(Re)Watch "Perfume: Story of a Murderer" Accompanied by the Film's Scent Track; or Odorama in the Service of Movie Appreciation

The Tom Tykwer directed 2006 film "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" (based itself on the cult 1985 novel Das Parfum by Patrick Suskind) will be accompanied by a newly created “scent track” for screenings in Los Angeles Nov. 6 and 7.

via kino.de

According to The Hollywood Reporter: "The screenings, which are free and open to the public, are being organized by the Institute of Art and Olfaction, an L.A.-based nonprofit that promotes the understanding of fragrance and facilitates its use in art. l.a. Eyeworks will host the screenings at its Beverly Boulevard store and, along with with L.A. perfume boutique Scent Bar, will host private pre-show parties. International Flavors and Fragrance, which stores the recipes, whipped up new batches for the occasion. The scents will be distributed to the audience manually, on card-stock strips."

via kino.de

Readers with a long memory will recall that perfumer Christophe Laudamiel (the mastermind behind DreamAir and scented opera), who has been a fan of the book like myself ever since its first publication back in the 1980s, had created a series of scents inspired by key scenes in the story: Baby, Sea, Aura, Paris 1838, Nuit Napolitaine, or Orgy are as immediately evocative as they are fascinating in their contradictory and derisive nature. At the time of the film's issue in 2006 Thierry Mugler under the aegis of Clarins Group had launched a special coffret with mini bottles containing these "accords" and scents retailing at the super collectible price of 800$.

Laudamiel and his partner Christoph Hornetz approached production company Constantin Films, which, along with Thierry Mugler's fragrance team, loved the idea and so a few select screenings of the 2006 film were accompanied by sniffs of the collection available at the theater lobby. But the upcoming L.A. screenings will be the first in which the scents will be experienced at the moments for which they were intended; the audience will be guided to pass the strip under their nose as soon as the accompanying scene comes on screen.

Sounds like an unmissable opportunity to render a 4th dimension to the cinematic experience: smell.

via kino.de

S-Perfumes S-Perfume Classic: fragrance review

The blinding white of Oia on Santorini island, Greece, against the pale blue of the natural pools contained within some of its cave-houses is not totally alien to the idea behind S-Perfume Classic by super-niche brand S-Perfumes.The same feeling of freshness and serenity -and perversly enough energy as well- reigns in both.

Source: bluepueblo.tumblr.com via Perfume on Pinterest

The S-Perfume "house" began in 2000, the first all-original perfumery to come out of Brooklyn, New York, though not the first one to be founded by a completely unrelated to perfumery individual. Nobi Shioya is a sculptor with an interest in scent who used various fragrances to scent his “Olfactory Art” installations. Nobi ~under the nom de plume Sacré Nobi~ brought on board perfume veterans such as Carlos Benaim and Sophia Grojsman. As Chandler Burr said: “Shioya shares with the scent-architect Frédéric Malle a Woody Allen-ish knack for convincing stars to work for him.” They began to create a series of scents as an art project with very fancy ad copy and very limited distribution  (Which sorta begs the question how the hell did certain non-professional people get on his wares so very, very early on, but I'll leave this to the more sleuthing among you). Word of mouth made the brand something of a mini-cult, not always deservedly (From the newly relaunched and pared down to three range S-ex is by far the most interesting and 100%Love the most wearable).

S-Perfume Classic was originally composed by Alberto Morillas under the project name Jet-Set 1.0 (all the S-Perfumes had conceptual names back then, taking inspiration from the seven deadly sins originally and later taking abstract names such as 100% Love). Christophe Laudamiel re-orchestrated it somewhat to its current formula, sold now as S-Perfume "classic". The label also changed, this time bearing a sort of sketching protozoon (or spermatozoon, if you prefer).

