perfume memories: 15 posts

I can give you a long list of reasons why I am scent obsessed. The main one is that nothing captures better the feeling of a place than its smells. Therefore, I would like to paint an olfactory portrait of each city that made an impression on me and take you on a journey. The first city I selected for this series is the city of my birth, Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. The turbulent history of the city, from its grandeur as a capital of Kyivan Rus to the post-Soviet confusion, marks every stone on its streets. The gilded domes of the numerous Orthodox churches emerge from the lush greenery of the historic city on the Right Bank, while modern high-rises crowd the Left. Burial caves for medieval ascetic monks neighbor WWII memorials. Billboards advertising Nokia cell phones crown the baroque Stalinesque buildings of the 1950s. Most of my early scent memories are connected to Kyiv, and no matter where I find myself, I only have to think of a few scents in order for all its streets, sounds and people to spring from my memory. …

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I am standing in front of my perfume shelves unable to choose a fragrance to commemorate the birth of 2007. “I have no perfume to wear,” flashed in my head, although a moment later I am wincing from the ridiculousness of this notion. I remember some socialist thinker asserting that the problem of modern society is the surfeit of choice. Indeed, there might be some truth in this. I discard Bvlgari Black, because my Russian superstitious alter ego whispers against wearing black on the first day of the year. I am not in the mood for Guerlain Shalimar, and I wore Caron Nuit de Noël a few days ago. This seems like a tough decision. …

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The rainstorm… Après l’Ondée, which translates from French as “After the Rain Shower” seems like a radiant and exquisitely graceful composition, and yet there is the suggestion of a brooding darkness hiding in its opulent layers. My own relationship with it is complex; it is both a fragrance that served as a gateway for my intense passion for everything Guerlain and a scent of nostalgia. It reminds me of my first year in the United States, when feeling displaced and homesick, I would walk around Marshall Field’s, the large department store in downtown Chicago. The Guerlain counter, with its large booklet describing each fragrance, drew my attention. I was determined to find a perfume that would be mine because Guerlain had always fascinated me.

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Can one pack up an entire apartment, complete with a vintage fragrance collection in less than 72 hours? From my personal experience, I can tell that this is not a pleasant enterprise; yet, the ballet training has instilled stamina and discipline in me. Every morning when I wake up in the apartment filled with boxes and suitcases, I feel a pang. This was the place where I spent several years, which might seem perfect in the retrospect. I sat down for many hours at this table writing, reading, memorizing chemical formulas and studying aroma-materials. I walk from room to room, observing familiar details that will soon blur into the memories of the past. In a few days, the new routine will engulf me, but right now, indulging in reminiscences seems appropriate. …

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There are some powerful odors that can pass 

Out of the stoppard flagon; even glass 

To them is porous. Oft when some old box

Brought from the East is opened and the locks

And hinges creak and cry; or in a press

In some deserted house, where the sharp stress

Of odors old and dusty fills the brain;

An ancient flask is brought to light again

And forth the ghosts of long-dead odors creep.

When opening a perfume bottle and receiving a jolt that lifts some recollection from the depth of memory, I often think of Charles Baudelaire’s The Flask. The word perfume derives from Latin: per means through, fumum signifies smoke. Through the smoke of incense offerings to the gods… Through the mist of time, the past comes back in veils of images long lost under the layers of information the brain processes on daily basis. Three percent of our genes are devoted to olfaction, which is an impressive number. According to my neuroscience textbook (Nicholls et al., 2001), “odors are detected in a patch of about 100,000 olfactory receptor neurons whose axons project through a thin portion of the frontal skull to the olfactory bulb.” In comparison to visual and auditory receptors (four and one, respectively), the number of olfactory receptors is much higher, about 1,000. Moreover, unlike other receptors, they are continuously replaced….

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