The Diary of a Nose Read online

  Cabris, Thursday 22 July 2010

  Tinkering

  The industry now has analytical tools that I find wonderful: chromatographs, spectrographs, computers. I have played with them for hours, trying to find ‘the’ molecule that gave a smell its meaning. An innocent approach when we know that the scent of a rose comprises hundreds of different molecules and that not one of them smells like a rose. So I have not found ‘the’ rose molecule, but I have discovered that the smells of flowers have a biologically dictated cycle, and that their composition can vary significantly without them losing their identity – and this has altered the way I envisaged the process of composing perfumes. Thanks to these analytical instruments, I have also learned how perfumes could be constructed. Since I stopped using them, I have abandoned analysis, favoring a more sensitive approach, tinkering with ingredients and quantities.

  Perfume is not a product of science, even if it is backed up by it. There is an element of tinkering in the way a perfume is constructed; illusions and olfactory decoys play their part. I make slow progress, tentatively feeling my way with successive trials. My collection may be limited, but in my cupboards I have boxes and boxes of raw materials that I like but never use, although they do have a role: they are in the back of my mind as the ‘it might be useful.’ I keep them because the judgment I have passed on them is not final. They could one day end up in a formula and become part of the collection, although that rarely happens.

  In general, industrialization has reduced the tinkering. Right up until the 1970s, perfumers were still using powdered dried blood, tobacco cuttings and sheep droppings macerated in a soup of chemicals to reproduce the smell of musk, and mothballs were incorporated into perfumes to recreate the smell of fur; all of which proves that perfumers certainly have a talent for tinkering. I do not regret the passing of these ingredients; I simply embrace this mentality, which is a form of creativity.

  Spéracèdes, Friday 23 July 2010

  Holidays

  I am closing up my workshop for three weeks. As I shut the door behind me, I remember the judicious choice I made six years ago to work far away from the decision-making center. This choice may have been partly due to my own origins, but it also highlighted the fact that I wanted to create without being inconvenienced by daily interruptions, and I wanted to avoid the frenzy or anxiety generated by weekly indicators: sales figures, market share and standing within the industry. Not that I have no interest in them – I am kept regularly informed, and I worry about them, delight in them, and actively participate in discussions about company strategy. All the same, I believe that the best way to develop creativity is to work alone and without evaluation, which does not mean without any dialogue. The majority of ideas are the fruit of assiduous, day-to-day work, sometimes the result of meeting people, country walks, idle strolls, things I have read, moments when my mind is free to roam. My moleskin notebook, in which I jot down ideas, words and the beginnings of formulae, is always close at hand.

  But being alone also means knowing how to manage solitude and the risk of losing momentum that can come with it. I always have several projects, several formulae, on the go. Having a work routine, keeping to a timetable and setting goals for myself are all devices I use to counter that tendency to withdraw. I experience solitude as a freedom I have chosen. It is balanced out by my regular trips to Paris.

  Spéracèdes, Wednesday 28 July 2010

  The dream perfume

  I am continuing this diary during the holidays in the light-hearted spirit of a summer magazine. I have never answered the question ‘What would be your dream perfume?’ for lack of time to develop a clear answer. I will have a try today.

  The dream perfume is one that can be smelled and experienced in the moment, for the time of one inhalation, but not one to be worn. It is not an ornament, or an item of clothing, nor is it a protection. It is pure emotion. This concept might be confusing because imagining a perfume in this way takes us outside its usual codes. I dream up perfume as a poetic offering, a ‘sudden ravishing delight of unpredictability’ in the words of haiku-writers, who reveal the unknown at the very heart of the familiar. I came close to this dream in Japan, when I took part in a Kodo ceremony. These complex ceremonies involving perfume and incense can take different forms. During this one, the master of ceremonies burned ten different fragrances one after another. For each fragrance, the participants were invited to compose a poem – in English for the gaijins (foreigners) – and to hand their writings to the master of ceremonies. All the poems were read by him, and those attending were asked to choose the poem that best evoked the perfume. The winner was whoever was selected the most often. The ceremony followed a slow, precise and coded ritual. Despite the discomfort of sitting cross-legged on a tatami for more than two hours, I found that this meshing of poetry and smells generated in me feelings of completeness and harmony – an experience shared by most of the participants.

  The dream can take another form. I sometimes think I should go back to some of my perfumes and rewrite them. I do not mean starting with the same theme and creating a new perfume, which is something I have already done on the theme of tea, for example. But rather to have a similar approach to making a new translation of a book, staying as close as possible to the original perfume, but writing it with other words – smells – that might translate the idea I now have of the perfume.

  The way in which we read and perceive a book is not exactly the same today as it was yesterday, and the same can be said of perfume. Chanel’s rewriting of No. 5 with Eau Première was an interesting way of interpreting this idea. If I pursue a similar dream, though, I am not sure I will find any takers.

  Spéracèdes, Monday 2 August 2010

  Accords

  (Combinations of several sounds heard together and creating a harmony.)