The ambience of the S-Perfume Classic is that of contemporary non-scents: Like Molecule 01 from Escentric Molecules, this is something that doesn't quite register on the cortex but moves like an abstract clean-musky aura around, coming in and out of focus. The ozonic, oxygen touch coupled with the "clean" factor of lavender, aromatic somewhat masculine-smelling herbs and sanitized musk -consisting of the familiar to all via functional products Galaxolide musk type- soon eschews all images of sensuality (The official notes mention creamy, cozy ingredients such as sandalwood and vanilla substituted by Laudamiel for the benzoin which Morillas had used, which nevertheless should not at any rate lead you to believe that we're dealing with a predominantly sensual affair of a skin-scent; the most you get is a hint, a tiny hint of suntan oil at a distance).
On the contrary, S-Perfume Classic has the salty zingy skin-like smelling effect of L'Eau Ambrée by Prada, airated by the coolness encountered in Serge Lutens's L'Eau Froide (but arrived to through totally different means) and is not a classic warm "beachy" fragrance.

Morillas had utilized the "clean" and "energetic" idea to impressive effect already in CK One (collaborating with Harry Fremont) and Mugler's Cologne, balanced with subtler salty-skin and herbs accents in the discontinued CK Truth (with Jacques Cavallier and Thierry Wasser)and adding a touch of cool spice in Bulgari's BLV. Laudamiel emphasized the somewhat rubbery facets recalling neoprene with a subtle woody-powdery finish that is sometimes perceptible and sometimes is not. But it's the shiny, almost hurting the eyes oxygen blast, as squeeky clean as the eyesore one gets upon opening their windows to a blinding white winter day decked in a yard of snow, or the whiteness of the water inside a surf wave, which stay in one's memory.

Notes for S-Perfume Classic: ozonic note, muguet mist, thyme, lavender, musks, sandalwood, vanilla bourbon

Interview with Melissa Ceria, director of Art de Vivre programs at French Institute Alliance Francaise

"Perfume is an ephemeral thing, but it has a lasting effect on people". As I hear those words in the melodious cadenza of Melissa Ceria's voice I find myself nodding my head appreciatively. How many times have we not marveled at the power of fragrance, its mystique, its pull, its ability to inflict guttural responses, but also its ethereal quality of having the potential of an objet d'art.
Melissa Ceria, director of Art de Vivre Programs at The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in New York City, graciously granted me an interview in which we talked in detail about their upcoming Series Le Parfum: The Power of Fragrance, we had announced on Perfume Shrine a while ago. (Please refer to our timetable, descriptions on which perfumers to meet and ask questions of, tickets and links on our Art de Vivre announcement).

Melissa is a joy to talk to, a mother and professional who takes the time to answer questions with great care and genuine interest. She's generous and forthcoming with information and someone who really "gets" what makes a perfume lover tick. After all, she used to collect miniatures at the ripe age of 11 and dream of how these scents expressed her budding femininity. She's one of us!

In her words: "There is also a very aspirational angle in wearing perfume. Who do we become when we spray on our favorite perfume? Does it help us project a certain image of ourselves? (We make demands of perfumes.) Women want to get inspired by perfumes, to dream a bit. Advertising images especially cater to that, but also the whole experience of packaging and names and presentation, all these things inspire responses from women."

For the Art de Vivre series of exciting events scheduled as Le Parfum: the Power of Fragrance, kick-starting today, she invited Christophe Laudamiel, who will introduce samples provided exclusively by the perfume museum, L' Osmothèque (where he's co-curator), therefore rare and covetable by all serious perfume lovers, letting audiences discover an array of scents and their stories. Next, she introduces a panel of acclaimed professionals in fields having to do with fragrance and scents, who will discuss the influence of fragrance on identity, memory and desire. Last but not least, Melissa organizes "Speed Smelling", "a really great way for the audience to get to experience the work of great perfumers working today. They will have the chance to see what inspires a fragrance (Anything from grapefruit to graffiti, we say!) and meet with no less than 9 renowned IFF perfumers [...] as they unveil personal creations composed around elements that have inspired them. Each perfumer will sit at a table with guests, talk about their sources of inspiration and then reveal the perfume they created around those ideas. None of these fragrances are available on the market, so there's a surprise element to this that's fun. Attendees will be able to smell, ask questions, interact with the perfumers. Each session with each perfumer lasts for 5 minutes and then attendees will hop to the next table and meet the next perfumer! "

This is a piece of a greater piece. You can read the whole interview on this link on Fragrantica.

