Aroma Class Club · smell better, together
Here we learn to pick out bergamot, to put orris into words, to wear a scent without imposing it. Classes to understand, Circles to talk, and the Feed to share what you smelled today.
About the club Browse the Classes
orla.citrusin Learning to Smell · Belfast ·
QuestionWhen I say something smells clean, what am I smelling? Is it the musk or the citrus?
ingrid_berlin Usually the musk, I think. Clean musk is quiet and close, like a room with good acoustics. I wear it since ten years.
aunty_valin History, Bottles & Houses · Liverpool ·
QuestionI always thought the old scents my mother wore were all flowers, nothing made in a lab. Is that right?
carys.cardiff Not quite. The encyclopedia entry on Jicky says Guerlain released it in 1889, created by Aimé Guerlain, and that it was an early user of synthetic…
amara.oudin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Birmingham ·
Question
At Eid my aunties burn oud chips on charcoal and the whole house holds the smell for days. Someone at uni said the trees are protected now. Is that true?
frankie.incense Fun fact: the FAO note on agarwood trade and CITES says Aquilaria malaccensis, one of the trees oud comes from, was listed in CITES Appendix II in…
maeve.mossin History, Bottles & Houses · Galway ·
Memory
Here's a thing. My granny kept one bottle on her dressing table in Connemara, ribbed glass with a stopper and a label worn down to nothing by her thumb, and she only wore it to Mass and funerals and the odd wedding, and the smell of it was powder and…
cormac.bog Turf smoke in everything, that's my nan's house too. Even the good coat.
kemi.cocoain Giving Fragrance · London ·
Memory
Every December my class gives me little homemade things. The one I kept for years was a jam jar of cinnamon sticks tied with red wool, wrapped by a seven-year-old in half a roll of tape. The whole staffroom smelled of it until spring. It's the only present I…
mags.lavender That's lovely. Children put a lot of thought into a smell without ever saying so.
kemi.cocoain Giving Fragrance · London ·
ChallengeSmall challenge for the season, from a teacher who writes thirty cards a year: in each card, put one smell you share with that person. The bakery on the corner, the cinnamon in her kitchen, the rain on the walk to school. It costs nothing, and it's the line…
Class no. 22 · 7 min read
A perfume label reads in four parts: the ingredient list with "parfum" and the named allergens, the batch code, the symbols about shelf life, and the concentration, which the EU cosmetics regulation puts no number on. You will know what each detail tells you, what it is allowed to leave out, and how labels differ in the EU, the US and Canada.
priya.cardamomin Learning to Smell · Toronto ·
Challenge
Thread of the week: the spice cupboard, smelled blind. Toronto has turned cold and the chai pot hasn't left the stove, so this one felt right. 1) Ask someone to pick five jars without showing you the labels. 2) Lids off, one at a time, a few centimetres from…
dex_in_brooklyn cumin got me. i said sweaty gym bag and my roommate nearly 86'd me from the kitchen. your going to laugh, i cook with it every night
juniper_julesin Florals & Bouquets · Portland ·
TipStudio notes: I brought the potted jasmine in from the porch for winter and it fills the whole studio, but after an hour I can't smell it at all. A minute in the yard and it's back, and it hits harder then the kiln ever does. Wikipedia's page on olfactory…
kit.clovein Home Fragrance & Candles · Oxford ·
Discovery
Started a clove orange for the linen drawer this weekend and my thumbs ache from pushing the cloves in. It smells like the bindery paste pot crossed with Christmas.
shona.whin I went looking. The sweet orange note says the pomander was left to cure and used to keep drawers of linen pleasant-smelling, and the clove note…
beatriz.londonin Wearing Fragrance · London ·
TipSmall tip from my grandmother in Porto: one spray of lemon and lavender on the hairbrush, not on the hair, then brush. The Class on wearing fragrance on skin, clothes and hair says the alcohol can dry your hair if you spray it every day, so the brush is…
pip.rhubarbin Citrus & Fresh · Wakefield ·
Question
First satsumas in the school fruit box today. Can anyone tell a satsuma from a clementine by smell alone? I can't.
thiago.berlin In Brazil we have many kinds of tangerina. For me the smell changes more with how ripe it is than with the name.
mo_from_leicesterin Giving Fragrance · Leicester ·
Memory
Our weddings all smell the same: rose water sprinkled at the door, cardamom in the tea, saffron in the rice, and the aunties' attar. My mum's birthday is next month and I've realised I've been smelling her taste my whole life. She wears rose, always rose. Do…
rafa_azahar Hello friends, it is the same with orange blossom in Seville, you know your mother's taste before you know the word for it. Stay with the rose, I…
Class no. 21 · 6 min read
The scents of Christmas come from a handful of materials, cinnamon, cloves, orange, pine, candle wax and honey, that many people have met every December since childhood; and the memories a smell brings back tend to be early and emotional. By the end of this Class you'll be able to pick them out one by one, say what carries each smell, and explain why they bring memories back.
nell.wattlein Learning to Smell · Melbourne ·
ReadingOkay, nerd moment: I finally read the Wikipedia article on the sense of smell properly. Smell molecules bind to receptors on nerve cells in the lining of the nose, the signal passes through the olfactory bulb, and from there it reaches the parts of the brain…
hana.neroliin Florals & Bouquets · Vancouver ·
Discovery
On my walk there's an osmanthus shrub flowering beside a little tea shop, tiny pale orange flowers you'd never notice, and the whole block smells of ripe apricot. My grandmother in Japan called it kinmokusei and for her it meant autumn. The osmanthus page…
joon.yuzu TL;DR: hunting for one in Seattle this weekend. Apricot plus tea is my whole personality. That's my two cents.
ingrid_berlinin Florals & Bouquets · Berlin ·
Discovery
A piece of orris root from a friend's pot-pourri jar. Not a flower at all: carrot, cold earth, a powder that sits very low, like a bass note you feel more than hear. The orris page says the root dries for years before distillation. I wear orris since two…
theodora.fig We have an old pot-pourri bowl at the shop and the dust at the bottom smells exactly like that. I always blamed the velvet.
imogen.magnoliain Home Fragrance & Candles · Cambridge ·
Snapshot
Long day, hot bath, one magnolia candle on the windowsill and rain on the skylight. That's the whole evening.
jess.in.philly Is a real candle by the bath okay, or should I just go LED?
