Dogs of Smell & Tell: An Interview with Stella the Terrier

The many moods of Stella the terrier as she sniffs
a variety of fragrance blotters on March 4, 2020.

Stella isn't a typical Smell & Tell fan. She walks on all fours, has a superior sense of smell, and is quite curious when encountering novel scents. Stella has an interesting habit. She likes to smell fragrance blotters her owner brings home from Smell & Tell. Her reactions vary, but they’re always colorful. 

Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by our dog interpreter. One of our readers wants to know how you manage bad smells?

It depends. What smells unpleasant to a human nose tells a slightly different story to a dog nose. Going on a smelling jag in the park is like reading a good book. You don't want to stop until you've figured out a smell, and all the smells underneath that smell, so you know the whole story. Somewhere along the way you come across something unusual or threatening, like the smell of fear. Then you have to figure out where it came from, and if you should stay, run away, or stand your ground and bark your face off.

       Stella relates to the conundrum in "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by the Clash

Have you ever followed a scent trail straight into trouble?

Following a scent trail doesn't work if you latch onto a skunk. Young dogs learn this early on, others get a case of amnesia the second time around and walk straight into skunk spray, whining and crying like an amnesiac when it's happened before. A single skunking was enough for me. Getting cleaned up afterwards isn't glamorous. The combination of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and Dawn dish detergent makes me smell like a demented lemon. Some of the skunk odor lingers, which doesn’t go over well with my friends.

Are there smells that you find overwhelming?

Things that make me feel like I can't breathe really get to me. The acrid odor of vinegar humans use to make pickles, the smell of bleach when someone in the house is in cleaning zealot mode, things like that. I loathe smoke. Smoke from a fireplace can be tough on my lungs. You won't find me close enough to get my fur in a singe, that's for sure. It's bad enough that I smell wood smoke on my fur the next day. Smelling like a piece of bacon isn’t the same as eating bacon. It's confusing.

Do you have a favorite smell?

That depends. I really enjoy smells when I have a chance to investigate them in the yard. I like playing by myself because I can chase a squirrel up a tree without interference from other dogs, and smell whatever I like. Walking on a leash can be fun as far as sniffing things, but it's subject to human whims like stopping and chatting with neighbors, or being forced to meet other people's dogs. 

To answer your question, I love the smell of being with other dogs in the dog park. You get to smell your friends, which is a combination of their unique dog smell, and smells from where they've been and who they've been with. On the whole, it's the smell of kin. Why humans don't smell each other more often is beyond me. They should take up reading books about Dr. Richard Feynman and his nose-forward ways. 

Stella the Jack Parsons terrier as a pup. She'll be 13 
on March 23, 2024. Image courtesy of Kirsten Segal.

Why do you like sniffing fragrance blotters from Smell & Tell programs at AADL?

It's like smelling a human version of a dog park crossed with a forest, a garden, the elements, a scent lab, and a chef's kitchen with a hint of je ne sais quoi. Smelling fragrance blotters from Smell & Tell is like smelling a world inside a world to infinity. I sniffed something interesting from the Brian Eno Smells program in 2020. I was captivated by a strange tuberose perfume called Nardo by Madini, and kept sniffing to figure it out. 

Then it happened. I saw my reflection in a window and didn’t recognize myself. I barked at the stranger in the glass, and was compelled to roll on the perfume blotter and pursue it. It took a few minutes before I snapped out of it. I adore and fear the smell of Nardo perfume because of this. I have a confession to make. Sometimes, when I want to understand a smell better, I lick the perfume blotter or smell through my mouth while baring my teeth. I can’t tell you why, but it works for me. I am a dog after all.

Notes & Curiosities:

Is there a logical explanation for Stella's reaction to Nardo perfume? An educated guess says that the presence of indole molecules may have something to do with it. Indole is present in mammalian feces. Its fecal-like qualities are noticeable at higher concentrations. Interestingly, indole smells like flowers at .01% (200ppm), and shapeshifts into fecal, mothball and horse-like odor qualities at .01%-1%. George S. Clark described this binary as "a Dr. Jekyll and Hyde nature" in Perfumer & Flavorist magazine. Indole signals insectivory and attracts pollinators, which is why it's vital to chemical communication in plants like jasmine and tuberose.

 "Indole presents a dual organoleptic profile, or, to state it another way, a Dr. Jekyll and Hyde nature.” Ah, mais oui. Serge Gainsbourg relates to the Jekyll-Hyde duality.

Nardo by Madini is no longer distributed in the U.S. by Talisman in Seattle, Washington. Fear not, perfume lovers. Madini perfume hasn't disappeared. Parfumerie Madini is located at 5, bd. Pasteur Tangier, Tangier-Tétouan-Al Hoceima Morocco. “The perfumery is owned by Sidi Madini and is a family business that has been passed down through his family for more than 500 years," according to a listing in Fodor's Travel. 

Stink, Stank, Smellmatize (Eau Ferula)!

Wheel of aromatic ferula resins or secret stink device?

Teaching people how to evaluate the smell of an unknown material on a perfume blotter requires trust and a sense of adventure. This is true for novices and experienced attendees at Smell & Tell in Ann Arbor, which was highly evident at a recent AI-themed program.

The sense of apprehension that’s experienced before blind smelling an odorant is a reminder of the underlying purpose of smell, which is to protect us from danger (and encourage behaviors that lead to survival like eating, and sniffing out desirable qualities in a mate).

Hemulen, a character in Tove Jansson's Moomins series, gave up stamp collecting for botany. You can smell his tabula rasa mindset. 

Blind smelling requires a tabula rasa mindset, so you can sense the character of a thing. It's not about whether you love or hate a smell. The smell exists irrespective of your opinion of it. Your job, in real life and at Smell & Tell, is to interpret what your brain is interpreting through your nose. 

The tendency to seek visual proof for non-visual sense objects gets in the way of being fully present for an experience. Smells that are polarizing are challenging to evaluate, but it's important to give smells a chance because what you notice at first sniff changes as it evaporates—and some smells transform in fascinating ways.

