I didn't know that Tommy Bahama was like M7 (one of my favorites). I guess the word “Bahama” made me think it would be something tropical.

What I am good at is being able to do “smells like” comparisons. So for example I was in New York a couple of weeks ago and I tried Tommy Bahama (which you don't generally find in the UK). When that had dried down it reminded me of something I already have, which is Mont Blanc Presence, it's also not a million miles away from another scent I wear which is M7.

I like the Jelly Belly test idea to see if I can pick out flavors and smells without a visual cue. Would I know a “skunk” Jelly Belly? (I know, why even think of it.)

“I think the average person — no matter how keen his sense of smell — has trouble attaching a label to smells.” I'm not sure how I feel about that statement. For example, it's not difficult at all — in fact it's incredibly common — for the average person to identify and label many smells every day: oranges, coffee, skunk, fish, cut grass, gasoline, and so forth. Maybe it's more a question of the range of our “scent label” inventory or level of familiarity (I've smelled lily of the valley, but I'd be hard pressed to identify it blind) — or being able to identify scents when they're combined with others. I might be able to immediately identify the smell of a solitary piece of “fish”, but if I were blindfolded and asked to sniff a pot of chowder, it might be more difficult to say “I smell fish and celery and onions and potatoes and thyme and tomatoes and black pepper.” I would just know that it smells or tastes delicious, without being able to identify the component parts.

I'm thrilled sometimes when I'm successful in my ability to detection specific tastes and smells, but I find so often that I get frustrated trying to separate out the different components when the melange is so seamlessly blended; sometimes I'm better off just enjoying the whole. For example, I love Hypnose Homme, but I'm having trouble reconciling the prominent lavender note that I'm told comprises it with the lavender from the garden — they just don't seem like the same scent to me at all.

Those Perfumer's Apprentice kits are VERY tempting.

Trained nose and educated brain are a difficult combo to find, that's for sure. Now more than ever I want to get a set of perfumer's materials so that I can learn them better.

Are people really that familiar with scents?

We smell, but we rarely question.

And what do we really smell?

To differenciate between base scents takes a great deal of training, memory and access to pure unblended scents… which few of us have access to.

I'm convinced that most people don't actually “KNOW” smells such as jasmine or gardenia…or even plain simple vanilla.

What does vanilla smell like? That should be easy right?

Most people like vanilla, eat vanilla, it's everywhere. But open a bottle of vanilla extract and chances are that it will smell mostly like coconut. At least, this is how it smells to me and how I would describe it. Why? Vanilla from Mexico can in fact have a slight coconut scent… So if all of a sudden you introduce me to Tahitian vanilla, I may not know what it is.

I can now tell the difference between jasmine and gardenia, and identify them well, but that is only because 20 years ago I had the chance to spend a whole year on the French Riviera and both jasmine and gardenia were growing in my garden. I was able to smell each one by itself and learn their characteristics. To me, jasmine is the one that smells like rotting flesh. (God I hate jasmine!)

I think that it's a mistake to assume that people “know” all these basic scents. Yes we do come accross them everyday, but they are seldom by themself. To recognize them by themself is almost impossible to the untrained nose.

Only someone with a “freak area of knowledge” (I call it: knowledge bubble) could successfully do it.

And, hey, I'm a whiz with fabric identity! Not only can I tell I silk from a rayon or cotton velvet, I can tell a 1940s rayon from a 1980s rayon velvet! (Freak area of knowledge.)