The annual World Science Festival returns to New York with several great events, including an activity focused on fragrance. The International Flavors and Fragrances Smell Lab will be held on Sunday, June 3, 2012, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM (free admission) at Washington Square Park.

“The International Flavors and Fragrances Smell Lab is an engaging, interactive, hands-on educational experience designed to illuminate the science of olfaction, the complexity of scents, and the chemistry and art of perfumery. Suitable for all ages.

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The other day I was walking through New York’s Chinatown, and I realized that I kept smelling a strange melange of scents: rotting vegetable peels, run offs from fish mongers, linden blossoms and salty sea air. It hardly sounds like a perfume to dab on your wrists, but those are the scents of my city. Also, I can’t forget the exhaust fumes, metallic dust, hot asphalt, freshly baked bread, and wet grass in Central Park.

What about the place where you live? If you were to bottle the scents of your town, what would they include?

Wishing everyone a great Memorial Day weekend!

For today’s post in the Long Lost Favorite Perfume series, I’m combining three requests: Elaine’s for Guerlain Attrape-Coeur, Azrifah’s for Alexander McQueen Kingdom and Cybele’s for Gucci Envy. Since I have already reviewed these perfumes, I decided to skip the descriptions and focus on exploring alternatives for these discontinued gems.

And gems they are! While these are three very different perfumes, they have in common their distinctive and striking character. This also makes these fragrances hard to match. As with complex works of literature and music, we love perfumes for different reasons: for the memories they elicit, for a particularly elegant drydown or for the rich, enveloping sillage. I hope that my suggestions capture some of the most interesting dimensions of these exceptional perfumes, and of course, please share your suggestions as well.

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Two weeks ago my husband and I had a picnic at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, one of the most serene spots in New York. The pink confetti of cherry petals kept getting caught in my hair and the sky looked a perfect robin egg blue. I felt lightheaded and happy, both from our surreptitious sips of well-concealed champagne and the fragrance of peonies and wisteria. Two weeks later, the cherry blossoms were swept away, the rains robbed the lilacs of their perfume, and the weekly routine of meetings and household chores threatened to suffocate me. Since I live by my nose, scent invariably becomes my escape. That’s how I became determined to find a perfume that would put me in a springtime mood no matter what the calendar month.

The Financial Times “How to Spend It” Magazine has published my article called The Myriad Scents of Spring. In this piece, I search for spring in the bottle and discuss a few of my favorite fragrances. Since our East Coast spring has slowly segued into summer, I already miss the perfume of cherry blossoms and bluebells.

by Suzanna

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz is a Colorado-based niche perfumer with an extensive catalogue of scents. Exploring the DSH Perfumes site is a tantalizing affair that takes you down the boulevards of Paris, through ancient Egypt, and at present, through the fashion and perfume history of Yves St. Laurent.

DSH’s latest project is a collaboration with the Denver Art Museum on a set of fragrances (DSH calls them her “designs”) that complements a touring exhibition of Yves Saint Laurent’s fashion.  The exhibition is the first complete retrospective of YSL fashion. The museum is the only American stop on the touring schedule and DSH’s fragrant tributes are available for sale at the museum, at the DSH Essence Studio in Boulder, Colorado, or on her DSH Perfumes Web site.

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