Once in a while, I throw a polarizing nose surprise into a Smell & Tell lecture that pushes a contextually relevant button. It’s not done for the sake of theater (a mixed chorus of "icks" and expletives that are the inevitable result of encountering something less than pleasant). 

"Green Wheat Fields, Auvers" by Vincent Van Gogh

When attendees experience a shapeshifting smell from start to finish, they're more than surprised; they're elated. This reaches beyond the fact that the fragrance blotter no longer smells unpleasant. It's proof that patience is worth the time it takes to understand the essence of a thing—because you might learn something new. 

Case in point. A two-year old asafoetida tincture was smelled at Smell & Tell: AI, Machine Learning & Smells last month. The material, which was the sixth and final material in the scent flight, had a nose wrinkling reputation with a twist. Attendees were in for a surprise after class.

The smell in Asafoetida that reminds humans of sulfur, garlic, and onions changes over time. This particular tincture possessed more than the balsamic vanilla drydown noted by Steffen Arctander. It smelled sweet, citrusy, floral-rosy, musky, powdery, orris-like, and citrusy (lemon).

This, dear reader, explains the wheel of ferula resins that accompanies this post. They are part of a tincturing project that informs a future Smell & Tell lecture on the ferula family of scents. I was inspired by an email I received from author Alex Kourvo who attended last month's event. The subject line read “What is this magic?” and continued with:

Smell and Tell was sooooo fun on Wednesday! All the smells were interesting and as always, I felt like my brain grew two sizes. I was amazed that the blotter that had asafoetida on it smelled so much better the second day! I almost threw it away instead of taking it home because it smelled so awful at first. But on day two, it was almost like a perfume. And on day three, it's still pleasant. How. How. How?

Alex's question is an important one that resonates with comments from other attendees who've attended Smell & Tell at the Ann Arbor District Library since it’s inception in 2012. Humans generally don't expect something beautiful from something that smells unpleasant, but it's possible. That's an experience worth holding onto.

Notes:

Asafoetida was used at Smell & Tell to make a point about avoiding cow pies regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI), human olfaction and neurology. The term “AI" is frequently substituted for "machine learning" by startups on the AI bandwagon. Don't believe the hype. 

Smelling tinctured resins comprises half of the method I use to evaluate scents (the way I was trained a la perfumery). I use a thermostatically controlled incense heater to experience smells that resins release into the air over time as this enjoins perfumery's predecessors; medicine and incense. 

Image of Die Wachauer Nase By Schurdl (CC). The sculpture, one of a series of nose sculptures in Austria, was organized by the Gelitin art collective.

Smell & Tell Event | AI, Machine Learning and Smells!

Spock smells "the spores" and sees the future.

Smell & Tell | AI, Machine Learning and Smells! 

Date: Wednesday, September 20, 2023 

Time: 5:30PM-7:30PM 

Location: Ann Arbor District Library (Downtown) 

Address: 343 S 5th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 

Phone: 734-327-4200

You really need to think like a Vulcan when it comes to prognostication and AI. The future is unknown and as such is subject to fantasy, ideology and cow pies. This is especially true of the intersection of smell, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. 

Machines that analyze smells aren't new. The pairing of Gas Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) was demonstrated in 1955-56 by Dow scientists in Midland, Michigan. The technology, which is used to analyze individual components of complex mixtures in analytical chemistry labs, continues to evolve. 

We'll explore eclectic smell terrain and collectively follow our nose to get a better understanding of how humans evaluate smells against the capacity of machines that analyze complex mixtures and their components. 

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 on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. 

Notes:

Nose-forward reading for this Smell & Tell program:

More than meets the AI: The possibilities and limits of machine learning in olfaction by Ann Sophie Barwich and Elizabeth A. Lloyd (2022)

Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry via Dow, Inc. and the American Chemical Society.

Smell & Tell Event | Inside the Olfactory Mind of Steffen Arctander

Mark your calendars! Steffen Arctander is
the focus of an upcoming Smell & Tell 
at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Inside the Olfactory Mind of Steffen Arctander 

Date: Wednesday, October 18, 2023 

Time: 5:30PM -7:30PM 

Location: Ann Arbor District Library (Downtown) 

Address: 343 S 5th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 

Phone: 734-327-4200

Steffen Arctander was a renowned chemist, perfumer and flavorist. He is best known for authoring Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin (1960). The encyclopedic book contains more than 500 monographs on natural materials inclusive of aromatic descriptions and classifications to help the user evaluate sensory impressions. 

Arctander’s legacy reaches beyond the pages of his book. He participated in the Danish Resistance when he was a student and worked for British Intelligence during WWII, narrowly escaping capture by the Gestapo. Steffen Arctander appeared on To Tell The Truth in 1964, a gutsy and taboo move for someone in a famously secretive industry.  

The fragrance flight for this program includes novel natural materials. We’ll use Arctander’s descriptors for guidance after blind smelling each one to get a better understanding of ourselves, and Arctander’s enduring legacy as the author of a magnificent “dictionary of smells”. 

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 on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. 

Notes:

Locating the footage from To Tell The Truth featuring Steffen Arctander was complicated by the fact that his name is misspelled in the YouTube video as "Contestant #3: Stefan Octander (Perfume expert)". Google search started directing traffic to Arctander's television appearance after I posted a story about it on February 17, 2021.  The transcription on YouTube was worth correcting for posterity. I provided a proper transcription in the article. 

The image that accompanies this post is Spring Garden by Omoda Seiju (1917).

The Time for Nose-on Learning is Now

Imagine starting a class by saying "If you have a compromised sense of smell as a result of COVID-19 there's hope. The smelling exercises taught at Smell & Tell are related to olfactory calisthenics used to recover the sense of smell." 

Talking about smell loss isn't off limits if smelling exercises are integral to your presentation. It's a teachable moment even if no one in the virtual classroom has or had anosmia. It's one of many takeaways I experienced using Zoom for Smell & Tell in the first half of 2021.