Historical Smells Recreated in a Library of Scents at Osmotheque USA

"To put smells in a historical context is to add a whole dimension to how we understand the world. Boston’s Back Bay, for instance, has at different times been filled with the smells of a saltwater marsh, a cesspool, horses, and car exhaust. Some smells vanish, new ones arise, and some shift in a way that tells a cultural story. The jasmine and leather notes of a Chanel perfume from 1927 help us understand the boldly androgynous women of the flapper era, just as the candied sweetness of the latest Victoria’s Secret fragrance tells us something about femininity today."

To that end Roman Kaiser, a Swiss fragrance chemist, developed "headspace" (a method in which the air around an object, usually a living flower, is analysed and the scent recreated in the lab afterwards) while Christopher Brosius (of CB I Hate Perfume and formerly Demeter Library of Fragrances) has used that headspace technique to recreate more imaginative smells, such as fur coats or worn paperbacks. Others have made this an organized goal in the form of an archive, a veritable library of scents to speak, such as the Osmothèque, headquartered in Versailles, France, which keeps a collection of historically important perfumes, in their original formulas, chilled in aluminum flasks in argon, an inert gas that won’t react with the perfumes like oxygen does, helping them stay stable over time. "Laudamiel is currently spearheading an effort to bring some of these perfumes to New York City, and has created an Academy of Perfumery and Aromatics that will represent the Osmotheque in the United States."

Christophe Laudamiel, a renowened French perfumer who has a daring approach to fragrance and was responsible for the re-enactment of the smelly scenes of the novel Das Parfum (which materialised into a collector's coffret for Thierry Mugler),  is taking advantage of recent breakthroughs in historical exploration for his curating the US-based "library of scents", such as having McHugh of Harvard Universiaty turning on his list of detailed formulas of perfumes and incense encountered in Sanskrit texts; often to intriguing results, as the wealthy Brahmins who took notes on those scents described them in positive and occasionally in negative light. For instance, one of the fragrances Laudamiel has reconstructed contains notes of clarified butter, milk, mango blossoms, honey and sandalwood, while another reeks of rotting flesh, smoke, alcohol and garlic!

Perhaps the greatest challenge lies not in recreation however, but in context: How the people of the time experienced those smells, rather than how they smell to us today, as evidenced by the somewhat lacking recreation of smells in the Jorvik Viking Center in York, England, which takes visitors into the experience of smelling a fish market or a Viking latrine. The challenge of integrating the historical experience into smell recreations is what lies ahead.

data/quotes from Courtney Humphries "A whiff of History" in Boston.com. Read it in its entirety here.

photo of arc in Artemis temple in Jerash, Jordan via wikimedia commons

Christophe Laudamiel on How Smell Works

How does our brain pick up scents? Fractally it seems and not even trained noses get everything at once. As acclaimed perfumer Christophe Laudamiel says:
"[Smell perception of fragrant molecules] is processed like patches, like facets. And even the best experts can smell only five to eight facets at a given time," explains Laudamiel during his Big Think interview. "For the brain to register a facet, you have to have at least several components for each facet which together are going to give this signature that then you will recognize as coffee. But you won't be able to recognize the different things that you would see in coffee. Some of them, if you take them one-by-one... smell like raw potato, another one is going to smell like smoke, another one like toasted bread, another one like earth, and et cetera." And goes on to add that when creating Aura for the Thierry Mugler coffret he composed for the issue of novel-adapting film "Perfume, Story of a Murderer", asked to recreate the scent of a virgin, "he focused on the scents of milky elements like rice and the soft and velvety scents of water lily and apricot skin. Of course, to add a little human je ne sais quoi to the fragrance, he also added an a few aldehydes, which helped to mimic the notes that our decomposing skin emits regularly".
Read the rest of the article on the Big Think link.


Pic from the film "Perfume, Story of a Murderer" via jdnightghobhadi/livjournal

The first scent opera is here!

"Most high-end perfumers spend months designing a signature scent they hope will stay on the market forever. Christophe Laudamiel, who wants to turn fragrance into high art, has labored for two years on 23 scents that will last for just half an hour. Mr. Laudamiel [..] is collaborating on a "scent opera," a new performance art that pairs music with a carefully orchestrated sequence of smells, some pleasant and some real stinkers. The opera, titled "Green Aria," will test the boundaries of scent art when it opens at the Guggenheim Museum in New York May 31."