  In the beginning was the image of a piano with its eighty-eight keys. If I press all the keys at the same time, it makes an unpleasant noise. Mixing eighty-eight unselected components is highly likely to produce exactly the same sort of olfactory ‘noise.’ Now, if I play just three keys at random on the piano, how many different possibilities are there on an eighty-eight-key keyboard? One hundred and nine thousand seven hundred and thirty-six, according to mathematical calculation. If I transfer that calculation to the number of possible accords from dipping three test blotters at random in a collection of primary scents, even a modest one, the possibilities are considerable.

  I realize this is a simplistic image and that, if I chose the components, many accords could be avoided because I would anticipate those that would not be worth making. Even so, I think the metaphor is an amusing way of illustrating the need to formulate things with simplicity.

  I do not know how many components there need to be before a formula is called ‘complex.’ I only know that this sort of formula is very likely to reuse known accords, which appeals to commercial perfumers.

  I am, therefore, against complicated formulae, in which repetitions and accumulations give a muddled and unintelligible – though seductive – reading. I prefer simplicity; it alone allows for new readings of the same premise, but I consent to complexity when it affords subtlety. The perfume Bois Farine that I created for L’Artisan Parfumeur is a simple formula, comprising about ten components, yet it is complex because it uses a base that contains thiazoles and pyrazines, which are difficult and, in some cases, unstable chemical compounds, and can only be used in very diluted forms.

  Spéracèdes, Friday 6 August 2010

  Bees

  ‘What color stripe do you start with to draw a bee?’ When my grandson asked me this question I was at first surprised, then dazzled. Surprised because I had never thought to ask this myself, and dazzled because it was about a minor detail that was not, in fact, minor at all as it pertained to millions of bees. I told him I did not know and that he could color his picture however he liked. I regret that I could not give him an answer. His question denoted a concern to find the truth, an attent
ive eye and a curious mind. We could have looked for images of bees together on the internet and found an answer – there was bound to be one. Later in the day I opened my moleskin notebook and wrote down the question; it is an example of the child’s view that we should all try to nurture in our own thought processes.

  Cabris, Tuesday 17 August 2010

  Back to work

  The first thunderstorm breaks sometime around the 15th of August every year. I like listening to the thunder; it’s one of the most beautiful drum rolls. The grey of the clouds gives some green back to the trees. The rain sets free all the smells that the sun condemned. The months of intense heat are over. There is something reassuring about this renewal.

  This morning the sky is spreading out its blue above the workshop. I open the door after three weeks away. The smell hits me. Despite all our precautions, the place is fragrant. I had forgotten that I am cloaked in this smell all year long. I think about visitors encountering it for the first time. It is a presence, a distinctive feature. I know that I need it.

  Cabris, Wednesday 18 August 2010

  Féminin H, still

  It is a pleasure to get back to the latest work on Féminin H; the trials are promising. The inclusion of sandalwood has smoothed the coarse camphor effect of the patchouli. The overall form is full, dense and elegant; but it is not airy enough. I embark on some trials with different types of patchouli that I had put to one side ‘just in case.’ An ester of patchouli gives good results because it has the earthy notes of the traditional essential oil. I carry on with my trials, changing the quality of the musk I originally used, to improve its longevity. At this stage, my task is that of a craftsman perfecting a completed piece. It is systematic work during which I experiment with the different qualities of some of the raw materials used in the formula, paying closer attention to the technical aspects – diffusion, persistence and presence. Later I will put more work into achieving crispness and gorgeousness, and the mischievous smile I want this perfume to have.

  Cabris, Friday 20 August 2010

  Changing direction

  Language lives freely and quite independently of us, and, over time, the words that make it up alter their meaning. (Until recently the word ‘escagasser’ – which is originally an Occitan word and has a ring to it that I love – meant only to stun or knock senseless; now it can also mean to bore (to death).) The same is true of smells, which can change their meaning over time, without actually losing any of their former significance.

  Unlike with language, where no individual can single-handedly change the meaning of a word, when a perfumer puts forward a new interpretation of a smell, he can change its significance. For example, the smell of ionone beta – a molecule discovered in 1893 – was synonymous with the smell of violets right up to the end of the twentieth century. In order to create the accord with tea in Eau parfumée au thé vert for Bulgari, I used this synthetic compound in a different way and combined ionone beta with hedione. The perfume became a market archetype, and the smell changed: Ionone no longer smells just of violets, but also of tea.

  In the Hermès perfume Poivre Samarcande, traces of absolute of violet leaves combined with a high dosage of iso E reveal the peppery aspect of this molecule, hitherto unrecognized. Phenyl ethyl alcohol, used since it was first discovered to evoke the smell of roses, is now used to evoke the smell of sake or cooked rice.

  I know that words, and even more so smells, do not have the same significance for each of us; all the same, smells are elements that perfumers can transform, bring to life and change. It is because they change meaning that they are alive, and that perfumes are alive.