The time for nose-on learning is now in spite of the pandemic. Curious? Listen in as I talk about how smell enhances experiential education, cultural awareness, and my favorite scentscapes in Ann Arbor, Michigan (some of which will make you very hungry). 

Note:

You can read the editorial that accompanies the Listen in Michigan podcast here. Special thanks to editor Deborah Holdship at the University of Michigan for nose-on news coverage at Michigan Today. 

The Incense Project and Lessons from Peruvian Myrrh

Abundancia by Gerasimo Sosa Alache from Chulucanas,
Piura Region, in Peru. Image by David Stanley on Flickr.

I started The Incense Project during the March 2020 pandemic lockdown. Cataloging aromas of plant resins and related incense materials was something I'd always wanted to do, but the idea was quashed by work and everyday responsibilities. In the silence of the lockdown The Incense Project took on the quality of a seed specimen trapped inside a glassine envelope, yearning for air, soil, light and water. It spoke in the silence, when I could listen without distraction and respond without weighing how much time I could spare against meaningless "to do" lists. 

Transforming the silence of isolation into creative gestation requires intention when the world around you is falling apart. In retrospect the need to survive in a climate of fear, shock and immitigable grief (a climate that makes wearing perfume seem frivolous) was malleable. The pandemic made me take stock of my professional sensory evaluation training. Incense was and remains the mother of perfume. I needed to see what was in front of my nose and reevaluate what I was taught in the past while experiencing the emotional dislocation of the pandemic. I was neither teacher nor student. I crossed the threshold and approached The Incense Project as an autodidact with a tabula rasa mindset. 

The Aymara people of the Andes highlands have an interesting perspective when it comes to physical orientation of the past and the future. They see the past positioned in front of them and the future behind them. The framework for the Aymara concept of time revolves around the fact that the past is known because it was experienced, and you can't know something that hasn't occurred, which makes the future moot in the absence of prophecy and magic. The Aymara point of view is similar to the "present moment" consciousness of Buddhism, which is easier for Westerners to integrate versus a reverse concept of time based on physical orientation.

Vinicunca Rainbow Mountain, Cordillera de Vilcononta, Cusco, Peru.
Image by Federico Scarionati via Unsplash.

I considered the Aymara way of looking at time and wondered how it influenced personal and collective nostalgia in their culture. If the past is physically in front of the Aymara do they long to return to the past as Westerners do, or is the past better integrated in a well-rooted present? Contemplating this reminded me to avoid attachment to “good old days” thinking with respect to exploring incense resins infused with a rich past that includes elements of medicine, myth, magic, and religion. I used my nose to evaluate incense ingredients the same way I evaluate flavors and fragrances, which is the same way humans have smelled for centuries. I purchased materials from fair trade vendors with short supply chains out of respect for cultures that own these incense traditions. 

I couldn't transport myself into the locus of the past, but I could release the habit of smelling plant materials in solution on a perfume blotter for the first half of the The Incense Project, and interact with plant materials in their natural state that were ethically grown and harvested. Plant resins from Africa, Asia, India, the Middle East, as well as Central and South America, arrived by post every six weeks. I listened to plants tell their aromas stories on an incense heater and conducted research on their organoleptic properties after experiencing materials on their own and in simple combinations. 

Hymenea Coubaril resin from Mexico before and after use on
an incense heater. Burning incense on charcoal removes this
sensory aspect from the experience of incense appreciation.
Image © Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved.

Incense resins smell better when you use temperature control versus burning them in a censor using charcoal. Combustion destroys delicate aromas and creates burnt odors, which interfere with appreciating a resin's character. This doesn't mean that everything you smell on an incense heater will be pleasant. That's dependent on the chemistry of the resin when it's heated. If you study Sumatra Benzoin (Styrax benzoin) on an incense heater you learn that it melts quickly and goes through a short acrid phase before releasing a warm, sweet, penetrating balsamic, vanilla-like odor. This is not true for Siam Benzoin (Styrax tonkinensis), which also melts quickly, but retains a sweeter balsamic character and possesses more vanillic tenacity than Sumatra Benzoin (Styrax benzoin). This quality is noticeable in the spent resin, something you wouldn't know if you burned Siam Benzoin (Styrax tonkinensis) on charcoal.

Consumers are familiar with commercially traded incense resins, which omits incense resins deemed less appealing and profitable. Commodification of incense materials used in perfumes and burned as incense changes the way we relate to incense bearing plants and the people who work the land where these plants grow. Ingredient stories are re-written by marketers, sublimating and negating native scent cultures, in addition to replacing fact with myth, fetish and taboo in the name of commerce. This is ironic, but not surprising when one considers the fact that colonialist patterns of co-opting cultures and resources in the name of "luxury" has been going on for centuries. How far back in time can we go to find genuine incense resin stories related to use and origin? The answer is as far back as scholarship across disciplines can take us along a chain of ancestral incense resin use.

If one delves into incense materials related to personal ancestry the idea of shared generational olfactory experience melts the fabric of time. This is especially poignant if your ancestors experienced conflict, persecution and oppression. Smelling incense is a lived experience that connects you to people in your family you've never met and some you'll never know by name. This is Proust's madeleine at an inhalable DNA level and it's why people from cultures with ancestral connections to incense materials are needed to pursue scholarship on the subject of incense. Add the fact that some of these plants can and will disappear and you have a compelling reason for generating knowledge via research.

Styrax weberbaueri resin aka Peruvian Myrrh
Image © Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved.

                  Research is rooted in asking questions and relentlessly pursuing answers even if some of the questions don't yield any answers. Answers result in more questions and that's what makes inquiry interesting and addictive. Take Styrax weberbaueri and its commodified name; Peruvian Myrrh. Styrax weberbaueri is the same genus as Styrax benzoin and Styrax tonkinensis, but it's not a type of myrrh. You wouldn't know it from commodified language used on various online incense shops, which causes confusion. True myrrh is categorized in the Commiphora genus. So how did Peruvian Myrrh get its name? 

