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.]

Scented Memories: My Father's Leather Shop

When I was a child I would accompany my father to his leather shop on 236 West 27th Street in the garment district. The world changed the moment you walked into the freight elevator and were greeted with the scent of gear oil and metal. I remember the aroma of the shop which was a combination of leather, rubber cement, tailor's chalk, spools of thread, rolls of acetate lining, coffee, manila pattern paper, pencils, wooden cutting tables, rack and hand carts, metal chairs ornamented with handmade cushions, buttered rolls and bagels, and the warm metal of zealous sewing machines stitching away.

A flock of women from the Caribbean to South America worked there. I remember watching them change from their work clothes into street clothes and admiring how lady-like they were. The changing room was aflutter with slips, skirts, dresses, pantyhose and the staccato of Spanish conversation. The women were like butterflies. When they'd leave the shop you could smell traces of soap, hand cream and eau de cologne from Spain in the changing room. The soap was different from the one we used at home and smelled of citrus, cinnamon, and white flowers.

One of the women who worked in the shop was from Cuba and her name was Dulce. I remember how hard she worked and how beautiful she was. The sound of machines and hands working inside Brand X Fashions never leaves my memory. The video "Soul of a Shirt" captures the spirit of what I remember even though it's modern and related to shirt production (my father made coats, dresses, and suits in leather and suede).  

The building that housed Brand X Fashions now leases space to the Fashion Institute of Technology as a tenant. The 12-story deco sandstone building is across the street from the fragrance lab on 27th Street where I studied perfumery with Virginia Bonofiglio of FIT. On the first day of perfumery class I met Dulce Urquiza of Givaudan. We became fast friends and no matter how much time goes by she always reminds me of the Dulce I knew in my childhood. Both are of Cuban heritage and have an interesting blend of strength and sweetness; just like a perfect café cubano.

Notes:
The aroma of Swedish Dream Sunflower Facial Soap inspired this story; it smells exactly like the soap that sat on the porcelain sink in the women's changing room at Brand X Fashions.

The video that accompanies this post is curated by The Skyscraper Museum of NYC and can be found on their YouTube channel. My experience in the Garment District took place in the early 1970's. Though the video was shot from footage in the 1950's it affords an interesting historical perspective.  

The image of my father's business card is embellished with the wooden portion of a garment rack that was used to walk finished product to a contractor or distributor. I took a few rides in these as a kid and still remember how you could hear the sounds of the city mixed in with the rumbly bumps of the rack's wheels, which swiveled out of sync at short stops and cracks in the sidewalk. I was partially camouflaged by the garments and that made every ride a true adventure.

The picture of a vintage Singer® sewing machine was taken by Jorge Royan and was used with permission. It was remixed with an image my cousin took of the building where my father grew up. The building is in Brzeziny, Poland.

Image of "Leather Bouquet" featuring bolts of leather skins in bright colors taken by Michelle Krell Kydd.

Dulce Urquiza is Senior Creative Fragrance Development Manager at Givaudan and a chemical engineer; she puts the flower in STEM. A future story about her journey as a woman in science is planned. It is a precious story that has never been told before.

The Annette Green Fragrance Foundation Studio at The Fashion Institute of Technology is modeled on professional perfumery labs.

Scent in Film: The Memory Maker

The Memory Maker from Alexander Whitehill on Vimeo.

Alex Whitehill has never met a perfumer, but he's no stranger to the effects of fine fragrance and the power of the sense of smell. His film, The Memory Maker, is a charming animated short that visually articulates what it's like to be taken back in time when one encounters a scent associated with a loved one.

None of the characters in The Memory Maker speak, but their interactions with each other in a variety of settings are universally understood. The Memory Maker encapsulates the truth of smell's powerful connection to memory, but most of all, it is a testament to the power of imagination.

There is much in Whitehill's character of the 'Memory Maker' that reflects the playful nature of perfumers; something not often seen in the media. The character of Joyce, portrayed in two distinct life phases, makes one question established notions of time and what it means to grow old. Glass Petal Smoke caught up with Whitehill to find out what inspired him to make such a delightful film.

1. How long have you been making films? Is this what you do as a creative endeavor or do you do this for a living?

This was my first animated short film that I produced in 2011 during my final year of University at Goldsmiths College, where I studied media and communications. I’ve not made anything since, but do have a couple of ideas in mind that I would love to bring to life. Currently I work planning advertising at a media agency in London.

