I can't think of one day that I don't do anything with the making of fragrances. I don't work every day on a perfume but I'm always busy with smell and fragrances. I read about it, do research for some compounds and every day I put on a diluted fragrance material. I like to get to know all the materials I have.I just received new materials and when I open the box with all these new materials I get all exited! I start to dilute all these materials and put it on my wrist and on smelling strips. When I smell these materials it all happens in my head, I start to imagine how some materials would combine with it. I write it all down in my "fragrance materials bible" I write down what kind of smell it has, what it reminds me of, what kind of emotion it gives me, what are nice combinations etc. I ask my self questions like is it a green smell or is it flowery, woody, musky or spicy.
Sometimes I recognize a fragrance but I can't recall it and it takes a couple of days before I get that Aha moment and found out what the smell does remind me of. Last time I had it with the material Butyl Quinoline Secondary, the smell of it remind me of something I couldn't put my finger on. It smells like soil but it smelled like something more specific and one day I've got it.....it smells like red beets. You know how fresh red beets can smell like soil? I envy Luca Turin that he can smell a material and recognize it in a split second.....
4 comments:
I am always amazed by that sort of knowledge period, whether it is instant OR delayed recognition.
I tend to prefer when folks share their everyday scent associations anyhow, it somehow means more and is more personalized when someone says, "red beets." I don't know... I guess I happen to enjoy comparisions like yours here that reveal both the character of an aroma, but also reveal a little about the idiosyncratic nature of verbalizing smell in general sometimes. But boy oh boy do I wish I could simply sniff at a strip and go, "Oh that's the aroma chemical XYZ!"
Hi Katie, Well I wish I had more of an instant recognition but it seems that my recognition of scents or often delayed somehow. It's a pitty though that I sometimes have a problem with verbalizing the scent as well aspecialy in another language. I envy my brother sometimes, sometimes when he smells something it bring him back to his childhood or another event in a second, to me that happens sporadic.
Jenny, I know what you mean about that 'aha'or eureka moment..I recently tried Prada for Women (the first version) for the first time. A couple of days later I put on the same wool sweater and I could smell this lovely trace of something in it. I kept on sniffing at it all day, thinking what *is* this stuff? I knew Prada had patchouli, yet I was thinking "this is sort of patchouli, but it's a different too...a special kind maybe?..." It was not anything I had smeeld beforwe but i found it really compelling, could not stop sniffing and sniffing at it...Cut to a few weeks later...some samples arrived, I opned one of the bottles- instantly I thoguht "WOW! *That's the smell I had on my sweater that was driving me crazy that day... can you guess what it was?
CASHMERAN!
Yes the smell of Cashmeran is a bit like patchouli. I like Cashmeran a lot, and use it often together with patchouli. How did you find out it was Cashmeran, did you ever smell it on it's own?
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