Art, Location, Perfume

In January of 2010, I completed a Masters degree in Multidisciplinary Design in Belfast. My work was focused on raising awareness of environmental issues, incorporating the medium of street-art, and utilizing digital technologies such as iPhone urban mapping and SMS messaging. I shared a studio with other artsits, of various interest-areas and backgrounds. Last night I got to catch up with a couple of my friends from this time I hadn’t seen since.

My friend Jan is an artist, whose practice involves participative and dialogical projects. She involves the use of smell and has exhibited work that’s often times made me think of my own past and of course, encouraged my use of the sense of smell. Coincidence?

Beton Salon Perfume

Last year she recreated the smell Beton Salon, Paris, by getting blind-folded participants to walk around with her. She documented all the odours they were experiencing as she guided them round the now altered landscape. She collaborated with Berlin based perfumer and creator of Escentric Molecules, Geza Schoen. He interpreted Jan’s recordings, findings and construction of impressions. Together they created a perfume based on this area.

I have yet to get my nose on the creation in question. But the process fascinated me to no end. A place, in time, that no longer exists, that has a perfume made from multiple participants impressions, and not directly from the perfumer’s imagination, artistic background or own sense of self.

She tells me it opens with a grassy fresh beginning, but then quite literrally develops into the smell of urine. I’ve never been to Beton Salon, but I wonder what a recreation of Dublin, or even my first city, Belfast, would be like.

Odour Mapping & Eau de Dublin

I’ve been documenting my own olfactory experiences in Dublin through the creation of Odour Maps. I find the process and the act itself satisfying, fulfilling and all the time, revealing. Until you start seeing, on paper, the repetition of certain odours, the unusual new ones and the surprising juxtaposition of others, you can begin to appreciate your home on a different plane. Sometimes the odours are simple, as simple and familiar as fresh coffee, or as complex and new as a passing stranger’s perfume—the sillage teasing at your nostrils with all its various, beautiful facets.

I’ve often thought Eau de Dublin would be like this:

• Roasting barley (of the Guinness Brewery)—maybe through some cold-pressing, the roasted barley would part it’s oil.
• Burning turf, from people’s homes you can smell along the Liffey at times—maybe through Birch Tar Oil. But in low concentration.
• Metallic. More often than not I can smell hand railings, passing buses, the tracks of the LUAS line or that steelworks where I pass by on my to work—maybe using Calone, but that’s widely used and maybe too obvious.
• Fresh Flowers. The florists that line Grafton Street on Saturdays are quite possibly one of the most pleasing smells of Dublin. I love the trampled cuttings on the ground more so than the fresh blooming heads. They smell, sappy, green (good ol’ Irish green!) and real—maybe through some derivative of figs (I vaguely remembering reading somewhere figs are used to create the smell of florist’s cuttings).

Take from that what you will. I’m not sure it’d be a perfume you’d want to wear. I think the perfume Geza and Jan made had the same underlying principal. It was a recreation of a place, not a commercial product. Even then that only makes me wonder what else you could do with that…

Ok, so recreate the smell of Dublin. Fine. But that’s my impression of Dublin, I’m new here. What about a resident who’s lived nowhere else? Their experiences are more engrained. It’s a part of them. And what about Dublin at night? The smells are tucked away—they’re fewer and farther between. This perfume could be more abstract, more distant and leaving.

On a Friday evening, if you’re around the Italian Quarter, you’re going to get garlic, spices, breads, oils. It’s a gastronomic experience! That perfume would be the smell of fine dining and kebabs—a literal food smell.

What about Dublin, on 22nd October, on a clear evening, in Phoenix Park, when you spot a pack of deer, both of you stop and look at each other, waiting for the other to move. They have that musty, furry sweat that is faint in the distance, but, it’s nice, because you can smell the damp dewy grass, and the twilight air is refreshing. The colours are brown, pale blue, tinges of oranges from the sky’s light, dark, dark green of the grass…

Dublin, like anywhere, would have a million and one perfumes on hand, each would be a different story, telling you something about somewhere or someone.

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What do you think?

What would a perfume of Dublin smell like? Where are you from? What would your Eau de New York/Paris/Milton Keynes smell like?

