Barre with Justine

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach…Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.” – Diane Ackerman

How do you feel about perfume? Are you someone who can’t leave the house without spritzing a little scent on neck? Do you love a certain perfume because it reminds you of someone you loved very much? Or perhaps you avoid perfume because it’s too strong, too emotional or just irritates your skin/eyes/nose?

Many years ago, I worked as a seasonal fragrance demo at The Bay in Niagara Falls and – believe me – I saw the full range of responses to perfume. The only downside to the job (which paid exceptionally well for a university part-time job) was the rejection of people who either sprinted past me, waved me away, or took a sniff and said ‘ugh, I don’t like that at all!’. There were others though who love to try new scents or who sought me out specifically to buy perfume I was representing (Neiges by Lise Watier and Lancôme fragrances too)

If you have read any of my previous posts, you will know how much I adore perfume. I can trace my life through perfume…Tribe in junior high, Shalimar in high school (I know…weird scent choice but it was in a book I’d read), Romance, O Oui & 2000 et une rose in university, and today Aerin Lauder’s Rose de Grasse pour filles and many, many perfumes from Lvnea. (read more about my love for Lvnea here!)

As in Diane Ackerman’s poetic post above, perfumes can bring memories bubbling up from deep inside of us. One sniff of Romance takes me back to the mailboxes at Bishop’s University, opening the birthday package from my mom that held the bottle of perfume. I try to infuse little bits of fragrance into the lives of my children too, knowing that one day that scent will bring back happy memories. I will often put a few drops of rose-infused oil on Annabel’s cheeks in the evening and have used Saje “aroma fairy” on their wrists before bed on evenings when they don’t seem like they will ever settle down. Celia is into fragrance now and every time I smell Sol de Janeiro sprays, I think of her (even though I don’t LOVE The scents!)

What’s interesting about scent is that if I were asked to describe any of the perfumes above, I would find it very difficult! Diane Ackerman writes, “Our sense of smell can be extraordinarily precise, yet it’s almost impossible to describe how something smells to someone who hasn’t smelled it.” (A Natural History of the Senses 6). Imagine describing the scent of your child’s hair or the smell of your grandmother’s house….but I can vividly smell these things in my own mind! Sometimes I will walk into a room and be immediately transported back to the tiny entryway of my Nana’s house in Wales.

In the post-COVID world, scents can almost be a shock to the system. We spent so many months scrubbing hands, avoiding getting too close to others and protecting our noses with masks. Many workplaces are scent-free and it seems rare to be standing so close to someone to be able to detect a beautiful perfume. At the same time, the market for perfume has been growing since the pandemic (based, according to this article, on the desire to ‘escape’).

Some interesting facts about perfume:

• Perfume: the story of a murderer by Patrick Suskind is one of the most brilliant novels I’ve ever read. You will never think about the sense of smell in the same way again!
• 10 greatest fragrances of all time, as voted by beauty industry insiders (Women’s Wear Daily)
• you can train your sense of smell – just like consistent training builds muscle, focusing on your sense of smell will make it stronger. The Smell Gym offers courses to help in this!
• scent & memory are inextricably linked due to the fact that the olfactory bulb connects directly with the parts of the brain for emotion and memory.
• this is a fascinating NYT article about how historians are trying to preserve and/or recreate scents from the past….battlefields, a locker room celebration or a farming village.

I’m not an expert on perfumes but I do know just how much artistry, education and experience go into creating fragrance. I have learned a lot about fragrance from following perfumer Christophe Laudamiel on Instagram; he goes deeply into the process, the ingredients and the politics of fragrance. I’ve also learned so much from following Lvnea’s beautiful IG account, as it documents the ingredients and the processes of the perfumes they create in gorgeous photos and captions.

Very helpful books!

Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses (1990) is an exploration of each human sense, filled with interesting facts, poetic descriptions of scents and tastes, and interviews with experts in the field. She opens with the sense of smell, covering roses, violets, sweat and everything in between. She interviews perfumer Sophia Grojsman in a fascinating deep dive into the emotions that go into creating and falling in love with a fragrance. Highly recommend this book!

The Perfume Companion by Sarah McCartney and Sam Scriven is a catalogue of 500 perfumes, divided into scent categories (citrus, floral, soliflores (single flower), soft amber, herbal, woods, musk, mossy, leather, oud, gourmand, fruity, marine) to help you choose and understand various perfumes. I love that the perfumer is named for each selection and that they include a robust history and Q&A about perfume in the Introduction.

Scent: a Natural History of Fragrance by Elise Vernon Pearlstine is a more academic read on the various components of fragrance (from musk to roses) and the history of perfume. The author, a wildlife biologist turned natural perfumer, identifies the trends of fragrance throughout history, and explains the complexities of drawing fragrance from plants. Writing about the desire for more clean and natural ingredients she notes that “…demand for natural products is such that there simply are not, for example, enough vanilla pods in the world to support all the ice cream and gourmand fragrances we demand.” (224)

If you love perfume as much as I do, I encourage you to dive deep into the brands you choose. Christophe Laudamiel argues persuasively for the artistry and expertise of the perfumer behind fragrances, writing “Ask where your dollars go. They shouldn’t be going to fashion designers but perfumers, farmers, and chemists. Buy from brands that have a perfumer in-house. ”

You can also support independent perfume companies like Lvnea (based in Montreal) that take the time and care to describe the process and the ingredients, telling a story with every blend. One of the reasons I love my Lvnea perfumes so much is the attention to detail, the complexity and uniqueness of the fragrances and the compliments I get when I wear them 🩷

At the end of the day, we live in a sea of fragrance whether we add perfumes or not. We rely on our sense of smell for so many things that it’s important to consider the role of scent in our lives.

Ackerman Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. 1st Vintage books ed. Vintage Books 1991.

McCartney Sarah and Sam Scriven. The Perfume Companion : The Definitive Guide to Choosing Your Next Scent. Frances Lincoln an Imprint of the Quarto Group 2021.

Pearlstine, Elise Vernon. Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022.