2. Your film is "Inspired by the mysterious world of olfaction and its fascinating ability to evoke the strongest of memories..." Have you experienced this personally?

One of my favorite smells is of freshly grated lemon zest, which always transports me back to being a child helping my mother make lemon meringue pie for dessert on Sundays. I have always had a strong sense of smell and love reminiscing when I smell certain things by closing my eyes and being taken back to specific periods in my life.

3. "...The Memory Maker depicts a fictional world where this magic can be captured and treasured for later use." This description resonates with perfume lovers and those who are aware of the connection between scent and memory.  Are there colognes that you enjoy which resonate with this statement?  Any moments in your life that you would like to bottle for later use?

I noticed the transporting power of fragrance when I was about sixteen and found a new fragrance, Armani Attitude, that took me right back to a friend’s house I used to visit when I was a child. I could almost hear the music that was playing in the background then.

I buy some fragrances because I associate the smell with a fond memory. Other times I buy new cologne for times in my life that I want to remember, such as holidays abroad, maybe Christmas with the family, or simply times when I feel my life is going well and I’m happy, in the hope that sometime in the future when I smell them again, I will be transported back to that time and feeling.

I once spent an extortionate amount of money on a bottle of Agrumi Amari diSicilia by Bois 1920 before I spent a summer interning in New York. When I smell it now, I am whisked back to hot summer nights in the city, and traveling on the subway, the feeling of confidence and excitement. Ironically, halfway through my three months I was feeling homesick, so I bought a bottle of Dior Homme, my signature fragrance that I had left in England.

4. The way the film transitions from the Joyce's childhood memory to Joyce sitting as an old woman is poignant and quite effective. What led you to editing the film in this manner?

Using a close up of Joyce’s face and zooming out, I wanted it to be a moment of gradual realization for the audience that this was the young girl who they had seen smelling the ‘memory’ in the shop. You may have noticed, before we enter the memory the little girl inhales and closes her eyes, and as we leave, Joyce exhales, open her eyes, and pulls the bottle down to her lap. This was to tie both parts together and inform the audience that the old lady is the young girl.

5. The character of the Memory Maker plays a piano that is a catalyst for combining ingredients that are visual and colorful. How did this evolve as you were making the film?

I was having a hard time trying to think of how to visually portray the making of a memory. I had formulated the idea of a machine that would turn the ingredients into a memory, but I needed to make sure the audience could really feel the process. I added the glass ball as a way of showing the mixing of all the colors of the jars. At this point of the process, I had already asked my then boyfriend to help compose the soundtrack on the piano. I realized how beautiful it would look if playing the piano powered the machine. It added the element of creativity and skill I needed the Memory Maker to have, instead of just pushing a button on a machine, and provided an extra audible signifier for the audience.

6. There is no dialogue in the film which makes all the other senses invoked more powerful. Do you think your film would have been different if the characters spoke versus gestured?

Absolutely. I’ve always found that the power in films with no dialogue lies in the subtlety of character expression and movement. In the scene where the girl is on the train, I spent a long time deliberating over how to portray the feeling of love the girl felt for her father. I have faded memories of only being tall enough to hug my parent’s legs and I think the image of this awakes a feeling we all have of nostalgia for our childhoods. I don’t think I could have captured the magic in this moment using dialogue alone.

7. Have you ever met a perfumer? If not would you like to meet one that worked on a fragrance you like?

I have never met a perfumer, but I would really love to. For a number of years, I considered a career in the field myself (I think after reading Patrick Süskind's Perfume). I would like to meet the makers of some of the classics. From the modern day, I would like to meet the perfumer behind Comme des Garçons 2 and Comme des Garçons MAN. I think they are both so unusual and exciting.

8. Is the character Joyce the same Joyce mentioned in the film credits? If so, can you share her memory of riding on the engine with her father?

The main character Joyce is my Nanna, who throughout my childhood would always recount her memory of riding on the footplate of engines with her father who was a train driver for GWR (Great Western Railways). One day, in her all white Sunday best, instead of going to Sunday school she spent the morning with her father on the trains, arriving home covered in oil and dirt from the engine to a very unimpressed mother. Whenever she tells me this story, her face always lights up. I decided this would be the perfect memory to use in the animation as it had a certain timelessness. In fact, the train in the animation is one my Nanna used to ride with her father, the King George V 6000. I decided to painstakingly recreate the train using photographs and YouTube videos and even some blueprints I found, in order to add another dimension to the film.