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Dublin S+S Meets Coty Training

Foreword

I was kindly invited along to a perfume training event this week by Fiona Cooke of Coty Ireland, having found each other on twitter a few months ago. Fiona was holding a training day for the many customers Coty work with. And in the evening, she hosted a similar event for journalists, bloggers and trade customers. She invited Odette Toilette (or Lizzie) along as her perfume trainer. Lizzie is known for holding her S+S (Scratch + Sniff) events in London—a monthly gathering of perfume appreciators, guest speakers and attendees curious about exploring their sense of smell. The events are held cabaret style around tables so everyone can get to know each other, all the while, there is lots of sampling, discussion and a few scent games to play and share with everyone.

It was quite serendipitous that at the same time I was trying to get Lizzie to come to Dublin to hold an S+S event, Fiona invited her to give some inspirational training to her customers.

I was delighted.

Training meets S+S

In the evening as I arrived at the Radisson Blu, I stepped into a lobby rich with perfume, floor polish and clean rugs. I made my way up to the function room and sat round the table with everyone else. There were beauty bloggers, style magazine journalists and editors and pharmacy people all excited and curious as to what we were going to be doing for the next couple of hours.

Fiona began by introducing Lizzie as a perfume lover. As simple as that. A person who truly has a passion for fragrance. She wanted Lizzie to share that with us and have us leave, inspired, tuned in, more aware about fragrance and it’s effect on the mind. In a way, the best thing about the evening is that I think everyone was going to pay it forward too.

Fragrance 1

Lizzie passed around fragrance sticks to everyone seated. We were asked to close our eyes, and breathe in.

What are you smelling? Can you imagine yourself somewhere? Maybe you’re inside, maybe you’re outside? Are you alone? What time of day is it? What is the weather like? Is it peaceful? How do you feel?

After a minute or two, I felt extremely relaxed and was verging into a meditative state. It helped that the fragrance was Eau de Gloire by Parfum d’Empire. It smells green, bitter, herbaceous, fresh. To me, the only imagery coming into my mind was a green, lush grassy field, wide, vast, expansive, nondescript. I couldn’t see the sky, as I was lying belly down on the grass looking out. It was day-break and there was that gorgeous, cool light. Can you see why I was feeling peaceful?

Everyone else though had a completely and different experience though:

1. It reminds me of the calamine lotion my mum used to put on me.
2. It smells musky, warm, orangey.
3. It’s kind of churchy. I’m being reminded of Italy, of cypress trees. It smells like something from Tom Ford.
4. I’m imagining an Italian man in a suit. A white suit. An older man.

Of course, there is no right or wrong answers, and this wasn’t the objective to see if everyone could. Lizzie wanted us to use our imaginations and appreciate a fragrance for how it works on each and every one of us.

Fragrance 2

There were no eyes closed this time, and as the fragrance sticks were being handed out, I could smell this one already. It was a fruity floral gourmand. Do not curl your toes or wince, this is the point.

Whilst I’d never wear this particular perfume, I know of a few others like it and tire of smelling it everywhere. I put my snobbery aside and followed Lizzie’s instructions.

Who is this girl wearing the perfume? What does she wear? Is she young? Mature? Is she vibrant? Who would she be at a party?

I could only picture a pink 2007 VW New Beetle and a pink flower in the dashboard’s vase. The girl was in her 20s, getting ready to go out with her friends. There was fake tan on the go, velvety tracksuits, nails, extensions NOT fake looking, but just, she was a girl who loved getting dolled up and going out.

Other responses were suitably mixed:

1. It reminds me of beach bum.
2. Is it Zsa Zsa Gabor?
3. It’s teenage and pink. Like Charlie and Exclamation!
4. It’s like sherbet marshmallow.
5. A person who gets driven by their mum.

This time round we were smelling Beyoncé Pulse. We were invited to move over to the cocktail bar at this point where mixologist and cocktail director, Alan Kavanagh of Total Cocktail Solutions, introduced us to his take on a Beyoncé Pulse inspired cocktail.

What a cocktail he produced too. I can’t begin to tell you all the methods, ingredients and preparation needed to make this cocktail, but boy did it smell and taste fantastic. There was pear liquor, lemon zest and vanilla pods used in the mix. He added to this a Blue heart-shaped Curaçao ice cube, reflecting the colour blue used in Pulse’s advertising. In time, like a perfume’s dry-down, the ice cube would melt, releasing beautifully scented and flavoured rosewater, colouring the cocktail’s liquid and ultimately (importantly) adding the Curaçao ;) To top it off, a spray of Pulse onto the base of the glass to linger on the hands of those who drink. Stunning.

Fragrance 3

Lizzie introduced us to the game “Consequences.” One person writes down questions on a sheet of paper. Players each answer one question and fold over their answer so the next player can’t see the previous. At the end it reads a story where every player has had a say. We did this in three groups of five players.

