of the Senses

Untitled (c.1980) ©Paulina Peavey Estate / Andrew Eldin Gallery, NYC

A Math of the Senses 

by Michelle Krell Kydd

"It’s through sound that we enter the works, and that we travel across time." —Pascale Bodet, critic and filmmaker, on The Seventh Walk (Saatvin Sair) a film by Amit Dutta (2013) 

Assignment.

Substitute another sense in place of “sound”. 

Deduct. 

Deduce. 

Consider the counterintuitive. 

For this is a math of the senses. 

Begin with the end in mind, the end of the quote. 

Traveling across time a is metaphor for recollecting.  

And smell is memory's sense.  

Ah, but who and what shapes memories?  

To answer this you become a fortune teller. 

A teller of tales. 

Are you ready?

Let's begin. 

Ask your family, your friends, the ancestors, the deity. 

The artists, plants, insects, animals. 

Sun, moon, stars, the planets. 

The movement of molecules and the diasporic. 

The inhalations and exhalations of everyday life.  

What is dream, what is truth? 

Paradox. 

The eyes are open and shut for both. 

Smell, however, is always open.  

From the first breath to the last.  

Return to the original question. 

Sound closes shop at our ending.

Just before the breath stops.

A mortal proof. 

Derive conclusion accordingly.

Notes & Curiosities:

Poem to be read out loud while smelling a 3% dilution of mitti attar during the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse. Listen if you wish to see. Smell if you wish to remember.

Introductory quote at the start of "A Math of the Senses" is from an article titled "In the Ship of Amit Dutta" on The Seventh Art, a blog by film critic and translator Srikanth Srinivasan. 

The Scent of Morphia and Confabulation

Stripped Cat by Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1924)

Our story begins and nearly ends for a cat, introducing us to its peculiar owner and an unsavory trick he played on the feline with the express purpose of ending its life. Consider the following four points before engaging with the tale:

• № 1: Cats. They’re an interesting subject because they’re cats. And they let you know it.
• № 2: People. Always hiding behind the mask of personality. Some are more convincing than others. 
• № 3: Writers. They’re observant and take notes. Make acquaintance with one and you may appear as a character in one of their stories.
• № 4: Doctors. Most are guided by the Hippocratic Oath. Others are gilded by reputation, clever accountants and club memberships.

“The Sense of Smell in Cats” appeared in the science journal Nature a little over 90 years ago. The one-paragraph letter to the editor was written by F.W. Edridge-Green of 99 Walm Lane, Willesden Greene, London N. W. 2. It was dated September 13, 1932 and published in the October 1, 1932 edition of the publication. The tone is expert, detached and gothic. 

I HAD a favourite cat which was having fits and becoming dangerous, so, to destroy it as painlessly as possible, I inserted several grains of morphia in the centre of a piece of foie gras which was cut in two, great care being taken that no morphia was split on the outside. The cat on being shown the foie gras expressed in every way its eagerness for it, but when it got within three feet of the foie gras, turned round and looked at me with intense astonishment, and then after another sniff walked away, though previously it had always worried for a small piece. The special point is that the cat could detect something dangerous though the strong smell of the foie gras, though morphia, even in considerable quantities, has to most persons only a faint odour.  

Reading this leaves little doubt that the physician’s house became haunted when he and his cat were no longer there. Imagine the paws of generations of cats that resided in the house, sensitized to dormant energy emanating from the kitchen floor. When perceived, a sensation accompanied by the aroma of foie gras forebodes the appearance of a feline apparition hungry for a taste of its master’s liver. Cats sense the specter with their whiskers, their owners attuned to its icy plaintive yowls. Confabulation, I know, but it paints the picture best.

Frederick William Edridge-Green (1863-1953) was a physician and "expert" on color perception. The ophthalmologist, who grossly underestimated the olfactory perception of his cat (a species that is a natural-born hunter) wrote on the subject of sight, color blindness and memory. Books published in his area of specialty are available, in addition to a journal article in which the esteem with which he held himself and his work weren’t reciprocated (this was delivered with academic brevity and evisceration in the concluding sentence). 

Concluding paragraph in the British Journal of Ophthalmology by J. Herbert Parsons, August 1920. Ibse dixit refers to an unproven assertion.

After his death in 1953, Dr. Edridge-Green’s portrait was donated to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in London. The painting is currently available as ready-made wall art for anyone with a taste for it. Artist Frederic Dudley Walenn (1869-1933) painted Dr. Edridge-Green’s portrait. In it, the physician sports a lupine beard that completely obscures his mouth, jaw and neck. It would be uncouth to say it invokes an invitation to fleas, but that can’t be helped. 

Image of Dr. Edridge-Green via The Royal College Surgeons of England

Consider the confusion a master’s nearly unreadable face wrought upon his cat over the years. The portrait resembles a man about to go through “the change” and emerge as a werewolf. Wouldn't you, dear reader, at your most myopic, have fits and become dangerous if you had to live with the agony of looking at an obfuscated face by day, suffering the consequences in your sleep at night? A mouthless presence of a face in a sea of hair leaving only the eyes to speak? 

Walenn’s body of work is respected and pleasing. Perhaps the artist had a petulant sitter before him who was overly concerned with posterity, demanding unreasonable revisions to his portrait, the painter giving in and painting the doctor’s mouth shut with his paint brush. The portrait, whatever one thinks of it, was bequeathed to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in England by Edridge-Green. It is absent from their online collection.

