A Message from Michelle Krell Kydd: Editor of Glass Petal Smoke

I was inspired to launch Glass Petal Smoke in 2007 after receiving training and education in perfumery at Givaudan and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).  I'd been working as a marketing and communications consultant in the fragrance industry and fell in love with the art+science connection in perfumery. The world of scent, with its strong connection to memory and emotion, opened my eyes to a world of possibilities beyond sight.

Most of what I learned about the perfume arts was derived from the vantage point of an insider positioned in a highly secretive industry. Access serves as a starting point when one is intensely driven by curiosity. Where one arrives depends on how deeply one wants to explore the terrain, which itself depends upon the willingness to ask questions. The more I learned about aromatic materials and the people who shaped them as perfumes and flavors, the more questions I had.

I taught myself how to read science papers and developed a passion for inquiry. With this came a strong desire to share what I learned. Blogging has allowed me to do this, but getting out in the world and teaching others how to describe smells using the method I was taught in perfumery school has allowed me to transform knowledge into multisensory experiences. This is what Smell and Tell lectures are all about.

Describing a smell requires that you decode the invisible. What I find most striking about this process is how it brings people together by generating respect and understanding in the face of different points of view. A side effect of olfactory training in perfumery is that it is powerfully self-authenticating. Because perception is filtered through autobiographical memory, differences of opinion are not about right or wrong; they are about experience and one's personal story. This allows diverse observations regarding what something smells like to be contained in the same space; just like complementary and contrasting ingredients used in combination to create a perfume or a delicious dish.

Education is just as important to me now as it was nine years ago, if not more so. The sense of smell is least explored in classroom settings and this has always puzzled me in spite of everything I've experienced as a public speaker who creates multisensory experiences for the purpose of exploring the sense of smell and building community. Education as we know it simply doesn't offer enough opportunities to learn in non-judgmental settings. Students are educated to make the grade, which is rooted in whether or not they have assimilated material to the point of being right or wrong. This kills curiosity. 

The need for inclusion of olfaction as a legitimate sensory modality in K-12 and higher education is both a scientific and cultural imperative. I've worked to affect this at Smell and Tell lectures; at the University of Michigan; at TEDxUofM, and by creating the #AromaBox, an analog scent device that can be used in classroom settings and beyond. I believe that what I've learned via The Jean Carles Method of olfactory training, as well as conversations with scientists and perfumers, inspires curiosity of the highest order and is worthy of inquiry at all levels.

Without curiosity we cannot cultivate the kind of creativity that leads to understanding and problem solving. At best we engage with trends, entrepreneurial jingoism and what others decide is important to us as a culture. Remove curiosity and our internal compass falls into a heap of shards. Who we are and who we are meant to be suffers dearly because we not only lose direction; we lose time. Being human is inclusive of integrated sensory experiences and if we are going to develop technology that incorporates sensors, especially those that address assistive and safety needs, we must get better at including all of the senses; hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell.

To stay curious we need to pay attention. Digital life can remove us from face-to-face interaction with others outside of routines like shopping, commuting and work. It also removes us from nature as we more commonly inhabit indoor and mental spaces daily. This was recently illustrated in "That Strange Country Smell," an article that appeared in the New York Times' Metropolitan Diary on March 26, 2016, and was inspired by a four-year-old child who was offended by the smell of cut grass. Materials in perfumery are a gift from nature whose design lives in all of us at a cellular level. Nature feeds us, clothes us and provides us with shelter. We need to know her. Intimately.

This is not to say that we are in dire straights because connecting with nature is a choice. We know who we are and who we are becoming through our memories, dreams and reflections. Smell is memory's sense and memory is identity. In a world fraught with misunderstanding and clashes of culture we need to connect with others who may or may not be like us. Nothing does this better than interacting with the sense of smell, and the intersection of smell plus taste, which is flavor. We need to face each other, break bread with each other, and delight in the garden that is life as we share stories of our common humanity.

Think of this when you indulge in Ma'amoul Tea Cake and the accompanying stories that inspired last week’s nine-year anniversary post. The recipe was enkindled by everything you've read thus far and its spirit will ignite future stories on Glass Petal Smoke.

P.S. If you live in or near Ann Arbor I encourage you to get inside your olfactory mind at a Smell and Tell event. These talks take place at the Ann Arbor District Library in the heart of downtown Ann Arbor. I created the Smell and Tell series in 2012 and demand for programming continues to grow.