9. In real life, where is the train traveling and what regions does it go through?

I didn’t decide on a place where the train was traveling to. However, my Nanna grew up in Leamington Spa, a town in Warwickshire, England, so I suppose it is somewhere around there.

10. Did you learn much about olfaction when you were in school? Do you think it deserves more of a role in curriculum across ages?

I don’t remember being taught anything about olfaction, but it would certainly have been something I'd have been interested in learning about. After all, it is the one sense we know the least about.

11. What are the challenges of illustrating things that can't be seen in the medium of film, like the sense of smell?

The only challenge is to make sure the audience can understand what you are trying to say, the key to which is how the character moves and reacts, their facial expressions, the things we tend to read subconsciously. I made the girl close her eyes when she inhaled, something we all do if we smell something that has a fond memory attached to it. I think this permits our mind's eye to see the memory more clearly. Additionally, I used a range of techniques to evoke the notion of scent; I used a color that I imagined to have a certain scent, a shape of bottle that suggested perfume, and finally the swirling movement to suggest that a scent was released when Joyce squeezed the atomizer.

12. If you could make another film with an olfactory theme, with the benefit of consulting a perfumer for the creative process, what would you like to do?

I would like to understand what goes on in the mind of a perfumer when they smell and mix certain scents together. I imagine there to be some kind of visual effect in their mind's eye, if not a color, then a place, a feeling or emotion.

If this was the case, I imagine creating an animation that follows a perfumer through the creative process. With the first scent we are transported to a brief flashing visual of something, maybe a color, a place, or a face. Like a painter, they gather lots of fragrances together, each with its own feeling or color, to create some kind of scene or landscape that builds together like the pieces of a jigsaw. 

Perhaps we also see them get it wrong a couple of times. We see the visual distorted, perhaps it doesn't make sense. For example, what originally builds to be someone sitting by a beautiful Swiss lake on a hot summer’s day, when the perfumer adds something that doesn’t fit, perhaps there are no leaves on the trees and the lake is frozen. Eventually as they keep mixing and sampling new ingredients, they reach the finished masterpiece which we see in full.

Notes:
Mark Buxton is the perfumer who created Comme des Garçons 2 and Comme des Garçons MAN. Like other talented perfumers who felt constrained by commercial perfumery he decided to go into business for himself. You can visit his website at  Mark Buxton.com. 

 

 

Inside the Olfactory Mind of Temple Grandin

Dr. Temple Grandin is a visual thinker empowered by autism. It's why she's been able to devise solutions for the humane treatment of farm animals while evangelizing an important neuroscientific truth; there are many styles of thinking, all of which deserve consideration. Grandin's insight is particularly evident when she describes the sensory mind of a dog:

 “…An animal is a sensory-based thinker, not verbal -- thinks in pictures, thinks in sounds, thinks in smells. Think about how much information there is there on the local fire hydrant. He knows who's been there, when they were there. Are they friend or foe? Is there anybody he can go mate with? There's a ton of information on that fire hydrant. It's all very detailed information…” TempleGrandin, TED, 2010

So how does a visual thinker like Grandin "see" her sense of smell? Her answers to the Glass Petal Smoke "Sensory Questionnaire" make it very clear.

1.  What does your sense of smell mean to you?
I love my favorite food smells. Since vision is my dominant sense, I see a picture of the food in my mind before I smell it.

2.  What are some of your strongest scent memories?
I remember the pleasant Sunday smells from the fireplace in my grandfather’s living room. 

3.  What are some of your favorite smells (things in nature, cooking &/or your environment)?
New mown hay. Steak on the grill.

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

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

6.  What smells do you most dislike?
Vomit.

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

8.  What mundane smells inspire you?
None. Vision is my dominant sense.

9. What scent never fails to take you back in time and why?
Cooking marshmallows on a campfire.

10.  What scents do you associate with memories of loved ones?
Grilled cheese sandwiches; in elementary school they were my favorite lunch.

11.  What fragrance(s) remind you of growing up?
Aunt Bella’s perfume.

12.  What fragrance(s) remind you of the places you visited on vacation?
Ocean smell. Reminds me of looking for shells at the beach when I was a child.