Icelandic composer Valgeir Sigurdsson collaborated with Nico Muhly to create music based on the scents, while Matthew Steward wrote the libretto and became the director. Alongside "earth" (moist and musky), "fire" (like campfire remnants on clothes), "crunchy green" (watery green thanks to cis-3-Hexenyl isobutyrate) and "magma" (tarry thanks to limbanol) expect to sniff such smells as vomit, feces, urine, rotten fish and burning trash (I actually have personal associations with burning trash and it's not always that vile; it depends on what trash you're burning I guess)

Alexandra Alter at online Wall Street Journal takes us into the creation of the first scent opera in an engaging article: a dream come true for the many sensorialists around who have always dreamt of a performance that would pair the visual and auditory with the olfactory! Ever since John Waters in the ultra-camp (and perversely very fun) odorama scratch n'sniff of Polyester (1981) popularised the idea, there has been the search for the perfect olfactory accompaniment to visual perfumances. Yet the critical issues of sensory overload (how are you supposed to clean the fog and start again?) and timing (not as easy as it sounds) have provided hurdles along the way. This time Fläkt Woods, a global ventilation company designed a box with pressurized steel canisters that will hold the scented crystals with the different odours because crystals produce more quickly evaporating scent than liquids or oils. (That's good to know when purchasing home fragrance acoutrements). In intervals, fresh air will be released from the special "microphones" so as to clear the nasal passages of the audience, preparing them from the next blast.

Christophe Laudamiel is no stranger to pairings of such a nature, being half of the duo who worked on the Thierry Mugler coffret that was inspired by the atmospherics of the best-selling novel Das Parfum by Patrick Suskind, subsequently filmed. In a no coinicidental string of affairs Thierry Mugler is sponsoring the new venture.

"In a darkened theater, audiences will be bombarded with smells, blasted in six-second sequences by a scent "microphone" attached to each seat. The scents tell the story of an epic struggle between nature and industry. Nearly five years in the making, the opera was conceived by Stewart Matthew, a corporate financier turned entrepreneur who co-founded Aeosphere, a "fragrance media" company, with Mr. Laudamiel in 2008."

Aeosphere opens its Manhattan office next month, while Laudamiel had been a tenant at the offices of Firmenich and a collaborating perfumer with IFF for quite a while.
A brave new world indeed!


Chrstophe Laudamiel via IFF. Pic of Polyester card via Jim Rees/Flickr (some rights reserved)

Two Perfumers Talk: Christophe Laudamiel and Pierre Guillaume

Prompted by the upcoming exhibition Esxence, the first perfumers' exhibition held in Milan (you can read details here), I am honouring two talented and prolific perfumers who are emeging as major players in the industry: Christophe Laudamiel and Pierre Guillaume.
Christophe Laudamiel, Fine-Fragrance Perfumer at International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. since year 2000, will be participating in Esxence with Humiecki&Graef, an emerging niche brand. Here, courtesy of Seed Magazine, Christophe Laudamier talksin the “Design for the Invisible“ lecture, in occasion of Mind 08 – The design and Elastic Mind Symposium. He talks about the sense of smell, its mystery, our infinitive capability to smell and how perfumery is trying to harness and enhance those capabilities in different ways, in fine fragrance, as well as fragrance designed to enhance interiors or inspired by other artistic project; even how dolls or cleavage are "alive" due to their smell! With a portfolio of scents as varied as Estee Lauder Youth Dew Amber Nude, Island Michael Kors (with Loc Dong), S-ex for S-perfumes, Clinique Happy Heart, Ralph Lauren Polo Blue (with Carlos Benaim), Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce and collaborating on the recreation of scent-impessions for the Thierry Mugler coffret on "Perfume, Story of a Murderer", he's extremely versatile!




And on this video Chandler Burr talks with Christophe Laudamiel about the coffret based on the novel by Suskind, Das Parfum, turned into the film mentioned above.



Pierre Guillame is already touting his manifesto with the slogan on his own site Pafumerie Generalle: "Exhale your Difference". Here he is talking (in French with Italian subtitles) about one of his fragances, Louanges Profanes, which can be seen on his site. (Clip via Extrait.it)



Since I really love Pierre Guillaume's Cozé, Musc Maori, Un Crime Exotique and a couple of others for Parfumerie Generalle, pehaps I should return with more personal impessions!