Fragrant gifts of frankincense and myrrh were given to the Christ child and are widely known by name. Perhaps Styrax weberbaueri is called Peruvian Myrrh because the name myrrh implies pre-Christian and post-Christian ritual use (the belief systems commingle in Peruvian culture, a quality described as syncretic). How do Peruvians use Styrax weberbaueri? Are there pictures of the plant and resin harvesting available? I haven't found answers to either question, but it doesn't mean the answers don't exist. Peruvian Myrrh (Styrax weberbaueri) hasn't been thoroughly researched and documented as a source of incense resin. 

Peruvian Myrrh is a type of styrax so if you've familiar with Styrax benzoin and Styrax tonkinensis anticipating vanilla aromas with a twist is a way to set expectations for what Styrax weberbaueri smells like on an incense heater. Or is it?  Warming resin on an incense heater allows you to smell your way through aroma development, much like ethanol supports the evaporation of top, middle and base notes on a perfume blotter over time. Top notes are fleeting, middle notes have a characteristic linger, and base notes persist over time. 

Engler, H.G.A. Pflantzenreich (1900-1968), Pflanzener.

It's possible to anticipate what Styrax weberbaueri smells like using all of our senses, which reflects a way of scientifically interacting with plants promoted by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe refers to this as utilizing "exact sensorial imagination." The color of Styrax weberbaueri resin nuggets varies, which indicates the potential for differences in smell (darker resins may have more or less intensity of odor than lighter ones). Some pieces of Peruvian Myrrh are a pale yellow while others are golden yellow, orange yellow and sand muted beige. The appearance of the resin's surface area varies and seems brittle where tiny open pockets once containing air appear. Peruvian Myrrh (Styrax weberbaueri) exhibits a variety of hues, which is also true of Commiphora myrrha from Somalia, and looks like myrrh when it becomes a toasty amber color on an incense heater.

Styrax weberbaueri resin feels light in the hand. Past experience with heating Styrax benzoin and Styrax tonkinensis resins suggested utilizing a setting of 180 degrees, which proved optimal. Peruvian Myrrh resin isn't prone to melting like its two relatives, so turning pieces over from time to time and moving them to different locations on the incense heater plate supported aroma development and balanced heat distribution. A pair of incense tongs that resemble elongated tweezers is used for this task, which resembles meditative cooking in miniature. 

Kouign-Amann by Stijn Nieuwendijk-CC-Via Flickr

Peruvian Myrrh is full of surprises as it's heated. A creamy milky coconut character (described as "lactonic" in the parlance of perfumers and flavorists) arrives after a fleeting fusty eau-de-souk aroma fades, and is followed by gourmand notes of vanilla, cinnamon and toasted coconut. If Proust were alive Peruvian Myrrh would be his incense resin of choice. The smell of it would bring him back from the dead and we'd have an eighth volume of In Search of Lost Time in our hands.

The cakey aroma of Peruvian Myrrh is transporting, especially when you split a heated resin nugget between your fingers and smell it (the Lilliputian pieces deliver a measure of scent that defies their size). Fresh brioche mingles with the scent of Kouign-amann, the beloved Breton pastry redolent of French butter and caramelized sugar. Styrax weberbaueri deserves to be as widely known and appreciated as it's botanical cousins in genus. It's a delicious mouthwatering shapeshifter. Just don't confuse it with true myrrh or eat it.

Notes & Curiosities:

Spent Boswellia rivae, a species of Frankincense. 
Image © Michelle Krell Kydd. All rights reserved.

I've evaluated over half a periodic table's worth of plant materials used in incense and perfumery (66 ingredients) since I began The Incense Project. The results inform three Smell & Tell classes I'm teaching at the University of Michigan this spring: Scenting Abrahamic Masculinities, Scriptural Scents and Rite Smells. The classes deliver multisensory experiences in virtual classroom environments.

Peruvian Myrrh (Styrax weberbaueri) used in The Incense Project was purchased from Apothecary's Garden shop on Etsy. It is native to Piura, Peru, which supports a vibrant arts community. Apothecary's Garden website is an informative resource on incense that’s worth exploring. Proprietor Dan Riegler is a respected, knowledgeable and ethical purveyor of incense materials and alchemistic maker of artisan products derived from them.

Styrax weberbaueri aka Peruvian Myrrh is named after Augusto Weberbauer (1871-1948) a German naturalist, botanist and university professor who explored Peru in search of new plant species. 

Siam Benzoin (Styrax tonkinensis) is native to Southeast Asia via Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand). It shares organoleptic qualities with Sumatra Benzoin (Styrax benzoin), which is native to East Asia via Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. If you are interested in developing a vocabulary for smells to describe raw materials used in incense and perfumery you should learn more about Steffen Arctander and his book, Perfume Materials of Natural Origin. It's a dictionary of smells.

If you want to know more about using an incense heater watch Incense Dragon's YouTube video.

The word perfume is derived from per fumus in Latin, which means "through smoke". The etymology harkens back to perfumery's origins as incense. 

French publisher Gallimard has announced a new book of unseen work by Marcel Proust, Les Soixante-quinze feuillets (The Seventy-Five Pages). There's no news regarding if and when it will be published in English.

Native Americans in the United States and Indigenous peoples in Canada have compelling scent cultures inclusive of incense. Where do their stories live and what can these stories tell us about their ancestral scent traditions before colonialism? This is a subject of inquiry that deserves more attention. 

Smell and Tell: Brian Eno Smells

A journalist was interviewing musician/producer Brian Eno in candlelit room when the artist opened a faded lime-colored metal briefcase filled with “an array of phials” containing raw materials used in perfumery. The year was 1982 and the article was titled “An Evening with Brian Eno”. This was the first interview where the subject of scent became the main topic of discussion—it wasn’t the last.

Brian Eno is a full-on smellaholic who continues to collect raw ingredients used in perfumery for private enjoyment and inspiration. What is it about the art of perfumery that continues to fascinate the renowned founder of ambient music? How does Eno’s passion for smells shape his creative output? (Hint: if you download his Bloom app on iTunes you’ll find a breadcrumb trail of synesthetic clues).

