Madeleine, a Smell Camera: Capture the Scents you Want with High Technology

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have had the smell of your beloved's hair captured into more than a curl-containing locket dangling from your neck? What about your dearly departed terrier, his fluffy paws and the buttery spot between his ears? And isn't the smell of Coppertone and barbeque and fat crabs in sauce the perfect memento of a summer spent vacationing off Cape Cod, washing over you like solace on a grey winter's day when everything seems dross and bleak? The way of high technology has looked like the final frontier to pin down smells, those most elusive sensual stimuli, escaping us in the destructive process that is smelling them (you inhale, they vanish soon after). Other posts in these pages have announced similar projects about capturing or transmitting smells via pixelized forms, but the Madeleine, an odor camera that captures the ambience around the object source, is named after the famous spontaneous memory brought over by the namesake dessert to French author Marcel Proust when he was tasting linded tea and the famous reminiscence he recounted in his "A la recherche du temps perdu". The Madeleine, with use in the perfume industry, aims to capture any scentscape and to inform via the most subliminal and potent sense of all: smell.



"Created by designer Amy Radcliffe, Madeleine is an “analog odor camera” based off so-called ‘Headspace Capture,’ a technology developed for the perfume industry to analyze and recreate the odor compounds that surround various objects. When a smell source is placed under the device’s glass cone, a pump extracts the smell via a plastic tube. After being drawn to Madeleine’s main unit, the smell goes through a resin trap which absorbs the particles so molecular information can be recorded. That data is expressed in a graph-like formula, which essentially contains a fingerprint of the smell. In a special lab, that formula can then be inscribed on a bronze disk to artificially reproduce the smell. The smell can also be recreated in small vials." [source]

So given the choice: What smells would you capture and recreate through this wonderful new gadget?

Special thanks to Trudie W. for alerting me to the news of this new gizmo!

Miss Perfumado: Assim dxam morrê ô flor (Let me die in this way, my flower)

Let me die dreaming
Under the vigil of sad eyes
Of a kind young lady
With a sweet-scented body
Let me die in this way, my flower
Under the shade of your gentle little eyes
Let me die dreaming
Like a dove into her nest
If the dove is happy in her nest
So am I, under the look
And the caresses from
This sweet-scented miss.

Miss Perfumado, Portuguese fado sung by Cesária Évora, translated in English.

Flying Under the Radar: Top Under-appreciated Fragrances

There are some fragrances which remain hidden behind the more glamorous bottles atop the vanity, stealth-like on perfume discussion communities, brought out in half-assed guilt-ridden attempts to "finish the bottle", mid-spray thinking why the hell we're not wearing them more, wearing them more proudly, more confidently? Blame it on peer pressure, glamorized images, retro pedigree and outright snobbism. Our loss...Below I present some* which you should seek out and never be ashamed of wearing.

via etsy.com

*For ease of reference, nothing niche, nor discontinued.

CK Be: Everyone was talking about CK One, its cologne-like sibling in the 1990s. Turns out, this is the more attractive in the family.

ck fashion ad

Rochas Man: If you want a great masculine smooth and sweet with a hint of hay for a fraction of the price, look no further.

Jacomo Silences: Because it's just as good as Chanel No.19. Green & sparkling like liquified emeralds.

Avon Timeless: A classic chypre from 1974 like they used to make them. Probably my first proper chypre, handed down to me half full in that cute 70s roll-on bottle by a relative who detected my passion early on.

via ebay.com

The Body Shop Japanese Musk: Among the very best, not only in the line up of oil essences by the company, but among many a perfume oil selection. A light, powdery, perfumey chypre and not a musk type.

Guerlain Chant d'Aromes: Why are we stuck on the big guns by Guerlain when there's this demure but infinite love affair, tender like the embrace of a mother, affectionate like a woman's kiss to her first lover, persistent like the murmur of the dearly departed?

Estee Lauder Pure White Linen: The perfect summer soapy floral with dry lily of the valley and musk notes. It blooms in the heat and retains its clarity at all times.

Which are YOUR under-appreciated fragrances? Share them in the comments, below this post.

In Memoriam: Sandrine Videault

Ashen Death

I used to think, my friends,
I used to think...
that all things
were marching on this Earth
in their true colors.
Joy was white,
grief was pale,
love was pink and
death was black.
I thought so...

And I passed my days
with my colors laid clear.
With my dreams tidy.
With my poems neatly written.
Because it was thus I saw them.
Or I thought so.

~Menelaus Lountemis (Constantinople 1906 - Athens 1977)

It is with extreme shock that I'm relaying the news of the untimely demise of perfumer Sandrine Videault, whose work and generosity of spirit -above all- I had come to love. Reading the somber email, thanks to the providence of her husband and Nathalie Prichard, left me with the bitter realization (once again) of how perishable we are, how frail. Just when she was about to launch her latest fragrance Magnolia Grandiflora, fate had other plans for her. May the soil that covers her be light, as she shed light to the lives of those she became a part of.

You can read an interview with Sandrine Videault I had conducted some time ago on this page.

Summer Fragrances: A Compilation for Every Mood and Need

“I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.”

~Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

photo by Jeanloup Shieff via pinterest

Summer fragrances come in all shapes and forms and there's something for everyone, from the die hard orientalist who can spray on Ambre Sultan (Serge Lutens) secure in the knowledge it's the driest amber out there, never cloying in the heat, to the women in their late 30s who still rely on Light Blue (Dolce & Gabanna) to make the insufferable lack of breeze seem less suffocating via the lemon-tart-on-cedars coolness. I have elaborated on summery fragrances numerous times on the blog, perhaps more so than any other season, exactly because it's the most difficult time for me to be coherent enough in the midst of the hot & infatuating Greek summer. (When I know I need to be collected, I resort to Chanel No.19, a review and classification of which can be found here. The bracing galbanum and the starched iris make me feel cool, especially paired with a white shirt and silver jewelry). Besides there's not one micro-climate: from the intense heatwave of the Midwest to the non-summer landscape of rain and coolish temperatures of northern Europe, "summer" itself is not a blanket term, so why should your fragrance be?