Notes:
Research is catching up with the sense of smell and its importance in the human organism. The driving force in all of this is the rise of incurable neurodegenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Dementia, which dissolve patients' memories (smell loss is the first symptom). More research is being conducted on the absence of smell at birth (congenital anosmia) and future findings will allow researchers to dig more deeply into the genetics of olfaction so they can solve problems beyond anosmia. In addition, olfaction is not limited to the human nose; it takes place on a cellular level in other parts of the body that are dependent on chemical communication.

Better ways of managing neurodegenerative brain disease will arrive in the coming years, benefiting everyone on the planet. It's an exciting time to get to know your sense of smell, and what it means in your life and the lives of those you love. Glass Petal Smoke  looks forward to serving curious minds and serendipitous guests so each of you may discover that getting in touch with the sense of smell is the best way to discover who you really are.

Flavor Stories: Dr. Roman Kaiser on Saffron's Affinity for Mullet and Shellfish

Shellfish and saffron have a natural affinity for each other. For some, the experience of savoring the flavor of a delicious paella is proof enough. Still, the desire to know why and certain flavors work so well together is enough to keep a curious cook up all night, or in some cases, inspire in a 2438 page corpus on molecular gastronomy.

Dr. Roman Kaiser is a renowned flavor and fragrance chemist who has dedicated his life to analyzing scents emitted by plants in their natural setting. Respectful of plant life and the environment he is known for utilizing dirigibles to conduct fragrance studies in locations including: Lower Amazonia, Papua New Guinea, India, and rainforest biotopes.

These days Dr. Kaiser can be found with both feet on the ground. He retired from Givaudan in 2011 and lectures at European universities. He spends more time doing things that he loves including foraging, canning and cooking; something he did in his youth as he spent a good part of that time in the hills and forests of Switzerland.

It isn't difficult to imagine a curious flavor story Kaiser shares from his childhood. As a young boy he added a few petals of Rosa centifolia from his father's nursery to a batch of homemade raspberry marmalade. The result was a memorable flavor pairing that inspired his pursuit of sensory science as an adult.

Last month I shared a recipe for parsley pesto with Dr. Kaiser via email and confessed that its success was the result of two unplanned events; accidentally buying parsley for a cilantro-based sofrito recipe and deciding to build a dairy-free pesto using the parsley as a flavor base.

I discovered that lemon zest and ground sumac temper garlic and parsley's assertiveness, creating multiple flavor complements. What I knew in the creation process as "instinct" is something I can now share as experience as there are clear reasons why this flavor experiment worked.

Lemon rind is not juicy, but if you add an umami enhancer like ground sumac berry you receive an added benefit; malic acid. Malic acid gives fruit a pleasant tart quality. In adding ground sumac berries to lemon zest one returns a sensory quality to lemon that is associated with a part of fruit that isn't present in the recipe; the juice-filled pulp. The effect is, in essence, a reconstitution of lemon's juicy character without the addition of water. The water forms in the mouth from the savory umami effect.

After sharing the recipe for parsley pesto with Dr. Kaiser he responded with a flavor story of his own. The event took place while he was dining at a restaurant on the Ligurian coast with colleagues (a story he relates on page 150 of his book Meaningful Scents from Around the World). If you're a home cook with a penchant for seafood and saffron you'll appreciate what Dr. Kaiser has to say about science and the role of a cook's instinct in the kitchen:

"...I would also like to describe a culinary insight. I was always wondering how the idea developed to add saffron to shrimps, prawns and red mullet. During a project at the Ligurian coast we once had lunch in a very simple but culinary-wise, wonderful restaurant where we could even see how the dishes were prepared. We had red mullet (rouget, Mullus barbatus) very delicately enhanced in its flavor with saffron, and I suddenly understood why they did this. 

The fresh red mullet itself already has a very faint saffron smell due to minute amounts of safranal and related compounds formed by degradation of carotenoids which gives the typical color to this and some other marine species, including shrimps. In fact, this faint saffron note is also perceivable in fresh shrimps and prawns, in which I have been able to demonstrate the presence of safranal by headspace trapping. 

Another fascinating example illustrating of how people are often able to do the right thing intuitively, in this case to support a very faintly present, but desirable olfactory note with a suitable spice.  

Dr. Kaiser's capacity for discovery defines him as a person and a scientist. These qualities make it a pleasure and privilege to know him. When I returned to read the passage about saffron and shellfish in his book, I found a note from Kate Greene, Vice President of Marketing at Givaudan. The note, written on July 1, 2008, was situated on page 152; one page ahead of the one Dr. Kaiser cited in his email to me. I must have used the note as a bookmark when I was writing about geosmin, a molecule that smells of freshly turned earth. Kate's note read, "On behalf of Roman, please enjoy his amazing book- it has given all of us much inspiration."

