hamish_heatherin Florals & Bouquets · Edinburgh ·
ChallengeAye, a wee game for a dreich weekend. I describe a flower in three words, you guess, and whoever gets it posts the next one. Folk who come into the shop play this with whisky and never loose interest. Mine: custard, rubber, sunshine.
dex_in_brooklyn custard and rubber is a weird combo but you're describing ylang-ylang, I'd bet my knives on it
priya.cardamomin Giving Fragrance · Toronto ·
TipWith Thanksgiving coming up here, my gift list starts now. Before anyone heads to a counter, I ask myself three questions: 1) Do they already wear a scent, and which family is it in? 2) What do they light, cook or grow? 3) Do they want fragrance at all, or…
mel_from_adelaide Question three is the one I always skip, and it's the one Mademoiselle Bulle's gift guide for women takes seriously: it explains why perfume is a…
rafa_azaharin Everyday Smells · London ·
Scent diaryHello friends, after my night shift I take the Tube home and I always notice the smell when the doors open. Warm dust, hot brakes, a little like a coin in the hand. At eight in the morning the coffee is the smell of everybody, but at my hour it is only the…
kemi.cocoa Central line in the morning: coffee, wet umbrellas and somebody's bacon roll. Every single day.
harriet.hayin Citrus & Fresh · Bristol ·
Scent diary
We've started studding oranges with cloves for the Christmas display at the garden centre, a bit early, I know. By mid-morning the potting shed smelled of sweet orange peel and warm spice, and my thumbs had gone brown. The page on sweet orange and the…
mags.lavender My nan did these every year and hung them in the wardrobe. Lovely smell, a lot of sore thumbs.
dex_in_brooklynin Learning to Smell · New York ·
Memory
ok so first week on the line the pastry cook made me split a real vanilla pod and smell it next to a bottle of imitation vanilla from the baking aisle. the pod was boozy and smoky, the bottle was just sweet. your never the same after
nell.wattle The Wikipedia page on vanillin says it's the main flavour compound of vanilla, and that most synthetic vanillin today is made from guaiacol, a…
mags.lavenderin Giving Fragrance · Norwich ·
ReadingMorning all, I finally sat down with the club's Class on choosing a fragrance gift and a cuppa while the rain came down. Two things stuck. Keep the bottle sealed and keep the receipt, because a broken seal can stop you returning it. And look at what someone…
kemi.cocoa The dressing table tip is the one I'll use. My mum's is a little museum.
Class no. 20 · 7 min read
You become a perfumer through specialist training, at ISIPCA in Versailles, the Grasse Institute of Perfumery or after a science degree, then years of smelling raw materials every day. You'll come away knowing who does what around a fragrance, what the schools actually test for, and what the word 'nose' really covers.
frankie.incensein Seasons & Celebrations · Chicago ·
ReadingFun fact: Rachel Herz's review of odor-evoked memory reports that memories cued by a smell are rated more emotional than memories cued by words, images or sounds, and that they tend to date from the first decade of life. As a choir director I take that…
rafa_azahar Hello friends, anise takes me furthest, my grandmother's pestiños. I am six years old again. Un abrazo.
mags.lavenderin Home Fragrance & Candles · Norwich ·
Scent diary
Morning all, my granddaughter came for the weekend and we had a go at pouring candles into old jam jars. Melted plain wax smells of next to nothing, a bit like warm crayons, then the lavender candle scent went in and the whole kitchen changed in a second.…
juniper_jules Wax is a lot like glaze, it smells of nothing until the heat wakes it up. I'm rooting for the leaning one.
lupe.pinonin Welcome to the Club · Santa Fe ·
Introduction
I drive the school bus in Santa Fe, and any evening now the first piñon fires start and the whole town smells sweet and smoky. Nothing beats it for me. I'm trying to learn resins and woods, slowly.
frankie.incense Fun fact: oud, the dark resin-soaked wood, forms in Aquilaria trees after a fungal infection, says Wikipedia's entry on agarwood . [Piñon is…
hana.neroliin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Vancouver ·
Question
My grandmother kept her incense in a small sandalwood box. I opened it this weekend for the first time in years and it smells soft, almost like warm milk, not like any wood I know. Is that what sandalwood is supposed to smell like?
nell.wattle Okay, nerd moment: 'milky' is actually how the sandalwood page puts it, soft, warm and creamy. Over here we have a different species, Santalum…
dario.bergamotin Citrus & Fresh · London ·
Memory
Back home near Reggio Calabria the bergamots are still green on the trees. My grandfather picked through the winter and his hands smelled of the peel for days, sweet and a little like flowers. The oil is squeezed out of the rind, by machine since the 1840s…
rafa_azahar Bergamot has bitter orange in its family, like the trees on my street. Keep the knife.
ollie.grapefruitin Seasons & Celebrations · Manchester ·
QuestionWork do is a Christmas jumper party this year and I've just pulled mine down from the loft. It smells of damp cardboard and mothballs. Any way to shift that before the party without washing it to bits? And does scent go on before or after the jumper?
mags.lavender A day on the line in cold air, then a lavender bag in the drawer. Wool forgives alot.
Class no. 19 · 8 min read
According to research, a smell brings back a memory because the olfactory bulb connects directly to the brain areas that handle emotion and memory, and because childhood smells are laid down through happy moments repeated many times. By the end you'll be able to tell the solid findings from the folklore, and to test the effect on yourself with things from your kitchen.
rafa_azaharin Florals & Bouquets · London ·
Memory
Hello friends, grey sky over London today and I am thinking of Seville in spring. When the orange trees in the streets open, the whole city smells sweet and bitter together, stronger at night. We call it azahar. My mother writes that the trees are full of…
dario.bergamot Same for me with bergamot in Reggio. The trees there get heavy with fruit in autumn and my grandfather starts to talk about the harvest every evening.
nell.wattlein Wearing Fragrance · Melbourne ·
Snapshot
Okay, nerd moment: while you lot are getting the scarves out, we're going the other way. The wattle has actually finished, the jasmine on the back fence is starting and the arvo sun has real warmth in it. My winter woody scent suddenly feels like a wool…
ash.and.emberin Woods, Mosses & Roots · Calgary ·
Discovery
Smelled labdanum for the first time at a friend's place. Thick, dark, sweet, a bit like a leather glove left too close to the woodstove. Nothing like the smoke I know from calls.
ambrose_leather A good hide gone too warm by the stove. I would of known that smell anywhere.
mel_from_adelaidein Learning to Smell · Adelaide ·
Snapshot
Jasmine's out on the back fence at work. Strong at dusk, almost nothing at midday.