What are Brian Eno’s favorite smells and why do they have the impact that they do? Recode your concept of creativity. Get inside Brian Eno’s olfactory mind and find out what happens when normal instruments are abandoned and disconnected events are smelled in circuit.

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 and the perfume arts on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. The unique and popular series celebrates its eighth anniversary year in June at the Ann Arbor District Library and is ongoing.

Smell & Tell: Brian Eno Smells
Date: Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Time: 6:30-8:45PM
Location: The Ann Arbor District Library, Pittsfield Branch
Address: 2359 Oak Valley Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
Phone: 734-327-4200
Admission is free and is sponsored by AADL
Link to Event: https://aadl.org/node/398023

Notes:
Recommended reading for insight into a collaboration between Brian Eno and Maurice Roucel that's curious and mysterious: Brian Eno, Maurice Roucel and the Perfume of Unfinished Business.

Brian Eno Smells debuted at the Ann Arbor District Library in 2018. Attendees and new fans of Smell & Tell at the library wanted an encore. Et voila. There's a new smell added to the scent flight; a perfume that a woman Eno encountered declared as aphrodisiac. Eno associates it with biblical Nard (Spikenard), but it's something completely different. You'll have to attend the program to smell Nardo and find out what it really is (I have it and production is officially discontinued).

Lesson? Don't rely on aphrodisiac lore when you get a sample of of Nardo perfume from a woman in Ibiza: "...a woman I met in Ibiza gave me a minute bottle containing just one drop of an utterly heavenly material called Nardo (I later came to think that this was probably spikenard oil, extracted from a shrub growing at between six and eight thousand feet on the Himalayas and used by wealthy Indian ladies as a prelude to lovemaking)." Tsk-tsk, Brian.

Smell & Tell: Sacred Scents Across Abrahamic Traditions

The ritual use of incense and perfumes is linked across Abrahamic traditions. You can literally smell it. Sacred scents occupy the space between liminality and the numinous, which is why describing a smell is challenging. Is it possible to break through this cloud of unknowing? The answer is yes and it requires an understanding of science, self and a sensorial leap of faith.

We can’t see smells. Even when we “see” the source of an aroma the lived experience of smelling is guided by emotion and memory. Western sensory hierarchy values vision over other senses so “seeing” gets in the way of understanding the essence of a thing. The antidote to this cultural bias is engaging “inner vision” and conquering implicit bias related to smell and culture.

Discover the olfactory tapestry of relational unity that weaves its way through Judaism, Christianity and Islam via sacred scents. Attendees will learn how to transcend the abstract nature of scent into articulated lived experience via Smell Mapping, a sensory evaluation technique inspired by professional perfumery training.

The scent flight for this program includes: Tibetan Deer Musk tinctured in vintage Mysore Sandalwood, Myrrh (Somalia), Frankincense (Oman), Laudate Chrism (United States), Greek Orthodox Jasmine Incense, Spikenard (Nepal), Bakhoor (Saudi Arabia), and Besamim (Judaic Spice Blend).

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 and the perfume arts on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. The unique and popular series celebrates its seventh anniversary year at the Ann Arbor District Library and is ongoing.

Smell & Tell: Sacred Scents Across Abrahamic Traditions
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2020
Time: 6:30-8:45PM
Location: The Ann Arbor District Library, Downtown Branch
Address: 343 South 5th Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Phone: 734-327-4200
Admission is free and is sponsored by AADL
Link to Event: https://aadl.org/node/398022

Notes:

The Sacred Scents Smell & Tell debuted at the University of Michigan on November 7, 2019. The inclusion of olfaction in an educational setting was a "first" for some students and faculty in attendance, which led to lively discussions during and after the program.

Sacred Scents raised awareness of the value of the sense of smell in relationship to anthropology, diversity, history and religion. It was designed to support Remapping Peoples of the Book: Theorizing Abrahamic Vernaculars, an Mcube at the University of Michigan.

Mcubed is housed in the University of Michigan Office of Research, as part of the president and provost’s Third Century Initiative. It is a seed funding program that stimulates and supports innovative research.

Smell & Tell: Helen Keller’s Smelling Session with Perfumer Michel Pasquier

Helen Keller participated in a smelling session with a perfumer in the fall of 1950. The event was described in an article titled “The World Through Three Senses” that Keller wrote for the March 1951 edition of Ladies’ Home Journal. The name of the perfumer was conspicuously absent, which was odd considering the postwar boom in women’s perfumes and the fact that Keller was an avid gardener who adored flowers.

It turns out that Helen Keller didn’t leave the perfumer’s name out of the article— the editor did. Michelle Krell Kydd discovered this after the American Foundation for the Blind launched the first fully accessible digital archive of The Helen Keller Collection in June 2019. The draft of “The World Through Three Senses” wasn’t hidden behind a paywall; it was hidden in plain sight. The perfumer’s name was Michel Pasquier.

Msr. Pasquier was an independent perfumer who compounded fragrances in his lab at 7 West 46th Street in New York City. Keller joined a small group of women in Westport, Connecticut who met with the perfumer and evaluated eight unidentified perfumes, each inspired by a single flower. The women used Pasquier’s “whiff sachets” during the exercise, and tried to guess the name of flower that inspired each perfume.

We’ll recreate the smelling session experienced by Helen Keller using single floral notes supplied by International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF). We’ll also smell Pasquier’s Tobruk perfume (1952) and see a vintage Pasquier gift set that includes the whiff sachets that Helen Keller referenced in “The World Through Three Senses”. Join us for several historic “firsts” at this Smell & Tell.

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 and the perfume arts on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. The unique and popular series celebrates its seventh anniversary year at the Ann Arbor District Library and is ongoing.