Meaningful Scents from Around the World has the approachable tone of an observational diary with a provocative scholarly flavor. It continues to attract readers because the human element in Dr. Kaiser's work, which is as much about curiosity as it is about science, is timeless. September 16th marks the eighth year since the book was published. Meaningful Scents from Around the World continues to inspire me. I have a feeling it always will...

Notes:
Details regarding Dr. Roman Kaiser's childhood discovery of rose-raspberry flavor pairing can be found in an interview conducted by Dyptique.

Dr. Roman Kaiser pioneered an aroma capturing technique in the 70's referred to as "headspace" trapping. This technique allows scent samples to be collected in the field without harming the plant.

Image of a dirigible from a ScentTrek® in Madagascar's Masaola Peninsula via Givaudan.

Image of a pint of red raspberries by Dan Klimke via Creative Commons.

Image of saffron threads by David Hawkins-Weeks via Creative Commons.

A big thanks to my husband, A.J. Kydd, who encouraged me to invent something new when I bought the wrong herb at the grocery store. It's nice to be reminded that mistakes and inconveniences are often opportunities in disguise.

"Inside the Olfactory Mind of Dr. Roman Kaiser" continues to be the most popular post on Glass Petal Smoke to date. It is part of a series of interviews regarding the sense of smell and memory.

The Jean Carles Method: Olfactory Training Charts Revealed

In May 2007 "Exposing the Perfumer" was published in Perfumer and Flavorist. The article contained olfactory training charts created by perfumer Jean Carles of Givaudan. It was the first and only time olfactory training charts used to train professional perfumers were made available to the public by a trade publication. Perfumer & Flavorist has allowed the author, Michelle Krell Kydd, to share the article for educational purposes at no charge, effective September 5, 2013. The Jean Carles Method is explained on page 41. The charts are on pages 42 and 43. Fragrance houses have custom made aroma kits for use with the Jean Carles Method; one such kit is featured in the photograph above.

The brilliance of the Jean Carles Method is its two-step approach. A perfumer first smells individual raw materials by similarity to get acquainted with themes and nuances. The perfumer then smells ingredients by contrast which expands their capacity to memorize aromas while revealing unexpected complements. This process of evaluation allows perfumers to study the relationship between aromas and increases olfactory vocabulary. There are two charts; one for natural materials and one for aroma molecules. The method is practiced regularly by perfumers across flavor and fragrance companies, and is used by artisan perfumers outside the industry who craft their own perfumes.

The Jean Carles Method and associated olfactory training charts provide an indispensable tool for those with an interest in the sense of smell, gastronomy and/or mixology. Steffen Arctander's Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin supports the Jean Carles Method, providing detailed information on ingredients. Glass Petal Smoke hopes that universities will consider using the Jean Carles Method for transdisciplinary, arts-infused curriculum as the possibilities are limitless. Perfumery is an art and a science, and thus has a place in STEM initiatives from K-12. The sense of smell is memory's handmaiden. To deny students the opportunity to explore olfaction from a creative perspective would be more than shortsighted; it would truly stink.

Notes and Resources:
Thanks go out to Jeb Gleason-Allured (Perfumer and Flavorist) for allowing Glass Petal Smoke to share "Exposing the Perfumer" and associated Jean Carles Method olfactory training charts.

Thanks are also extended to Kate Greene (Givaudan) who said "yes" when I asked for permission to liberate the Jean Carles Method and associated olfactory training charts so that a curious public would have access to a hidden art and science. I know this was not easy and that perfumer Jean Guichard, Director of Givaudan's Perfumery School, helped. Your collaborative "yes" now has the potential to influence olfactory curriculum and the art of perfumery in ways that truly engage the senses.

Caveat: The Jean Carles Method olfactory training charts are modified whenever regulation by the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) indicates a necessity to do so. This affects the percentage at which a raw material is diluted in alcohol and/or its outright use, depending on the outcome of scientific studies.

Jean Carles was interviewed in "The Absolute in Grasse," by Donald William Dresden. The article was published in the October 8, 1955 edition of the New Yorker (pp. 161-177). Retrieving the article is a bit clunky when it comes to functionality, but worth the effort and expense.

Anyone wishing to buy essential oils so they can learn the Jean Carles Method for natural materials has several options when it comes to suppliers. Glass Petal Smoke recommends Eden Botanicals, Enfleurage, and Liberty Natural Products.

The photo of the Jean Carles olfactory training kit is the editor's "naturals" kit. It was used to study perfumery with Jean Guichard at Givaudan.