13.  Describe a piece of sensory literature that is very magical for you.
[Left blank]

Notes:
"Inside the Olfactory Mind" is a series on Glass Petal Smoke designed to make the sense of smell more tangible; to gourmands, perfume lovers and the curious. Smells may be invisible, but the images we associate with aroma immediately come to mind via memory. Feelings follow, and if we are not hindered by negative associations or fear of self expression, we can access words to describe what we sense. This process is specific to olfaction because the sense of smell is primarily a protective sense that becomes pleasurable when danger is not attached to what we are smelling (smoke, fire, rotten food, smell of death, etc.).

Inner vision as it relates to memory is an important part of olfactory perception, but it is often overshadowed by emotion. Vision without the prejudice of personal/social likes and dislikes allows one to sense an object outside preconceived notions. The first step in evaluating an aroma is getting yourself out of the way. "Neuronormals" (those not on the autistic spectrum) who relate strongly to olfaction can learn a lot from Temple Grandin when it comes to valuing their sense of smell and using it assess stimuli objectively; for problem solving or pleasure.

Image Credits:
Image of Dr. Temple Grandin from Colorado State University.

Image of "Steaks on a Grill" from PD Photo. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Photo of "Fireplace" by Ryan Mahle via Creative Commons. 

Image of "Making Hay"  by Bob Trevaskas. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Image of cookies on a cooling rack by Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved.

Image of "Volatile Vinyl from the Center for Health Justice' article on the smell of new plastic.

Image of the Stinky Cheese man from The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Sciezcka and Lane Smith. Great book (and Caldecott Honor award winner).

If you like the eye chart image in this post you can make one by clicking here.

Image of a young girl toasting marshmallows at a campfire by photographer Jill Reger. Rights reserved by the photographer.

Image of Jo Stafford in her dressing room by Bill Gottlieb. Note all the classic perfume bottles. Part of a collection of images from The Library of Congress.

Image of beach in Wellfleet by Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved.

Inside the Olfactory Mind of a Boy Named Julian

I met Julian when I was presenting the second in a series of Smell and Tell workshops at the Ann Arbor District Library in October. He was the only child in a classroom filled with adults, but a child with a mind on fire, especially when it came to olfaction.

Smell is the invisible sense, but Julian's mind is a prism through which the invisible becomes manifest, so olfactory curriculum suits him well (at 11 years of age he is a self proclaimed foodie). Julian has a unique form of color synesthesia and is comfortable with his enriched perspective, something many synesthetes his age are not.

The tween years (11-13) are quite interesting when it comes to the way children relate to their sense of smell. Children ages 8-10 are in the imprinting stage; developing an olfactory palette of memories they will carry with them for life. Tweens are at a stage in life when they begin to self-reflect. They weigh what they are told against what the world presents to their senses. This is evident in Julian's responses, which are highly evolved for a young man his age.

Olfactory curriculum empowers children, allowing them to authenticate and validate their feelings and assessments of an aroma, banishing the inner critic (something we socialize in curriculum focused on getting the best grade or being “right” or “wrong”). This nurtures confidence and imagination; two key ingredients that enrich self expression.
          

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

Scent means life, death and all in-between.  And difference and color. And that’s it. Survival.  Eating. On a scale of 1 to 10: 11.

2.  What are some of your strongest scent memories?

• My mom wore the same perfume for 22 years, especially when I was a baby.  She said it was called “Samsara”. You can’t really buy it any more.* 
• Tomato sauce is home and happiness. 
• I love the smell of oregano.

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

• Chlorine smell at a pool makes me excited and deep green.
• Our upstairs carpet is safety.  Raking leaf smell makes me happy. Autumn.
• Moss smell on a tree makes me peaceful.
• I like the smell of a new pack of fresh trading cards.
• I like the smell of my Papa’s skin. It is like fresh-baked bread.
• I like the smell of my Mom’s lotion. She says it is Velvet Tuberose from Bath & Body Works. I like the one called Twilight Woods that she also puts on too.

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

• I like the smell of a clean diaper the first time it comes out of a package.
• I like the smell of a fresh, unused, clean sponge. Also the smell of laundry detergent.
• I love smelling wood. I love the scent of burnt marshmallows.
• I like the smell of gasoline. I know it’s bad for me.

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

• Fresh, mozzarella cheese.

6.  What smells do you most dislike?

• Flatulence (the polite word for this).
• Rotting food.
• Rubbing alcohol. Clorox wipes.
• Wet bathing-suit smell.
• I hate the smell of raw or cooked fish, but I like the smell of the ocean.
• I hate the smell of Sharpie markers. They are dark purple.