  Cabris, Tuesday 24 August 2010

  Narcisse bleu

  A work meeting about current projects. We have a lengthy discussion about the composition of Narcisse bleu, an improvisation that I am putting forward for the Cologne collection. I explain that, although the smell is important, what I am particularly hoping to express in this perfume is the tactile aspect.

  A perfume never speaks to one sense alone, but offers itself to all the senses. In saying that, I do not mean its name, the packaging or the bottle, but the perfume’s smell. I am reminded of Paul Cézanne who said that, from its colors, he could tell whether an object was velvety, hard or soft and even what it smelled like. I found my subject in the smell of narcissi. Not the flower, which hovers between the fragrance of roses, white flowers and horse droppings, but an extract obtained from the flowers as well as the stalks, which – for me – has a green, abrasive, rounded, powdery smell. With a juxtaposition of green, abrasive, powdery, woody and floral notes, I have interpreted this olfactory perception by playing on contrasts between the abrasive, powdery and woody notes, and the green and floral ones. Narcissus may be the main premise of this cologne, but I will not actually be using an extract of it, because I am trying to achieve a density and a thickness that only synthesized compounds can give me, because their characteristics can melt together without detracting from the way the subject is interpreted.

  Cabris, Thursday 26 August 2010

  Mediterranean

  I was born in Grasse, and yet I do not feel Grassois by nature, nor Provençal, for that matter. My parents and I left Grasse too early for me to feel I belong in the town, although I am fond of it. My attachment to the place is due to my paternal grandparents, who were of Italian descent and who set up home there; but also to the people who helped, taught, instructed and supported me during my apprenticeship there, people who were mostly not Grassois. As for the image of people from Provence as boastful, chauvinistic, noisy and generous – characteristics that gave Pagnol’s films much of their charm – I do not recognize myself in it. I prefer Jean Giono’s world. Pagnol the Parisian tended towards regionalism, Giono the Manosquin had his eye on the universal.6

  I try to avoid the sun, and favor shady woodland. I find the languor of beaches boring, but am drawn to creeks and reefs. I love the sea and its horizon, where my gaze gets lost as the blue of the sky and that of the sea merge. I appreciate the beautiful bodies, the drape of light clothing, the discreet elegance and restraint. I have never been able to truss myself up in suits; their restrictiveness denotes a rigidness of mind and disenchantment with life. I believe in happiness, in man, in a lay spirituality; I do not trust religions. I would rather have eye contact for a long time than chatter for a long time. And, although I like to seduce, I have a sense of propriety with words. As I write this, I am reminded in particular of Camus, who wrote in L’exil d’Hélène:

  ‘Greek thought always took refuge in the idea of limits. It pushed nothing to its full extent, not the sacred, nor reason, because it denied nothing, not the sacred, nor reason. It took everything into account, balancing shadow with light.’

  I have never sought to impose anything. My research is driven by a constant desire to find a balance between what can be felt with the senses and what is intelligible to the mind. I am Mediterranean.

  Cabris, Wednesday 1 September 2010

  Subject

  A perfume does not necessarily need a subject, a concept; if it is beautiful it exists in itself. Un Jardin en Méditerranée was created with a subject as its starting point: the smell of fig leaves, which represent the Mediterranean for me. Terre d’Hermès evolved differently. At the start, the only pointer I had from my chair- woman was the word ‘terre’ (earth). This name had been registered as a trademark for a perfume several years previously. Clearly, it was not a question of reproducing the smell of earth. I began with a perfume structure that I had kept in reserve, one created without a subject in mind, and one I believed in. As the composition included a high percentage of woody notes, I came up with the image of a wooden post driven into the ground against the background of an Irish landscape. The post symbolized man’s presence, man on earth.

  As I work for a company, I do not create only for myself; I make it my duty to explain what I am doing and to establish a sincere dialogue, which airs my doubts and convictions, and can
also be reassuring. Terre d’Hermès took eight months of work. Along the way, I sustained the creative process with dialogues and olfactory images, and later these were used in the launch brochure and to train sales staff. The subject assumed its definitive form with the final trial. It is not the hundreds of trials that prove the value of this work, even though they were necessary, but the gradual process.

  I have managed to create some perfumes in less than a week, others in several months; some have been works in progress for several years, and I keep them to one side because they do not match the idea I have in mind. What I do know is that I give a great deal when I feel free.

  Cabris, Friday 3 September 2010

  Tools (objects used in everyday life)

  Nowadays, most perfumes are made of ambroxan, phenyl ethyl alcohol, citronellol, coumarin, hedione, heliotropine, hydroxycitronellal, iso E, ionone, lilial, methyl ionone, synthesized musk, patchouli, synthesized sandalwood, salicylate and vanillin. What dictates this choice of products is their unchanging characteristics, their linearity. They are fragrant substances manufactured in vast quantities and used in all perfumes: they are tools.