The photo of a smiling gentleman with a tie is that of perfumer extraordinaire Jean Carles.

IFRA's name was changed to Fragrance Creators in May 2018. References to this organization remain IFRA in the body of this 2013 article as this respects the time in which it was written. Links are directed to the organization's rebranded website.

If you would like to use this blog post for educational purposes you are free to do so. Posting the article titled "Exposing the Perfumer" on other sites, for non-educational purposes, is not permitted. Please respect these terms and conditions as Perfumer and Flavorist has been most gracious in allowing Glass Petal Smoke to share this article with readers.

Smell & Tell: Olfactory Writing Workshops

The neon sign at Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches in Ann Arbor, Michigan invites quizzical stares and laughter, but it gets to the point. Nothing seduces appetite like the aroma of food. It doesn't matter if you aren't hungry. The monkey mind will hone in on the smell of food until it finds the source. That is why appetite is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Though she realized her fragrant calling in Berkeley, California, perfumer Mandy Aftel attended the University of Michigan and has roots in Ann Arbor. The city has the flavor of Europe, the intellectual horsepower of an Ivy League community and an honest Midwestern spirit that is reflected in hyperactive volunteering and a boundless local food movement as intense as California's (the state of Michigan is the second most agriculturally diverse state in the country). A pattern was forming in my mind as I connected the dots. The idea of olfactory writing workshops began to gestate. It was obvious that Ann Arbor was hip to smell.

Having read the olfactory signs I decided to conduct two "Smell and Tell Olfactory Workshops". One was designed for students at 826Michigan. The other was created for adults who frequent events at the Ann Arbor District Library. Selling the concept of smell is not an easy task, but when you are in a curious college community the barriers are nearly non-existent because those who choose to live here are, for the most part, on a lifelong learning path. When librarian Erin Helmrich* related anosmia stories in our first conversation I knew Ann Arbor wasn't your average college town. Loss of the sense of smell is an invisible disability that is rarely acknowledged.

Both "Smell and Tell" workshops involved smelling a variety of raw materials and writing about the sensations that the aromas evoked. Attendees utilized "smell mapping" as a way to access words that described their experience (a technique I developed to help people translate feelings and memories evoked by the sense of smell into words and phrases). What transpired was unique for each individual as the sense of smell is autobiographical and therefore not subject to judgement regarding what is right or wrong.

Angeline smelled orange, lemon, vanilla, cinnamon, peppermint, and lavender on perfume blotters before selecting an aroma for the writing exercise at the 826Michigan Smell and Tell. What she had to say about lemon is a lesson in olfactory objectivity, something adults have a hard embracing as the years shape likes, dislikes and memories associated with personal preferences. Angeline's favorite smells are lavender, candy and flowers. Her least favorite smells are lemons, paint and wet dog. Interestingly enough, Angeline chose to write about her least favorite fragrance which makes this ten-year-old girl a terrific fragrance evaluator!

The Smell and Tell at the Ann Arbor District Library drew an interesting crowd that included University of Michigan medical researchers, students, artisans, food lovers and some of Glass Petal Smoke's followers on Twitter. From the dais I could see that Sharon was entranced by the raw materials smelled in class, especially Tahitian Vanilla and Rice Paddy Herb (the later was especially true for every member of the workshop as it is a dynamic, multifaceted and synesthesia-invoking scent).

Sharon's eyes were closed for a long time as she smelled a fragrant blotter and she appeared to have been catapulted between a waking state and a dream state. When she opened her eyes her lips parted in a smile. This illustrated story is what she created at the Ann Arbor District Library Smell and Tell. It includes the memory of a chemist who worked as a type of evaluator for a flavor and fragrance company in New Jersey (right click on the picture and save it to read all of the details).

Two more Smell and Tell Workshops are scheduled for the fall of 2012. "Sacred Scents and Aphrodisiacs" will take place at the Ann Arbor District Library on Tuesday, October 30th at 6:30pm. Children at 826MIchigan will experience the thrill of retronasal olfaction when the flavor of bubblegum is dissected in class. The date for this workshop is pending, but Glass Petal Smoke will let you in on a secret; a famous flavorist at Givaudan designed the aromas for this 826Michigan Smell and Tell (she was featured on CBS and in The New Yorker).

Notes:
Glass Petal Smoke is working with Erin Helmrich and the podcasting team at The Ann Arbor District Library to produce programs on the subject of taste and smell. Information will be posted on Glass Petal Smoke and the blog's Twitter page once the schedule is in place.

