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| View from Grasse (Personal Photo) |
Photographs never
do a city justice. It is an attempt to capture a moment in time,
although time never stands still, never poses for cameras to
click-click-click the shutter buttons. A photograph captures sight,
but not sound. Even video, which can record movement and sound, only appeals to two dimensions of the sensory experience.
But what is missing
is touch, caress of the wind as you walk along the promenade, the
warm tickle of sunlight on your cheeks. And smells, good and bad:
baking aromas that drift by as you pass a patisserie;
the brush of a passer-by’s perfume; the sweet, smokey odour of a
fresh cigarette; gasoline from idling cars; and the occasional whiff
of dog shit. And feelings: the excitement that resurfaces over and
over when you realize that you are in France.
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| At the parfumerie Molinard (Personal Photo) |
By
you, of course, I mean me. Unless you’re one of my classmates, you
are reading this, perhaps wishing you were here, but only capable of
reading my words and viewing the photos I post. I can attempt to
paint a picture with words, but I fear they cannot do justice to my
actual experience here.
Let me return to
the topic of senses—smell, in particular. On October 10th I visited Grasse, a
small town that challenged my olfactory
organs. Situated 1.5 hours from Nice by bus, Grasse is the perfumecapital of the world.
After touring the
premises, I decided to join four of my classmates in a perfume
workshop. It was pricey, but I enjoyed myself, so from that respect
it was worth every centime.
We learned about the smell pyramid: perfume is not simply one scent
sprayed onto your skin. It is complex, a layering of complementary
essences. It starts with the head note, your initial impression of a
perfume upon scenting it. It is short-lived, lasting between five and
ten minutes, before giving way to the heart note. The heart note is
the theme of the perfume, often fruity or floral in nature. The five
of us had the opportunity to create our own unique scent of perfume
by blending smells from each of the three layers of a perfume. Before
actually mixing it, we used scent sticks dipped into the bottles and
mixed and matched. We then got to keep a 50ml bottle of it; if we
ever want to, we can order more from the perfumery.
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| Atelier de parfum (Personal Photo) |
Ah, how to describe
mine? I called it Maeve’s Kiss—for those who know who “Maeve”
is. In addition to being a character from my writing, the name
“Maeve” belongs to the Fairy Queen (think Romeo and Juliet’s
“Mahb”), and it means intoxication. It’s light and floral at
the beginning, then moves into a fruitier heart note, and lingers on
the skin with rich sweetness. (I’ll tell you now—there’s no
chocolate in it. As much as I love the flavour on my tongue, the
odour did not agree with my nose.)
In another
parfumerie, we learned that
perfume is put in opaque, rather than transparent bottles for a good
reason: sunlight breaks down the perfume and changes its smell. Makes
sense, right? And the difference between eau de toilette
and perfume is the concentration of the essence. Eau de toilette has
about half as much essence and is better for spraying on your hair
and clothes, whereas perfume is better used directly on your skin
(wrist, elbows, behind the ear, behind the knee). Professional
perfume experts are called “noses” and can spend over seven years
of training honing their olfactory senses.
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| Eiffel Tower-shaped perfume (Personal Photo) |
I
splurged and purchased my honorary Eiffel Tower souvenir—in the
form of eau de toilette. It has a lighter musk than my perfume. I
can’t describe its smell because, at present, every exposed inch of
my skin is saturated with a different perfume. We were able to test
perfumes before purchasing them, and since perfume smells differently
on the skin than in the air, I had to resort to desperate measures.
After seeing a
museum and a small cathedral, we caught the bus back to Nice. We even
saw a rainbow on the way back. No matter how many times I see a
rainbow, it is never any less beautiful a sight.
Smell you later!
