“Scent can do what all art does:  change the way we perceive the world.”

I jotted down this thought-provoking quote on Sunday while enjoying “The Art of Scent” exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design, which I managed to view before it closed.  I highly recommend reading about this innovative exhibit.  Scent is a topic that I find fascinating and would like to learn more about, but until Sunday, I didn’t think of scent as art.  I do now.   I’m grateful to The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, a blog I’ve been reading for at least 6 years now, and one of my favorites, for alerting me to this exhibit.  Gretchen and I share a lot in common:  we’re both NYC mothers living uptown and trained attorneys who love to write.  She also shares my mini-obsession of taking notes on things that interest me, even if there is no apparent purpose.  Gretchen is likewise fascinated by the subject of scent and has done some reading and research on the subject.  I’ve been wondering if and hoping that she’s writing a book about scent.

Image via artinfo.

“The Art of Scent” showcased 12 revolutionary scents in the history of fragrance from the years 1889-2012.  Each perfume was displayed in a pod.  A visitor could place his/her face into a pod, after which a puff of the designated perfume rose to meet the visitor’s nose.  It was a novel and fun way to interact with art on display.  At the end of the exhibit, there were testing papers for sampling each of the perfumes in their liquid form.  A display of the step by step process of making the perfume Tresor enlightened me on how a perfume is created.   Like creating a painting, a perfumer begins to work with a canvas of sorts, his/her base, and  he/she builds on it from there.  The historical development of perfume also parallels the historical development of traditional art; early art was typically inspired by nature and many of the earlier perfumes also relied upon scents from nature.  As the modern art movement catapulted art beyond the natural and into the abstract realm, the creation of perfume too moved beyond use of natural ingredients to a reliance on synthetic ones.  The exhibit introduced me to some new scents that I hope to experience again:  Prada Amber, Jicky, Angel, Light Blue, Osmanthe Yunnan, and Tresor.  My more informed understanding of the creation of a perfume and my own personal reflections on the quote I shared above, caused me leave the exhibit with a greater appreciation for perfume as art.   I do believe that scent can change the way we perceive the world.

Like other works of art, scent is a topic that most people have strong opinions about.  A certain scent can transport one to another time and place.  I think that we often tie scent with self-identity and the memory of important people and places in our lives.

Image via Sephora.

My mother has been wearing the same perfume since I was born, and long before that, Guerlain’s Shalimar, perhaps the most loved fragrance by The House of Guerlain.  Shalimar, or “Temple of love” in Sanskrit, was inspired by the legendary love story between Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal, for whom he built the Taj Mahal.  Shalimar was named after Mumtaz’s favorite garden.

Shalimar is perhaps the most incredible scent I’ve ever encountered, and I don’t just say that because my mother wears it.  My mother has searched for a new perfume, something more “with it,” as she explains, and she has come close to purchasing somewhat similar perfumes such as Viktor & Rolf’s Flowerbomb, but she hasn’t.  I’m not disappointed.  Shalimar is the smell of my beloved mother.  I can’t imagine her wearing anything else.  And I can’t imagine wearing her scent, either.  It belongs to her.

Despite my refusal to wear the same perfume as my mother, I’ve always been drawn to perfumes similar to Shalimar.  Shalimar’s maker, Guerlain, is one of the oldest perfume houses in the world.  Guerlain created cologne for Napoleon III and his wife Empress Eugenie, as well as other European royalty.  A perfume created for Empress Eugenie, Eau de Cologne Imperiale, is still in regular production today.  My mother and I enjoyed visiting Guerlain on the Champs-Élysées on our trip to Paris a few months ago.

I particularly enjoyed the beautiful displays of large perfume bottles:

I recommend a visit to Guerlain’s website:  the virtual experience comes as close as possible to the actual one:  the display counter for exploring fragrances online is the exact image of the display counter at Guerlain on the Champs-Élysées!

So far, the best perfumes I’ve encountered have been made by Guerlain.  My opinion is at least partially attributable to my love for vanilla, an ingredient that many of Guerlain’s perfumes contain.

My scent history includes experience wearing Love’s Baby Soft in high school then Calvin Klein Obsession from high school through law school.  I still enjoy the smell of Obsession, which imparts a bit of spice and warmth.  I keep a couple of bottles of Obsession on my dresser, but I don’t feel that I identify with the scent as much anymore.  Sometime right after law school, I discovered Profumi di Firenze “Zenzero” at C.O. Bigelow, another vanilla concoction which my boyfriend at the time thought smelled like “cotton candy.”  I didn’t mind that.  Next I wore Jo Malone Vanilla & Anise for awhile.  I find it to be a simpler, yet clean fragrance.

In 2010, while viewing the Otto Dix exhibit at the Neue Gallerie, I was enchanted by the scent that filled one of the exhibit rooms.  I learned that it was Guerlain’s L’Heure Bleu.  I love the meaning behind the scent.  In French, L’Heure Bleu means the period of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness.  It also can refer to Paris immediately prior to World War I, a time of relative innocence.  The perfume was created by Guerlain in 1912.  When I smelled the perfume, I knew that it wasn’t like anything I’d smelled before, and yet, I could grasp the nostalgia, almost melancholy, in it, and the mystery.  I felt like I’d found something special.  A couple of days after I gave birth to Baby Boy, my mother gifted me with a bottle.

Image via Sephora.

Some months after the birth of Baby Boy, while browsing perfumes at a department store with my mother, I discovered a new Guerlain perfume, “My Insolence.”  I find “My Insolence” to be an odd name for a perfume, but this scent has been my standby for the past couple of years.  It too has notes of vanilla, but the vanilla is complemented by other notes such as raspberry.

More recently, with the information available on Sephora and other websites, I have become interested in the descriptions of the notes in perfumes, which sound remarkably similar to descriptions of wines.  My Insolence, for instance, is partially described by Sephora as, ” Like its irreverent predecessor, Insolence, as a starting point, honors a fruit which Guerlain has never before revealed in this light: a deliciously rounded raspberry note, full of freshness. This gently gives way to the natural richness of almond blossom and the sensual, feminine charm of jasmine, which are at the heart of the fragrance. Finally, the scent curls up with a sigh of pleasure in a delicious cocoon of patchouli, vanilla, and tonka bean.”

Despite all of the descriptions of perfumes online, there is still no substitute for experiencing a fragrance in person.

Do you have a signature scent?  How have your olfactory preferences evolved?  Are there any particular scents that evoke strong memories for you?  Do you/would you wear the perfume of someone close to you?  Do you enjoy reading descriptions of perfumes like I do?