Kudos to Givaudan who supplied perfumer Yann Vasnier's Le Flacon (a perfume inspired by Baudelaire) and have always supported my educational initiatives. I never asked permission to print the formula for the fragrance in 2008 because it was a radical move to go open source with it; so my gratitude is immense as it won a FiFi nomination and Givaudan embraced it with open arms. Kate Greene, you are truly a gem!

Special thanks go out to Dream Air (Christophe Laudamiel and Christoph Hornetz) and their supplier Firmenich for providing the scents for the Ann Arbor District Library Smell and Tell. Msr. Laudamiel always answers my perfume history/chemistry questions in beautiful detail and I am most thankful for our professional friendship.

Additional thanks to Laurie Harrsen of the McCormick Corporation who supplied the flavor extracts used at the 826Michigan Smell and Tell. Your flavors led to the students requesting a more "food-oriented" class which I plan on delivering in the fall. Rhodia pencils were supplied by Karen Doherty of Exaclair and turned the experience of writing into a multisensory adventure. Copies of The Name of this Book is Secret, by Pseudonymous Bosch were generous donated by Lisa Moraleda at Little Brown Books for Young Readers, for which the children were most grateful.

Olfactory curriculum helps children connect their feelings to their thoughts, and teaches them to trust the invisible and seek out story in smell. When a child learns how to make something tangible out of an abstract sense like smell they become "makers" of things. Makers of things learn to develop intuition and are less likely to be passive in life and learning. This is the diamond in olfactory curriculum and was the catalyst for the creation of the Smell and Tell workshop for 8-10 year olds that premiered at 826Michigan in Ann Arbor on June 6, 2012. It is also something that resonated with Maria Montessori‘s approach to sensorial education.

826Michigan is one of eight satellite tutoring centers connected to 826National. The centers are designed to help children develop expository writing skills. 826National was founded by award-winning author Dave Eggers and educator Nínive Calegari (they started the first chapter,  826Valencia in San Francisco). Each outpost offers free tutoring which is camouflaged by a storefront with a particular theme. The storefront takes the stigma out of receiving tutoring and generates revenue that goes back into overhead expenses. Glass Petal Smoke recommends visiting the various online storefronts for holiday shopping as proceeds are directed to a terrific cause.

Laura Rose Vlahovich was born without a sense of smell, a condition known as congenital anosmia. She is a talented artist and designed the graphic of the aromas used in the children's Smell and Tell at 826Michigan. Check out Thrift Score, Ms. Vlahovich's Esty shop, for cleverly curated vintage housewares and home decor.

Mandy Aftel single-handedly catapulted the artisan perfumery trend with her book, Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume. Aftel is currently working on her second book. Some of her food-grade essential oils (in the pantries of many famous chefs) are available at William Sonoma. The full line of "Chef's Essences" is available at the Aftelier Perfumes website. Mixologists are not strangers to these delightful ingredients, as evidenced in a recent New York Times article.

Rice Paddy Herb is available at Enfleurage. It is a "bucket list" aroma that should be experienced more than once in a lifetime. It evaporates in a brilliant flash of freshness that is sunny, verdant, ozonic and earthy; like standing on a dew-dappled grassy mountain under a blue sky on a perfect summer day. Rice Paddy Herb possesses an addictive cuminesque element minus the funk that reminds cumin haters of body odor. It smells fresh in both senses of the word which is, perhaps, its subconscious power.

Jimmy John's apparel offerings include men's boxer shorts with their "Free Smells" tagline. Smellculturists may infer/gift as they wish. [This product is no longer offered.]

The "Olfactory" graphic was designed by Jennifer Orkin Lewis and is used with permission. Rights revert back to the artist.

Photos of student work and associated images used with permission. Rights revert back to the image holders.

Inside the Olfactory Mind of Dr. Roman Kaiser

Roman Kaiser is a native of Switzerland. He is a chemist, naturalist and perfumer. Dr. Kaiser has spent a good part of his professional life analyzing plants and their scents. In his new book, Scent of the Vanishing Flora, he shares details on 267 endangered flowers that are disappearing due to habitat loss. He has graciously agreed to take the Glass Petal Smoke "Sensory Questionnaire" and share his flavor and fragrance memories. 

 1.  What does your sense of smell mean to you?

The sense of smell adds a dimension of perception to my life which is, in its intensity, equal to the sense of vision and hearing. Although I always had a high affinity to this perception it developed immensely during my forty years of studying natural scents at Givaudan. During this time I evaluated around 9000 scented plant species from which I had the opportunity to study an additional 2700 plants on the same scientific level. This broad olfactory experience with scents helps me to understand many things I encounter in this world, which also brings me also closer to people around me. Not less important is the fact that the sense of smell enormously enhances my acoustic and visual perception and, to a certain degree, vice versa. Thus, if I hear Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” the corresponding typical scents, as you would experience them in my home country of Switzerland, become active in my olfactory mind.