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

• Steamed vegetables like cauliflower.

8.  What mundane smells inspire you?

• Musty basement smell.
• Tree bark.

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

• Baby shampoo smell makes me have bath memory of when I was little.

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

• Laundry soap or fabric softener with Grandma.
• Campfire smoke reminds me of Papa.

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

• Cardboard boxes.

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

• Sand. Ocean-smell.

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

• Eragon because it was so descriptive.

Notes:
Glass Petal Smoke would like to thank Julian's parents for allowing him to take the Sensory Questionnaire and sit in as a student in the Sacred Scents and Aphrodisiacs "Smell and Tell" workshop. 

Children and adults benefit marvelously from multimodal curriculum designed to accommodate different perceptual learning styles. There are seven types of modalities. The learning styles are characterized as: print, aural, haptic, interactive, kinesthetic, olfactory and visual. 

Julian's type of synesthesia is emotionally mediated which is different from grapheme color synesthesia (feeling numbers, letters, and physical things as colors versus seeing numbers/letters as colors). You can learn about it here: Ward, Jamie (2004). Emotionally Mediated Synesthesia, Cognitive Neuropsychology, 2004, 21 (7), 761–772.

A list of famous people with synesthesia can be found on Wikipedia.

I Have Synesthesia: I'm Not a Freak,  I'm a Synesthete is the gathering place for people with synesthesia on Facebook. The link provided works when you log into the site.

Some synesthetes have interesting jobs. Jaime Smith is a sommelier with synesthesia. P.S. He associates color with smell

Samsara by Guerlain has undergone several reformulations due to over-harvesting of Mysore Sandalwood as well as IFRA regulation. Bois de Jasmin elaborates on the vintage and current formulations here. 

If you want to understand the power of the sense of smell read A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman.  

Images:
Reslicitando by Remedios Varo; painter extraordinaire.

The Stargazy pie (the fish head graphic) featured in the photo collage of Julian's not so favorite smells comes from a hilarious book called Yuck: Disgusting Things People Eat. Copyright owner is Neil Setchfield. P.S. Setchfield ate the pie and all the other yucky things he photographed for the book.

Image of steamed cauliflower and potatoes from The Scrumptious Pumpkin. Jen's righteous cauliflower recipes defy cruciferous funk. Rights revert back to the author.

Amazon toy robot, inspired by the company's signature cardboard boxes, is available via their Japanese site.

Video of "Virtual Campfire" by Ace Anderson. Can you imagine what it would feel like if there was Smell-O-Vision?

Photo of a beach in Wellfleet by Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved. 

 

Inside the Olfactory Mind of Serge Lutens

When you ask Serge Lutens a question don't expect an answer that panders or intimates; his lines are clear and sharp, but highly unpredictable. Known for his steady talent as a designer (fragrance, fashion, beauty and a few other domains) he thrives on the subtle trace of chaos latent in a fleeting moment. Lutens creates in the present, detached from influences that tempt many to drop anchor in the past or project wildly into the future. Living in the fulcrum of creation he will happily sacrifice socially accepted notions of balance, even his own preconceived notions, if the end result forges a new way of seeing.

Perfume lovers adore his fragrances because when Serge Lutens makes something he means it. His vision is not predicated on the evaporation rates of base, middle and top notes. Each fragrance he designs (in collaboration with perfumer Christopher Sheldrake) follows an olfactory narrative arc subject to the moment's choosing. For Lutens "Perfume is a form of writing, an ink, a choice made in the first person, the dot on the i, a weapon, a courteous gesture, part of the instant, a consequence." 

When reading Lutens' responses to the Glass Petal Smoke "Sensory Questionnaire" it's evident that this artist doesn't clutch his olfactory passport like a tourist enamored with nostalgia and vogue. Forthrightness, ambiguity and collision are his ports of call, qualities you will find in every bottle of perfume with his name on it.

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

My sense of smell is connected to others. If it were detachable, it would be anomalous. Smell is an important sense because the nose is primarily an evaluator. Originally, it allows one to be on guard, to hate or to love. It is not used to buy perfumes! It permits an evaluation relative to a given sensitivity. It is also interesting to note that from birth to death the olfactory cells are the only cells in the human body to be renewed approximately every 30 days; the only ones to do so!*

2. What are some of your strongest scent memories?

The strongest is primarily related to a situation, not the olfactory memory itself. A smell cannot be isolated from its context, but it’s often the odor that we thought we had forgotten that comes back violently, like a poison or a paradise. Vanilla can be a delight for some and hell for others. For my part, I remember the smell of the earth’s burning breath after rain or recall the warmth of my scarf on winter days when I would bury my nose in it.