Via the National Institute of Health, National Library of Medicine

An interesting black and white photograph of the ophthalmologist paints a different picture in shadow and light. His bearded face is less consumed by facial hair, ruling out hypertrichosis as a diagnosis inspired by Walenn's oil portrait. The contrasting accent of dyed black hair behind a flourish of gray paints a different picture, a hat on his knee taking prominence at the forefront of the composition. The doctor is older here and appears comfortable with himself. A kitten would fit quite nicely in this picture, but that would be softening the rough edges of Edridge-Green's character to a fault.

Consider the possibility that Edridge-Green’s cat no longer served as an emotional surrogate, becoming “the other” in the eyes of its owner due to bad behavior or illness (a mean disposition or epilepsy). The doctor's story as reported in Nature seems more like confabulation than truth, a weak attempt at erudition (acknowledging his cat's better-than-expected sense of smell). Fact: the doctor failed to entice his beloved cat to its death with morphine-laced foie gras. This is not material for compassion or bragging rights. It smacks of pathology, narcissism and a faltering G-d complex.

The Latest Application in Scientific Principals by Louis Wain

In closing, the following was filed under the category "Rubbish Colleagues, 1900 RR/15/38" on the Royal Society's website. The facts and categorization reveal much about Edridge-Green’s character: 

Among the treasure trove of referee reports is one by physicist Shelford Bidwell (inventor of a precursor to the fax machine) about a paper on 'The evolution of the colour sense' by Frederick William Edridge-Green in 1900. Bidwell describes the author as ‘a crank’, and the paper as not only plagiarized but also ‘rubbish of so rank a character that no competent person could possibly take any other view of it’: 

"Having long ago recognised in him all the well-known characteristics of a 'crank', I have carefully avoided entering into any discussion with him or expressing any opinion as to his views." 

He then goes on to suggest that if the Society takes issue with ‘this admission of bias’ they should refer the paper to someone else. Edridge-Green’s tests for colour blindness were nonetheless adopted by the Royal Navy. 

The report by referee Shelford Bidwell, including the summary, reveal a lack of professionalism and ethics on the part of Dr. Edridge-Green. It was issued 32 years before the doctor wrote to Nature about the alleged cat episode. F.W. Edridge-Green died on April 17, 1953. His obituary in the British Journal of Ophthalmology refers to the doctor as “a controversialist” whose conclusions sometimes lacked the basis of fact. There is no mention of family left behind in Edridge-Green’s obituary. Not even a cat.

Notes, Curiosities & Thanks:

Morphia is an archaic term for morphine. It's also the first name of the historical queen consort of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, Morphia of Melitene, who was of Armenian descent. 

Cats are better smellers than humans. This was true in Dr. Edridge-Green’s time, when science knew less about feline and human olfaction. Cats have larger olfactory epithelium (membranous tissue located in the nasal cavity that is the peripheral organ for the sense of smell) and more olfactory receptors (transmitters of smells) than humans. Cats also possess a vomeronasal organ (aka Jacobsen’s organ) that affects sexual, feeding and social behaviors. The role of the vomeronasal organ in humans is unknown and considered vestigial (translation: under-researched).

The Royal Society was formerly known as The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. It's the United Kingdom's version of The National Academies of Sciences in the United States. 

Maréchal Niel Roses by Henri Fantin Latour(1883)
The flowers have a strong raspberry, tea and violet scent.

Dr. F.W. Edridge-Green married Minnie Hicks on April 28, 1893. An excerpt from the wedding announcement in the Middlesex Courier says: "...it is evident that Dr. Edridge-Green is a gentleman of considerable attainments. The bride, Miss Minnie Hicks, second daughter of Dr. F.R. Hicks, of Hendon Grove, is as distinguished socially and for her personal charms as Dr. Edridge-Green is for his scientific attainments...Inside the church looked very pretty, the altar being decorated with white flowers and the pews themselves gay with posies and the delicate scent of the Maréchal Niel rose being most notable." 

The Edridge-Green family included two sons. Their first son, Henry Allen Edridge-Green, was born on July 9, 1894. Henry died of wounds acquired at the age of 24 on November 7, 1918, while serving as a Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force during WWI. Frederick Nigel Edridge-Green, the couple's second son, was born on June 23, 1897. He died on May 25, 1898, when he was less than a year old. Minnie Edridge-Green died on February 14, 1901, after seven years of marriage and the loss of her youngest child. She was 30 years old when she died on Valentine's Day.

Maréchal Niel rose was a synthetic rose base used to make Arpège perfume by Lanvin, which was introduced in 1927.  Perfumers Paul Vacher and Andre Fraysse collaborated on the perfume's creation. Fraterworks offers a modern version of the rose base for use in perfume formulas on their website. Bon voila.

Thanks go out to Wendy Warner, who provided assistance with ancestry research related to Dr. F. W. Edridge-Greene. 

This post is dedicated to Judith Emlyn Johnson, Professor Emerita of English Literature and Women's Studies at the University at Albany in New York State. Her "Gothic Horror and Fiction" class was one of my favorites. Johnson is a fiction writer, poet, and spoken word artist.