Smell & Tell: Helen Keller's Smelling Session with Perfumer Michel Pasquier
Date: Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Time: 6:30-8:45PM
Location: The Ann Arbor District Library, Pittsfield Branch
Address: 2359 Oak Valley Drive, Ann Arbor, M 48103
Phone: 734-327-4200
Admission is free and is sponsored by AADL
Link to Event: https://aadl.org/node/397484

Note:
Helen Keller communicated the value of the sense of smell throughout her lifetime. This is thoughtfully developed in an essay titled “Smell, The Fallen Angel”, which appears in the sixth chapter of her book, The World I Live In (1904). Keller felt that smell was a noble sense “neglected and disparaged” in ocularcentric culture. It still is.

Smell & Tell: The Smell of Mummies

The Smell of Mummies takes place at the Ann Arbor District Library
on Thursday, November 14, 2019, from 6:30-8:45PM. 

Several ingredients used in the ancient Egyptian ritual of mummification can also be found in today's luxury perfumes. Sound gruesome? Take heart. This isn’t fodder for conspiracy theories, but it’s definitely inspiration for the inevitable question. If aromatic materials used in perfumery were also used to send mummies into the afterlife what on earth do mummies smell like?

Are you imagining the smells of a dead body in the process of mummification when considering this question? Stop those thoughts immediately and put on your Sherlock Holmes hat! We’re in it for the science at Smell & Tell so Michelle Krell Kydd went to the Kelsey Museum of Archeology at the University of Michigan to smell mummies. Sounds strange, alluring and slightly macabre, but when the “Nose of Ann Arbor” needs answers she literally sniffs them out.

Kydd took her fearless nose to the basement of the Kelsey Museum and was escorted to a temperature-controlled room where she encountered a mummified a falcon, a mummified dog (that was really a fake mummy made from jumbled children’s bones), and a human mummy. At the end of her quest she was overheard telling a Kelsey Museum staff member, “Damn the mummy powder drinkers and the Victorians with their lust for the aromatic dead.”

When the Ann Arbor District Library asked Kydd about the smell of mummies she had this to say, “Mummies don’t smell like decomposition, but they don’t smell like Chanel N°5 either.” We’ll smell beautiful natural extracts used in mummification that are also used in modern luxury perfumes at this Smell & Tell program. Simulacra of Mummy a perfume inspired by the smell of mummies at the Kelsey Museum, will also be experienced.

The scent flight for The Smell of Mummies includes: N° 1: Lotus of Nefertem, N° 2: Hatshepsut at Punt, N° 3: Mut’s Kyphi, N° 4: Egyptian Jasmine, N° 5: The Embalmer’s Jar, N° 6: Simulacra of Mummy, N° 7: Victorian Sham, and N° 8: Allamistakeo’s Cigar. If you don't know who Allamistakeo is and consider yourself an Edgar Allan Poe fan, visit the Poe Museum website and learn about Some Words with a Mummy. Warning: What you learn may alter romantic notions of Victorian culture, should you harbor them.

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 and the perfume arts on Glass Petal Smoke. Smell & Tell builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. The Smell and Tell series celebrates it's seventh anniversary year at the Ann Arbor District Library and is ongoing.

Notes:
Smell & Tell events are listed on the right hand page of Glass Petal Smoke and removed after an event takes place. Complete information for specific public programs, like The Smell of Mummies, will be posted in the blog for reference over time.

The body of work for Smell & Tell programming, which began in 2012, reaches the 100th program mark at the University of Michigan with the introduction of Sacred Scents, an exploration of religiously significant scents from Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the three Abrahamic traditions. The event, which is designed for University of Michigan Students, debuts on November 7, 2019.

Smell & Tell: The Smell of Mummies
Date: Thursday, November 14, 2019
Time: 6:30-8:45PM (early arrival recommended)
Location: Ann Arbor District Library (Downtown Branch)
Address: 343 South Fifth Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
Phone: 734-327-4200
Admission: Free as Smell & Tell is sponsored by AADL
Link to Event: https://aadl.org/node/397485

Olfactory Curiosities: Equine Musk from a Horse Named James Bond

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living that moment all over again. —Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

James Bond's debonair horse musk has been macerating for a little over six months. The musk tincture was made using pieces of an aromatic callous-type growth called equine horse chestnut that grooms remove by gently rubbing them off a horse's leg. The shape and positioning of equine horse chestnuts are unique to each horse. Their origin and purpose is still a mystery, though some speculate that they're vestigial scent glands or toes.

Equine musk isn't found among animalic essences in a perfumer's training kit. There are several musks (all synthetic), castoreum, civet, civetone (synthetic civet), and ambergris-type molecules, but nothing associated with the smell of horses that's derived from horses. This is rather odd, considering that perfumery was born in the Middle East in 1200 BCE and research suggests that horses were domesticated 9000 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula.

James Bond, the horse with the debonaire musk.
Image by Michelle Krell Kydd.

Horse musk derived from equine horse chestnut was explored by a group of curious natural perfumers, and documented by Lisa Abdul-Quddus in a post for Le Parfumeur Rebelle (February 21, 2011):

It happens often, yet I still get amazed at how simple actions can spark inspiration and discoveries. Take, for example, a conversation back in January 2009 between Natural Perfumer Justine Crane and one of her Antiquarian Perfumery students, Paulha Whitaker. Paulha started a discussion about a subject totally different from where that discussion ended. Basically, she casually mentioned the smell of [equine] horse chestnuts and very briefly described what they were. Justine suggested she tincture them and voila The Natures Nexus Academy of Perfumery Arts students had begun a journey in horse smells. Paulha generously supplied the students with [equine] horse chestnuts and there began the experimentation.

Lisa Abdul-Quddus attends Smell & Tell programs at the Ann Arbor District Library and shared her equine horse chestnut story during a 2015 presentation I gave called Musk: The Essence of Seduction. A few weeks later she shared a sample of her tincture with me. I still remember the first time I smelled it. It was sublime, powdery, musky and evocative of softer tones found in Tonquin deer musk.

James Bond, retired racehorse extraordinaire, enjoying the good
 life in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Image by Michelle Krell Kydd.

