Follow your nose - Perfume Books, Podcasts & Olfactory Science

Resources for the scent curious...

If you’ve attended one of my perfume workshops, you may find yourself wanting to explore more of the art and science of perfume creation, fragrance history, olfactory research, or simply discovering new scents.

Below is a small collection of personal favourites to support your journey into the world of scent.

Happy smelling.
And if there’s a particular topic you’d like to explore, especially something connected to scent in Tasmania,  I’d love to hear from you.

Favourite scent podcasts:

• Paperback Perfumes, with Clare Presser an Australian librarian who pairs book recommendations and perfume...check out episode #22 "Transitions" if you'd like to listen to some of my perfumes paired with books and poems.
• On the Scent - a joyful podcast for anyone fascinated by fragrance. UK beauty broadcaster and columnist Nicola Bonn and award-winning fragrance journalist and expert Suzy Nightingale have the best perfume chats.

Intriguing articles on our sense of smell:

Bushdid et al. Humans Can Discriminate More than 1 Trillion Olfactory Stimuli, Science, 2014, Vol 343, Issue 6177. The authors were surprised to find that humans can discriminate among more than a trillion different smells. Using psychophysical tests of odor mixture discrimination with mixtures of 10, 20, or 30 components drawn from a collection of 128 odorous molecules, the number is probably the lower limit of the potential number of olfactory stimuli humans can distinguish.

Walsh, C. What the nose knows: Experts discuss the science of smell and how scent, emotion, and memory are intertwined — and exploited. The Harvard Gazette. February 27, 2020
This article touches on the neuroscience of smell, scent branding and scent training.

Fragrant websites to explore

https://www.karengilbert.co.uk

• Karen is a wealth of information on all thing perfume.  She hosts an excellent podcast, has a newsletter, books, in person perfume classes (in the UK) and online tutorials.

https://artandolfaction.com

• The Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO) is a non-profit organisation devoted to access, education and experimentation with scent. Each year they host industry awards, run an excellent workshop program and if you're in LA you can visit their library and raw materials collection.

https://boisdejasmin.com

• This website belongs to Victoria Belim, a writer, journalist and professionally trained perfumer. She offers training, perfume reviews and lectures that connect perfume with art, literature, and history.  It's a poetic place to discover more about scent, vintage perfumes, new reviews an industry insiders perspective and niche perfume in Ukraine.

Beautiful Perfume Books:

Essence and Alchemy: A Natural History of Perfume, by Mandy Aftel. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith, Publisher (2004). ISBN: 1586857029.

Mandy's books is one of the first I read at the beginning of my deep dive into scent.  It's a classic that touches on perfume history, material extraction and use, scent and bathing rituals all the way to perfume and the soul.  It's peppered with historic illustrations that quite lovely.

The Perfume Companion, by Sarah Mccartney & Samantha Scriven. London. Frances Lincoln publishing (2021). ISBN: 9780711242180.

This a beautiful designed and illustrated compendium of curated scents, designed to help you pick out a next favourite fragrance.  Sarah is a perfumer based in London, she's very witty and her brand 4160 Tuesdays has some great perfumes (if you can, try Rhubarb and Custard!) Samantha is a fragrance writer and has a long running perfume blog iscentyouaday.  There are excellent recommendations and the perfumer for each fragrance is credited (hooray!).  It's a single point in time with a slightly European focus, but if you're looking to widen your perfume horizons it's a lovely book.

Continue exploring the world of scent

Whether you’re drawn to natural perfume, fragrance storytelling, or the science of smell, there is always more to discover. Scent sits at the intersection of art, chemistry, memory, and place and learning about it is an ongoing, deeply rewarding process. 

If you feel curious to try more hands-on experiences, details of my perfume workshops in Tasmania are here.