EVEN BEFORE the bottles in the box marked “fear” are opened, it is possible to smell a small heavy cloud percolating the air: musky, sweet and acrid. In a tiny laboratory in Berlin, Sissel Tolaas, smell provocateur and fragrance developer, is sorting through the concentrated containers of sweat scent she has collected from 16 men from all over the world, and all in a state of fear. She wafts the neck of one bottle in front of my nose. The odour catches me at the back of my throat. Tolaas herself coughs and pulls back.
— From WHY IT’S GOOD TO SMELL: The woman who turned body odour into an art form, a must-read article in the Sunday Herald. If you are as fascinated as I was, you can learn more about Sissel Tolaas at: the FEAR of smell – the smell of FEAR exhibit at Grand Arts; The Sweat Hog in the New York Times.
In fact, inside Harris’s airy flat, the only scent is that of the apple she’s eating. Yet it is a treat to the eyes if not the nose. Full of light even on a cloudy day, its many windows look out on to the tree tops of leafy Primrose Hill.
— From Design & interiors: At home with the perfumier Lyn Harris in The Independent. Lyn Harris is the perfumer behind Miller Harris, but this article really is about her home, not her perfumes.
13 Comments
Read more about commenting at Now Smell This.
Totally off topic, but looks like the new JPG summer bottle is out!
http://tinyurl.com/26wu36
Thank you for this article Robin! Truly very interesting.
Food for thought.
Megan, was just looking at the bottles on another site last night but had no idea they were at Sephora, many thanks!
I'd love to see one of her exhibits, really fascinating stuff.
This is great stuff. Thank you.
Thanks so much for these links, Robin. I am fascinated and very moved by this project. And I love, love, love that she's sort of working from within the belly of the beast through her connection with IFF. What an interesting corporation, that they would have room for someone with her kind of mind…
Cool project — wish they'd sell a coffret!
2nd all of that, A.
I thoroughly enjoyed this article – thank you for the link! I just received my copy of Aschenberg's “Dirt on Clean” this week and am looking forward to more of the story.
Agreed, A. Wouldn't it be great to put on one's business card “Professional In-Betweener” with a specialty in “Craziness.” And to produce it from under one's armpit…
I love this woman.
That was a really interesting read. I think there's a lot to it, too – I can smell it when my man has been drinking alcohol, for instance. There's something about his personal odour that changes, and it's not related to the smell of it in his breath – it's an entirely different kind of smell.
Was just reading about Dirt on Clean recently, sounds very interesting.
Yes, food & alcohol add yet another dimension.