I visited a retired racehorse named James Bond in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Rebecca Bizonet, a librarian and archivist, who is friends with the horse's owner. We obtained equine horse chestnut for tincturing, which Bizonet used to shape Madam Plague Doctor perfume for The Plague Doctor's Cabinet of Olfactory Curiosities. She's attended Smell & Tell events since 2012 and is an avid natural perfume hobbyist.

Equine horse chestnut from James Bond. The pocket knife was used to
break up pieces after they were removed by hand. Instruments aren't
needed to remove stubborn chestnuts, but are helpful in separating the
layers after they're removed. Image by Michelle Krell Kydd.

I obtained rear and front samples of equine horse chestnut, and front and rear samples of another type of keratin-containing growth called an ergot (unrelated to alkaloid producing ergot fungus found on rye and related plants). Rebecca and I also visited an Icelandic horse named Zoltan, whose owner loved the idea of tincturing the smell of a horse, a scent she described as spiritual and comforting.

An equine horse chestnut on the inside of James Bond's front right leg,
seen to the left of his shadow. Image by Michelle Krell Kydd.

The goal of the equine musk experiment was to find out if the there was a difference between the smell of rear and front equine horse chestnuts. This is what I discovered after making tinctures with a 1:5 ratio of animal material to 190 proof alcohol, and evaluating them after six months of maceration:

• Rear horse chestnut tincture from James Bond smells of sweet hay, flinty musk, powder, sun-warmed blankets and horsehair. A facet in the drydown smells like pages from an old book. 
• Front horse chestnut tincture from James Bond starts off boozy and fruity, carrying the same tonal qualities as the rear horse chestnut. Drydown is more assertive and vaguely salty—it smells like the horse is in the room with you when you close your eyes and smell the fragrance blotter. 
• Front and back equine ergots from James Bond were combined to create the proper ratio of aroma material to alcohol (there were less ergots to work with). Equine ergot tincture is milder than equine horse chestnut tincture. It has a faint trace of white floralcy (methyl dihydrojasmonate) when the fragrance blotter starts to dry.
• Front and rear equine horse chestnuts were collected from Zoltan, an Icelandic horse known for long hair on its mane and tail. Samples were collected when the outside temperature was 90 degrees, and Zoltan was a bit sweaty compared to James Bond, who has less hair. 
• The front equine horse chestnut tincture from Zoltan smells funky and barn-like when initially smelled a perfume blotter. The funk disappears when the alcohol evaporates. The resulting aroma is sweet, musky, powdery and redolent of dry straw and horsehair. Something akin to Tonquin deer musk is also present (confirmation by GC-Mass Spectrometry needed) with nuances of honey and vanillic urine.
• The rear equine horse chestnut from Zoltan smells the same as the sample taken from the front. Similarity in odor may have something to do with the fact that Icelander's have more hair and produce more sweat on a hot day, which affects their overall scent, including that of equine horse chestnut.

Jame Bond's dark brown coat shines under a warm September sun
revealing topline musculature. Image by Michelle Krell Kydd.

Equestrians have strong bonds with their animals that are meaningful, emotional and highly sensory. Sara Stenson of Art of Equine Massage and Bodywork has this to say about the scent of a horse:

The scent of a horse is holy to an equestrian, a spiritual mantra, and a koan for living. We can go for a few days without that bouquet in our noses but that is pushing our limits. When things get rough we hightail it for the paddocks to replenish our fragrance of horse. It is a warm smell, somewhat of a musty smell like hay in the spring, it is a sweet smell, more radiant than a rose. Bury your face in a horse's neck and the whole of that horse enters into your blood stream to permeate your whole body until all the nerve fibers vibrate in its essence. It is a natural sedative and no perfume made comes close to what horse musk awakens inside the human. It stirs the sense of tranquility, that somehow no matter what is wrong the aroma of a horse will make the world seem fresh again. It is a whiff of contentment, a sigh, a breath, a whisper, a kiss of wind that floats you into their soul, down the portal of their eyes to see the truth written there. The world is once again at peace.                                                                           

—Sara Stenson, "Scent of a Horse" (May 22, 2015)

Research on the aromatic properties of equine horse chestnut tincture can shape new molecules for use in perfumery. The first step would be a GC-Mass Spec analysis of tinctures to isolate specific molecules responsible for dominant olfactory characteristics of equine horse chestnut.

These molecules should possess performance characteristics of animalic base notes used in perfumery (see notes section). We need this kind of creativity and innovation in fine fragrance, especially where animalic materials are considered as horses aren't harmed when their chestnuts are removed as it's part of their regular grooming routine.

Notes:
Experience Equine Musk on March 27, 2019
I'll be sampling equine horse chestnut tincture from James Bond at Haute Skank: An Olfactory Menagerie of Animalics in Perfumery on Wednesday, March 27, 2019 at the Ann Arbor District Library. I've been asked to develop a Smell & Tell program about my equine musk experiment and am giving it serious consideration. Smell & Tell events at AADL are free to the public and take place monthly.

Horse chestnuts that grow on trees.

Horse Chestnuts and Equine Horse Chestnuts are Different
Equine horse chestnuts are unrelated to horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum) that grow on trees, which are toxic to horses as they contain esculin, a coumarin glucoside. The scent of horse chestnut flowers is beautiful and deserves further exploration in perfumery. Horse chestnut tincture has a barn-like aroma (lower volume funk when compared to monofloral chestnut honey). The term "equine horse chestnut" refers to the aromatic growth on a horse's leg versus the plant material.

Function of Animalics in Perfumery
Animalic notes reduce volatility and bouquet ingredients in a fragrance formula. They also and add a touch of sexiness to perfumes, evoking intimate human aromas that remind us of the fine line that occupies the space between intimacy and animal archetypes.

Animalics Can Be Polarizing
Yuanxiao Xu, a copyright specialist at the University of Michigan Library, invited me to speak at a lunch and learn on copywriting smells and tastes on October 11, 2018. (Xu attended Follow Your Nose in the Great Outdoors, an autumn scent hike, in September 2018). I blind sampled six-week-old equine horse chestnut tincture from Zoltan with attendees (it was allowed to dry on perfume blotters and enclosed in glassine paper the day before the event).

