Perfumery School

At a certain point I wanted to get more serious and take classes in perfumery.  After all, I lived in New York City, where everything is available, right?  I hunted for perfume classes for nearly two years.  I searched art schools and beauty schools.  I spent countless hours on the internet.  Nothing.  Eventually, I learned a couple of things: there are perfumery schools in France, and there are schools within the big international scent manufacturing corporations.  

The most well-know perfumery school is ISIPCA in Versailles, a three year program requiring a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, and of course, fluency in french.  Having neither, that didn’t seem like an option for me.

Most perfumes on the mass market are created alongside flavors and scents for what is called functional perfumery, or the countless detergents, deodorants, and generic floor washes, at companies such as Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, Symrise, and Takasago.  There are smaller companies which manufacture scents, and of course there have always been the niche fragrance houses.  (Chandler Burr, the perfume critic for the New York Times, wrote an illuminating book on the development and creation of two mass-market perfumes, one by Hermes and the other, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Lovely, in a book called The Perfect Scent.)  Many of these larger manufacturing companies have schools internally to train their employees, but truthfully, I was not interested in working in a big corporation.  I wanted to learn the art of perfumery, not the art of perfumery within the guidelines of a huge corporation swayed endlessly by the market and profit margins.  

All this to say that eventually, after making up in my mind that I had to study perfumery, no matter what the obstacles, that I would quit my job and beg to be an apprentice if need be, I found a school.  I am now  one of twelve students attending the Grasse Institute of Perfumery in a village in Southern France for one year.  

Creating Scents and Meaning

“How did you get into perfume making?” many people have asked me.  I never really wore perfume much, and I still don’t.  I discovered the creation of scents as an artistic medium in which I could express myself differently, and in my case better than, the visual arts I had been practicing.  I think we can all agree that scent is one of the most powerful senses by which to recollect memories.  Smelling an ex-boyfriend’s cologne on the street can stop you dead in your tracks; walking into your grandmother’s house, which somehow smells the same year after year, you’re hit with a kind of deja vu.  It’s unmistakeable familiarity.  Somehow you feel, for an instant in your mind, as if no time has passed at all.  You are in the moment of your memory.  And for me, creating art is all about distilling memories and expressing their essence.

I fell into perfumery through aromatherapy.  Using only natural essential oils, I was first exposed to how the distillation of flowers, resins, barks, peels, leaves and other plant materials have psychological and physical impacts on a person’s health.  At the time, I only wished that the people at the sort of new-age hippie classes I was taking would care as much about making their blends smell interesting too. 

I think that using natural ingredients, with their inherent therapeutic qualities, alongside more modern ingredients and techniques could produce scents that smell attractive and transform the wearer and those in the presence of the wearer, influencing experiences by altering states of consciousness.  If it sounds a little lofty, think about why we wear scents already: to influence ourselves and those around us, to put ourselves in a certain mood, to surround ourselves with a scent we like and hope to entice others with too.  I want to use scent not just for superficial reasons, but to communicate and create meaning as well.

Greetings from Grasse

Friends of mine have asked me if I was going to blog about my experience learning perfumery in Grasse, France, the historical center for perfume-making, still thriving as a nucleus for the craft.  They are intrigued about what often is perceived of as a mysterious art form, shrouded in tradition.  Unlike almost any other medium, perfumery in America is rather closed to beginners.  Classes are hard to come by, recipes aren’t published online, and rarely do we even know the names of the creators of the thousands of perfumes on the market today.  Yet to my mind, perfumery is no different from painting, cooking, jewelry making, or learning to play a musical instrument.  Like these other arts, it takes talent, education, practice, and discipline.  During this time i hope to learn how to create perfume so that i can express myself through this unique and beautiful art form, produce the Humanity project to use scent in a different way than we’re used to, and make some intellectual inquiries into the perfume industry.  

Ultimately, I hope to show people through the Humanity project that we can still respect the traditional foundations of perfumery while bringing it into the sphere of socially and ecologically conscious works that practitioners of so many other mediums are becoming aware of and developing, all the while maintaining it’s artistic integrity.

Inspiration for the Fountain

The fountain...I came to this idea slowly. The metaphor being, of course, a gathering place traditionally found in town centers. People come to talk, they dream and gossip and eat and wish and romance - a gathering for all of the things humanity does. What i am trying to get across is that this fountain is purposeful and poignant, scented with a particular fragrance to encourage positive connection.

I remembered that when i lived in Providence I used to like to go to this one particular botanica and get candles and look at all the other kooky things in there. They often had scented water (called hydrosols in perfume speak) and holy water. This is the inspiration for the fountain. I thought about candles, and the form a candle could take too - but felt that would connect more to the Bailey part of the story (she’s my friend who i quote) and serve as a memorial, where the fountain is more celebratory. And I love water as a connector. All the continents are connected by water, humans are made up mostly of water.

The fountain itself I would love to picture like the trivoli in rome, but in reality, it will be a lot more modest! I’m picturing a large birdbath almost of concrete or plaster. This will take some research and contacts to figure out. What would be awesome is if someone from an estate sale is selling an old fountain.