 2.  What are some of your strongest scent memories?

At the age of 12 I had to spend a rather long time in a hospital. One of the nurses always smelled of a famous fougère soap which is still available today. She was always kind to me and in this situation I associated the scent with all of the things that make life worth living.

Earlier, when I was a small boy, I discovered a place in a nearby forest with huge amounts of wild strawberries, a secret place which I never failed to visit. This is certainly the reason why I understand the strawberry’s olfactory concept very well.

Another discovery I made around this time was in a sun-flooded pine forest in the foothills of our region. There was a group of plants with flower stems rising to a height of 30 centimeters, each with as many as 15 to 20 dark purple-red flowers which had a wonderful vanilla-like and aromatic spicy fragrance. This fragrance helped to imprint the plant’s visual appearance so that 25 years later, when I started to study orchids in more detail, it came back to my mind and I could identify it before seeing it again as Epipactis atrorubens. I went back to this habitat and was happy to find this population still existing and see that it was, indeed, Epipactis atrorubens, the so-called Dark Red Helleborine.

 3.  What are some of your favorite smells (things in nature, cooking and/or your environment)?

Fully ripe lemon fruits which one may find along the Amalfi coast in Italy. I was so attracted to this scent that I studied it in more detail in the mid 1980’s. As a result I discovered that methyl epi-jasmonate is strongly accumulated on the peel surface and gives this unique far-reaching hesperidic floral note.

It is no wonder that I also feel drawn to the scent of the To-yo-ran Orchid Cymbidium goeringii. This flower scent is also very rich in methyl epi-jasmonate and related jasminoid compounds.

Another of my favorite scents is the olfactory ambiance along a Mediterranean pine forest during a sunny afternoon. As I finally discovered the characteristic part of this scent, a wonderful musky-woody note was arising, not from the needles, the cones or the wood, but from the sunshine-exposed resin. Under such conditions long chain hydroxy acids present in the resin may internally cyclize to macrocyclic lactones* that are responsible for this olfactory delight.

My third favorite smell is one that rises from burning agarwood; the wood of the gods. Many years ago I spent an evening in New York as a guest in a house where high quality agarwood had been transformed into this heavenly incense smoke. It is beyond a simply pleasant smell – it invades your lungs, your entire body and mind, taking total possession of you. You smell it for days, sometimes wondering what it might be and where it might be coming from, then it comes back to your mind as a constant reminder.

 4.  Do you have any favorite smells that are considered strange?

 
No, not really, but people around me sometimes have the idea that I possess a special love for strange scents. For example, they may see me sniffing at wet rocks or snow in the mountains, but there is a good reason for this; on wet rocks you may find certain algae species emitting interesting scents. One species is even capable of degrading carotenoids to beta-ionone and related compounds. Finding a violet-type scent in algae species is quite an experience. At such high altitudes there are also scent producing algae which may be found on snow or ice. Such is the case of Chlamydomonas nivalis, which emits the scent of watermelon.

 5.  Describe one or more of your favorite cooking smells.

The smell developing if you briefly roast cut aubergine in a good olive oil is a real olfactory revelation; it is the aroma that tells you how to use this delicacy in gourmet recipes. An equally fascinating yet quite different smell develops if you briefly roast scallops in high quality olive oil.

 6.  What smells do you most dislike?

Carrion, skunk in action and rotting aubergine.

 
 7.  What smell did you first dislike, but learned to love?

It took me a rather long time to learn how to appreciate the highly characteristic scent of white truffle. One of the reasons might have been my exposure to many olive oils that are over-flavored with white truffle essence. I often had the feeling that they were too strongly fortified with the impact chemical of white truffle, 2,4-dithiapentane, which is, however, a great product at the right dosage.

 8.  What mundane smells inspire you?

Freshly brewed coffee, freshly baked bread, rain after a hot day, and the smell of people as they pass who are wearing a good fragrance.
 

 9.  What scent never fails to take you back in time and why? 

Lime Tree blossom** and frankincense are two characteristic scents of my youth which work exactly in this way. The tender and romantic scent of lime tree blossom is emblematic in Middle Europe for feeling at home and no one has better expressed this than Franz Schubert with the famous song “Am Brunnen vor dem Tore.” This is how I experienced this magnificent tree and its flower scent in my home village near Mount Säntis in eastern Switzerland, magical to all those living around it. It is also admired in cities. What would Zürich’s famous “Bahnhofstrasse” be without the lime tree! Everybody experiencing it during its flowering in June is enthusiastic about it. The most impressive feature of my rather small home village is a baroque church dominating everything. If I recognize frankincense in a fragrance I have to think immediately of these Sunday services I always attended as a boy. I re-experience the sacred music, the glamorous liturgy and this unique scent pervading everything.