For all of you who want a shortcut there is a detailed post with fragrant suggestions for every possible activity you might be engaging in this summer in I Know What You Did Last Summer. If your major problem is having your perfume disappear before you want it to, I have some solutions in Summer Fragrances That Last. In case sultry is your speed and you can afford a little intensity, there's Sultry Summer Fragrances for you. For the contrarians among us (those who want a spicy oriental as dense as mohair when all the others are in sarongs or who live in a coolish country) there are 10 Unusual Summer Scent Choices (all right, not as thick as mohair, but satisfying all the same) with film clips to set the mood too. There's even the selection by perfume "editor" Frederic Malle himself on his favorite scent choices for summer. And if you're a simple and proud soul, there's Limon Kolonyasi or 4711 you can pop into the fridge for freshening up.

Some "categories" of fragrances perform better than most in the torpor induced by heat: see the entry on White Noise Fragrances if you want to still perceive your fragrance but not offend anyone, check out our Skin Scents selection if you want something very subtle & erotically reminiscent of naked skin, or take a look at the perfumes described in the Powdery and Dry Fragrances article which will be invaluable in sweaty situations. If it's the summer landscape and the memories of the sea and the beach you're after or you want to echo your surroundings (lucky you!), Beachy & Sea Evocative Fragrances for Every Style can be your comprehensive guide into finding the right "beach-evocative" perfume. And finally if you're after that perfect Coppertone or Ambre Solaire scent in an eau de toilette you can spray on, there are many Fragrances Inspired by Suntan Lotions and Tanning Oils' Scents, with creamy ylang, coconut or monoi nuances.

Last but not least, if personal rumblings are of interest to you (with a bit of beauty stuff, food and music thrown in for good measure), here is my Top Products to Beat Summer Heat from last summer with lots of suggestions by readers, which is also the case for the entry on Cooling Down Tips. And if you want to travel to the Mediterranean -and specifically to my country- via the evocation of smells, please visit Scents of the Mediterranean on this link.

Whatever you do, enjoy the season!

Weird Comments on Perfume and Other Short Stories

"Have you rolled in gunpowder? What is it you are smelling of?" he said with an air of surprised distaste. This is what my tender 14 year old years met with one memorable afternoon as I was decked to the nines to go play at a piano concert organized by the Conservatoire. The delivering agent of the comment that would apparently shutter my childlike innocence was my own beloved father as we were entering the car, off to a -not so good- start to the concert in question. Flubberbusted and quite self-conscious for the rest of the afternoon (of which I have little recollection otherwise) I was rolling the info I had on the  innocuous Anais Anais by Cacharel I had just sprayed on in the back corridor of my mind.

Source: ghastlydelights.tumblr.com via PerfumeShrine on Pinterest Photo of Ina Balke, 1962 by Jeanloup Sieff

The guy has a good nose, you see, and I never for one minute doubted he would not be smelling what he said he was smelling. It's enough to make you a bit paranoid, though; if Anais Anais smells of gunpowder (on your skin? in general? who knows?), then what the hell do other, less conspicuous but more questionable, smells really smell of to those meeting you? Still, the experience was enough to make me doubt my perception and to start paying more attention to everything my father remarked on regarding smells.

It took me years to finally figure our that yes, my father had his nose screwed on the right way (this sounds much naughtier than it it's intended to be) and that yup, he was in fact smelling gunpowder indeed. It just wasn't coming from my Cacharel perfume, but rather from the Normaderm spot treatment gel which I used as a precaution on my forehead to deter stray pimples forming from my mousse-ed bangs sticking to it. The treatment contained sulfur, as I found out later on. In retrospect it's a good thing he didn't say I smelled of rotten eggs instead (which are highly sulfurous), my confidence would have been shredded to pieces and I doubt I would have ventured beyond the car. But the story goes to show that a weird comment regarding our scent can have an impact on our day; sometimes if we're obsessive enough, on more than one day. I mean, look at me, I'm rambling on something that happened years and years ago (more than I care to mention)!

I guess not everyone is as occupied as I was at 14 with what impression they give when going out wearing their latest perfume fling. (All right, all adolescents are a bit wrapped up in how they present themselves to the world, so take that statement at its face value). Otherwise things like Burger King fragrance or Zombie cologne spray wouldn't even be possible. But apparently they are, so there's something there. Do some of us secretly hide a frat-boy in our heart of hearts, longing to play pranks and engage in scatological questionable humor, their scent-du-jour included? Are there many others out there who are so afraid of giving off the wrong impression that they censor their fragrance wardrobe and limit their exposure, however? I bet there are. If you're one of those who upon hearing the word "diapers" (or "incontinence", "baby wipes", "ass", "like weed", "lady bits", "mothballs" and the dreaded "old lady" in relation to any fragrance) shudder and start viewing your beloved perfume bottle with the disdain reserved for child molesters, you know you're one of them.

And why are we so horrified of giving the wrong impression via our smell, much more so than our fashion sense, our world views or our home decorating? Probably because like the state of our complexion it is a biological indicator that speaks volumes without uttering a sound and, at the same time, like the books that we like or the art we enjoy a gauge of our taste & statement of the self.

So fire away in the comments: what are the weirdest comments you have had on your fragrance? I'm dying to know.