A majority of attendees described Zoltan's musk as floral, powdery/chalky, musky, sweet, sweaty, like a wet screen door, and almond-like. One attendee found it fusty and metallic. She revealed that she was sensitive to smells, which makes sense when one considers that scent evaluation is subjective. It's not easy to migrate to an evaluative point of view when you're distracted by what you like or dislike, which is what I focus on when teaching others how to evaluate aromas at Smell & Tell events.

Blind Evaluation of Zoltan's Musk at Westland Library
Equine horse chestnut tincture from Zoltan was used at the September 26, 2018 Nose-talgia Smell & Tell. The tincture was 13 days old (a mature tincture requires three to six months).  The best evaluations came from two elderly women who appeared to be in their seventies. Each was spry and confident, one more outgoing than the other (the mild mannered woman later asked why her dog "Suzie" liked to spend a lot of time smelling her when she entered the house after an excursion).

The two women offered the following descriptors before being told that they were smelling equine horse chestnut tincture on perfume blotters: powdery, sweet, musky, soft, floral/fungal (Suzie's owner) and "smells like outside". The tincture was young and would shape shift in a few weeks, but the descriptors were likely to remain. The "smells like outside" element comes from hay, earth and other natural materials in the horse's environment. The rest is, more than likely, the smell of the horse.

Why Animalics are Attached to Myth
Interest in animalic ingredients as medicinal or aphrodisiac is commonly attached to myth. If an ingredient smelled to high heaven (the excreta-like scent of civet), had a history of use in attack or defense (external or within an animal's body, e.g. ejected as ambergris), or was associated with a rutting beast (deer musk), it was purported to have powers that enhanced fertility/virility, defied death, and/or kept one invigorated when taken as a tonic. Some of these myths continue to be held as beliefs today.

James Bond and Perfume
Sir Roger Moore's favorite perfume was in keeping with suave characters he played in film and television (Simon Templar, James Bond, etc.). Moore's favorite fragrance was Jicky by Guerlain (1889), a perfume that changed fragrance history with its abstract structure and the inclusion of synthetics. It was also a favorite of Sean Connery. Moore gets perfume props because he was a member of the Fabergé Inc. board and a debonair Bond.

Transcending the Boundaries of Live Television with Scent

Talking about scent on live television is a challenge that has nothing to do with the absence of Smell-O-Vision. Sight dominates the Western hierarchy of the senses, which is odd considering that shutting your eyes doesn't make you blind for life, but shutting off your nose could leave you quite dead.

So how does one scaffold a smelling experience on live television that doesn't make viewers feel awkward when listening to conversations about smell? After being interviewed on Live in the D, I think I have the answer. Talk about how to buy perfume and deliberately punk Western sensory hierarchy with smells that are novel, nostalgic and free of taboo.

Perfume is a tangible product with a rich history that evokes memory, emotion and conversation. Flavor (the intersection of smell and taste) also triggers emotion and memory, but it lacks the taboo that's implied by the word "smell". When we say something "smells" it can mean one of two things; the object has a smell or it stinks. Vision lacks this nuance of reek.

Funk & Wagnalls Standard Handbook of Synonyms, 
Antonyms & Prepositions, by James C. Fernald (1947)

I shared tips on how to buy perfume on Live in the D, a lifestyle show broadcast on WDIV Local 4, an NBC-affiliate in Detroit, Michigan. The program, which took place on December 12, 2018, took an interesting turn at the 3:45 minute mark.

All About Ann Arbor community news producer Meredith Bruckner was transported by the smell of incense cedar pencil shavings. Live in the D host Tati Amari cross-sensed the smell of incense cedar pencil shavings with the sound of a pencil sharpener. It happened in nine seconds.

The transporting sensorial moment was a natural extension of authentic conversation captured on live television. This proves that context and curiosity can set the stage for talking about smell without awkwardness or Emperor's New Clothes hyperbole.

Tati Amari, Meredith Bruckner, & Michelle Krell Kydd
on the set of Live in the D

Smell is a subjective sense, but sharing sensory impressions and stories makes subjective experiences universal. That's the hallmark of Smell & Tell programming, which builds community through interactions with flavor, fragrance and storytelling. It's also the essence of this television interview, which didn't need Smell-O-Vision.

Notes:

Thanks go out to Meredith Bruckner, who interviewed me for All About Ann Arbor in June; Tati Amare who said yes to the "How to Buy Perfume" pitch; anchor Jason Colthorp who made me laugh in the green room and let me smell his signature Banana Republic cologne; and the camera crew at Live in the D (especially the gentleman who rocked a spicy eau de cologne scent).

Smell & Tell: The Storytelling Secrets of Optimus Yarnspinner takes place on Wednesday, December 19, 2018 at the downtown branch of the Ann Arbor District Library, from 6:30-8:45pm. The event is inspired by the Zamonia series of books by Walter Moers. It will mark the 80th Smell & Tell presentation I've given to date. Admission is free. P.S. There will be incense cedar pencils and everyone will be smellmatized.

A review of Smell & Tell written by arwulf arwulf appears in the December 2018 edition of the Ann Arbor Observer. I can now add "olfactory humanitarian" to a list of endearing nicknames that include: high priestess of smells, olfactress, nose of Ann Arbor, scientualist, walking smellopedia, etc.

Tati Amare articulated an interesting experience when she wore a perfume that smelled great on her mother and aunt, but evoked the smell of a "barn animal" when she wore it (1:45 minutes into the program). Ms. Amare's perfume may have included a highly indolic Jasmine. Two types of Jasmine are commonly used in perfume; Jasminum grandiflorum and Jasminum sambac. Grandiflorum is a clean, lush and expansive Jasmine. Sambac has a hint of the barnyard in the bouquet due to the presence of indole molecules, which smell fecal and horsey.