 10.  What scents do you associate with memories of loved ones?

 The classic Eau De Cologne 4711 as my mother used it.

 11.  What fragrance(s) remind you of growing up? 

There’s the two I previously mentioned; lime tree blossom and frankincense. Other fragrances that strongly remind me of growing up are also closely connected to my home village which is surrounded by hills and forests. The scents of flowering meadows as well as those of the hay produced from them are imprinted in my olfactory memory. In the forests I could never resist sniffing the pine and fir resin and I even know how they taste. This is because as a boy I read a book which said that the Indians of North America would chew, instead of chewing gum, such tree resins. I was also exposed to beautiful flower scents at a very young age because my father had a nursery and cultivated, among others, roses, sweet peas and all types of spring flowers for the flower trade.

 12. What fragrance(s) remind you of the places you visited on vacation?

The scent of sun exposed pine resin, which I previously described, reminds me of my visits to the Ligurian coast and the Côte d’Azur. But much earlier I became preconditioned to the unique, baroque, aromatic-floral, vanilla and cocoa-related scent of the Black Vanilla Orchid, a rare and precious jewel of our mountain meadows. This fragrance type carries me immediately to the Swiss mountains where we spend some of our vacation days every summer. In a similar way the scent of carnation (type Dianthus caryophyllus) carries me to the very small island of Hoëdic, situated in the Atlantic around 30 kilometers south of Quiberon in France. If you visit this island at the end of June or beginning of July you can already smell the very spicy-floral scent of carnation 300 meters before arriving at the harbor. Exploring this tiny island you will find the source of this unique environmental scent in a countless number of flowering Dianthus gallicus which for me, places Hoëdic among the 100 unforgettable olfactory sceneries of this world.

13.  Describe a piece of sensory literature that is very magical for you.

There are many books in this domain worth reading, but to start I would suggest Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. But do not believe too much in the flower and pollen scent of red beets; they are not as magical as described.

Notes:

*Macrocyclic lactones in plants are usually responsible for their musk aromas.

**Lime Tree is the European reference to the Linden Tree. They are one and the same.

Photograph of dark red helliborine taken by DJS Photography. Many beautiful prints are available for purchase on the website.

Photograph of agarwood (also known as aloeswood and oud) is from Shoyeido, a fine purveyor of agarwood chips for incense burning.

Photograph of Chlamydomonas nivalis growing on an Austrian mountain taken by Petr Jan Juračka.

Photograph of Black Vanilla Orchid from Plas y Brenin. 

Photograph of the alpine strawberry taken by Terry Ferdinand of the BBC.

Photograph of skunk in the act of spraying from PBS.org.

Photograph of frankincense burning on charcoal by Michelle Krell Kydd.  

Photograph of Dr. Roman Kaiser has been provided by Givaudan.

Perfumer Yann Vasnier Captures the Scent of Baudelaire

A whiff of perfume can resurrect the past for those who've lived through it, but it can also recreate that time, offering a token of bygone days to others. Many of the poems in Les Fleurs du Mal, a Baudelaire classic, reference the sense of smell. “Le Flacon” (The Perfume Flask) is particularly intriguing as it traverses shadow and light in the author’s imagination while he explores the paradox of life and death through his quill. For a fragrance lover, the spirit of the poem begs the question; what would a perfume inspired by Baudelaire’s “Le Flacon” smell like?

Perfumer Yann Vasnier had an answer that came in the shape of a fragrance formula created less than 48 hours after Glass Petal Smoke asked. His olfactive interpretation of “Le Flacon” plays on the imagery in the poem and is expressed in complementary contrasts of freshness and decay. The perfume is not at all fetid, which Vasnier attributes to the use of Patchouli and Cedarwood in the base (the two ingredients have a history of being used in perfumery and as natural insect repellents). Le Flacon Parfum has the animalic nature of Miss Dior, a quality of fruitiness similar to Guerlain's Mitsouko and a unique drydown that faintly echoes the style Vasnier applied to Keiko Mecheri Cherie Gourmandises.