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

Whatever instantly affects me. If I'm hungry, it may be the smell of something cooking. Contrarily, after eating, odors of this type disgust me.

                                   

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

I'm not sure. I love the smell of rubber when it's hot, or even that of olive oil, but it can also make me sick. In my home, like in every man’s home, nothing is fixed. If we are fixed, we become stupid!

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

I eat very little. I like cumin as its smell can touch me, that of clean skin slightly warmed by life. For the rest, I am led to a kind of asceticism, the only condition for ultimate creation.

6. What smells do you dislike most?

Those that immediately do not please me. You know, you can hate the best perfume worn by someone you dislike and instead, appreciate ordinary scents on loved ones. This is an ensemble linked to a sensibility, a context, which is judged. The nose alone, without sensibility, remains a nose!

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

I never "learned” to love a smell. However, I allowed myself to be “invaded”; childhood prefers to be lulled rather than to discover. Thereafter, an odor that seemed pungent at first, like civet, musk, castoreum, once settled on the skin, becomes a true paradise!

8. What mundane smells inspire you?

If they do I am not aware of them as they are common and affect me without my knowledge. Water has a smell. Earth and skins also have a smell. It is there! This reassures us as a presence but fails to get through to our conscious, like a child who sees his mother around him. This is unconsciously recorded in us. 

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

All odors, not one particularly! As you know, everything is recorded in us by age seven - the age of reason - once done, we do not discover anything; we rediscover!

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

None. I cannot define the smell of love. It’s variable.

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

I am not a criminal returning permanently to the place of his assassination to smell the blood. As for the stories of grandmothers, jam ... not for me! I still prefer the criminal; it distracts! 

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

I'm never on vacation. I am always doing something with my head or my hands. To answer your question, however, even if you've never been to Morocco or Japan, you will be amazed, because the smell from the origins of the earth has been moved by winds, rivers, bees, etc., you will find them in their original form or another. As you can guess, the scent of tourism is not my thing at all!

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

There are numerous pieces of literature, but they are more about how to convey emotion rather than a simple olfactory evocation. Actually, it is almost in the entire masterpiece that we find a perfume. As we say in French, the scent of a novel, the scent of a film, the scent of a person. What remains! I find this fragrance in the works of all authors that I love: Proust (of course), Baudelaire, Mallarme, Genet, etc. Like incense they are burned into memory! 

Notes:

The perfumes of Serge Lutens are naturally drawn to the landscape of skin, inspiring an addictive derangement of the senses wherever they dress the air. If you have never owned a Serge Lutens fragrance you may want to prime your nose with Féminité du Bois, Ambre Sultan, and Fleurs D'Oranger. Glass Petal Smoke's favorites are always changing. These are currently at the front of the fragrance wardrobe: Vitriol d'Oeilette, A La Nuit, L'Eau Froide, and Un Lys.

*Smell sensory neurons in the nose live for approximately 30 days after which they are replaced by new cells. New cells are generated by adult stem cells located in the olfactory epithelium.

Thanks to perfumer Christophe Laudamiel of DreamAir who assisted with the French to English translation of Msr. Lutens' Sensory Questionnaire.

Image Credits:
Micrograph of human smell receptor by Professor P. Motta, Department of Anatomy, University of La Sapienza, Rome, from the Science Photo Library. Rights revert to owner

Photo of Cumin by Rebecca Siegel via Creative Commons limited license.

Photo of steaming pot on a stove by J. Cliss via Creative Commons license.

Photo of "The Unsubmissive Plant," by Remedios Varo.

Photo of antique pharmacy perfume bottle by Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved. 

Ottoman miniature of doctors instructing a pharmacist from the University of Istanbul.

Micrograph photo of aspirin crystal by Annie Cavanaugh via Wellcome Images. Rights revert back to the owner.

Photograph of woman with lace veiled face from Serge Lutens. 

Photo of text from Edgar Allen Poe's "Mask of the Red Death" on the window of Antoinette's Patisserie in Hastings on Hudson. Created by Clem Paulsen. Rights revert back to the owner.

Photo interpretation of distraction through trees by Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved.

Photo of Atlas Mountains in Morocco by French Self Catering. Licensed under Creative Commons.