In analyzing the raw materials and proportions used to create Le Flacon Parfum, the reader is permitted entry into the world of fragrance creation from the perfumer’s point of view. To fully experience this effect, begin by reading “Le Flacon” and allowing the words of Baudelaire’s poem to draw pictures in your mind. Once you have a sense for the poem’s meaning you can examine Vasnier’s formula, which includes descriptors for each raw material to help the reader imagine the scent. The act of going through this process is a synesthetic exercise in olfaction; it conjures the act of smelling through literal and imaginative acts of seeing.

The Perfume Flask
by Charles Baudelaire

All matter becomes porous to certain scents; they pass
Through everything; it seems they even go through glass.
When opening some old trunk brought home from the far east,
That scolds, feeling the key turned and the lid released —
Some wardrobe, in a house long uninhabited,
Full of the powdery odors of moments that are dead —
At times, distinct as ever, an old flask will emit
Its perfume; and a soul comes back to live in it.
Dormant as chrysalides, a thousand thoughts that lie
In the thick shadows, pulsing imperceptibly,
Now stir, now struggle forth; now their cramped wings unfold,
Tinted with azure, lustred with rose, sheeted with gold!
Oh, memories, how you rise and soar, and hover there!
The eyes close; dizziness, in the moth-darkened air,
Seizes the drunken soul, and thrusts it toward the verge —
Where mistily all human miasmas float and merge —
Of a primeval gulf; and drops it to the ground,
There, where, like Lazarus rising, his grave-clothes half unwound,
And odorous, a cadaver from its sleep has stirred:
An old and rancid love, charming and long-interred.
Thus, when I shall be lost from sight, thus when all men
Forget me, in the dark and dusty corner then
Of that most sinister cupboard where the living pile
The dead — when, an old flask, cracked, sticky, abject, vile,
I lie at length — still, still, sweet pestilence of my heart,
As to what power thou hast, how virulent thou art,
I shall bear witness; safe shall thy dear poison be!
Thou vitriol of the gods I thou death and life of me!
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

Le Flacon Parfum by Yann Vasnier

Top Notes:
Methyl Linoleate (linseed oil) 5
Galbanum Oil (old classic, green, oily) 0.2
Melonal (rancid flower, macerated petals, melon) 0.1
Aldehyde C6 (rancid, green, apple, sharp) 0.5 @10%
Ambrette Seed (burpy orris, oily, fatty) 0.5 @10%
Nutmeg Oil (dusty, spicy, dry) 1.9
Blackcurrant Bud Absolute (feline urine, sulfurous fruity) 0.5 at 10%

Middle Notes:
Rose de Mai Absolute (classic French rose) 5.5
Rhodinol (dusty rose, verbena) 5
Pêche Pure (dusty, fruity, peach kernel, plum) 1
Jasmin de Grasse (classic French jasmine) 5.5
Orris Butter (powdery, waxy, oily, fatty) 1.1
Cedarwood Virginia (dusty, wood shavings) 10.0
Indonesian Patchouli (woody, dusty, camphorous) 8.0
Isobutylquinoleine (dry, woody, leathery) 0.1

Base Notes:
Oakmoss (old, woody, chypre) 2.0
Civet (classic, animalic, fecal) 0.5
Ambergris Infusion (classic, dry, honey, tobacco, hay, animalic) 1.0
Vanilla Infusion (powdery, vanilla, chocolate, caramel) 40.0
Musk Tonkin Infusion (fur, dried blood, dusty dirty cotton) 1.0
Musk Ketone (powdery, soapy) 10.0
Beeswax Absolute (honey, dried fruit, moss, tobacco) 0.6

Article Notes:

Yann Vasnier is a perfumer at Givaudan. In 2007 he was interviewed by the editor regarding his favorite pastry, kouign amann. When asked to describe “Le Flacon” as a pastry, Vasnier said, “It would be a rose and raspberry macaroon I brought back from Paris and kept so well hidden that I found it years later when I moved out of my apartment.” With his cookie escapade behind him, Vasnier has resumed his favorite pastime; reading biography and history books. Leonie Frida’s Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France is one of his favorites.

One cannot read Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) without encountering the sense of smell in its pages. Rife with romanticism, sensuality and debauchery the work is, in Baudelaire’s words “clad in a cold and sinister beauty”. Les Fleurs du Mal can be read in its entirety on https://fleursdumal.org/. The poems are available in the original French and a variety of English translations.

To research the natural materials use in Le Flacon Parfum, visit Bo Jensen’s Guide to Nature’s Fragrances . To research the aroma molecules use Givaudan’s Fragrance List.

On April 24, 2009, this story received a FiFi Award Nomination from the Fragrance Foundation and took third place in the "Editorial Excellence in Fragrance Coverage" category. The award is historical as 2009 was the first year that blogs were included in the "Editorial Excellence"category.