We each took time to sniff the perfume on our sticks. It was manly, peppery and woody. It was smooth and simple.

I was the last player in my group, my question read, “When is he most happiest?”

Now, I thought about this, and thought about this, and thought about this. Time was up and I was holding back. I wrote my answer down quickly and passed back to Lizzie. She read through all the groups and was shocked at ours! “Were we conferring?” She asked. She laughed, shocked and began reading out.

Q. What does he do for a living? A. He is a woodsman and enjoys chopping wood…[more q and a's] Q. When is he most happiest? A. When he is chopping wood and exploring the forest.

The room erupted into laughter, I was mortified. I thought to myself, “Shit, this is sounding like a shared fantasy!” At any rate the coincidence was hilarious and everyone had a little giggle at our ideal man.

Some other groups had these to say as well:

1. A man who sails in his spare time.
2. He has a woman in every city.
3. He lives in an LA plush apartment, with white walls and white shaggy rugs.
4. He has a hairy chest.
5. He wears his wife’s underwear.

Turns out our ideal man was David Beckham and his fragrance Homme. I yelled out, “Jesus Christ!” at this point. I would never have put David Beckham in a fantasy or near my nose. I was pleasantly and rightfully smacked in the face.

Fragrances 4, 5 and 6

For our fourth and final fragrance/s, we were each to match three fragrances to a peace of fabric; silk, feathers and velvet. And to add to that, match this then to a type of woman, a Sassy, Temptress or Ice Queen.

I thought No 1 was a Temptress and linked her to silk, it smelled refined, esteemed, posh almost. No 2, smelling cold to me, was the Ice Queen and she had velvet. And No 3, smelling more playful and cutsey, was Sassy and associated her to feathers.

As it turns out everyone had mixed ideas and reasons as to why. It was truly fascinating to hear what some people think! Everyone’s brain is wired so differently and even though we can’t put a word as to why we feel this smells like it belongs to that, we just instinctively think so. I really liked this part of the evening.

Lizzie presented us with her impressions. No 1 was Diorissimo by Dior, it has Lilly of the Valley and she thought it was like the Ice Queen as a result, then, associated this to ballet and silk slippers. No 2 was Calèche by Hermès. Containing aldehydes, rose, jasmine, ylang ylang, cedar and sandalwood, it smelled leathery and velvety, she was the Temptress. No 3 was Coty Guess Seductive, smelling seductive, and playful too, it was Sassy and linked to playful feathers.

Thoughts

I had never been to a fun, fragrant experience like this one. Whilst I’ve been to launches before, this event was much more personal and connected the attendees in a way I didn’t think it would. People weren’t as apprehensive as I thought they might be. There was even that feel of everyone trying to share their thoughts to the point of talking over each other! And you could see lots of smiles, nodding and “ah-ha!” moments throughout the evening.

I want to take a minute to really thank Fiona, Lizzie and Alan, for putting on such a thoughtful, enlightening and fun evening. And to the other attendees for getting into the spirit of the evening like I did too. Having had time to reflect on it now, I walked away even more aware to stop and smell the roses and perfume longer. To question more than I normally would. Most of the time, I play a game of identifying ingredients in a perfume, I forget sometimes to appreciate how it’s making me feel, what it’s making me imagine, or think. So to Fiona, Lizzie and Alan, thank you for helping me to walk before I run.

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What do you think?

Would Dublin be game for a regular S+S event? Was Coty a good sport for pushing the envelope of perfume appreciation? Any thoughts on some of the attendees associations on fragrance, and mine also?

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The Smells from the Guinness Brewery

History

In Dublin, 1752, a man named Arthur Guinness was bequeathed £100 from his godfather’swill. Guinness invested the money and in 1755 had a brewery outside Dublin. Four years later he moved into the city to set up his own business and took a 9000 year lease on a brewery at St James’s Gate. That brewery is now the Guinness brewery, probably the best brewery in the world ;)

Foreword

I have to admit one thing from the very start, I do not like Guinness. It’s just too heavy a drink. It’s a meal in a glass and after the first few sips it, just tastes awful—it’s that tangy taste! Obviously my opinion is in a resounding minority, Guinness is such an iconic drink, brand and flag for Ireland it can not be denied a success.

I have memories of Guinness growing up. At family gatherings, weddings, funerals, going to the pub when I was wee, my uncles and older cousins would be drinking the black stuff. I have a vague memory of tasting it too. And like all children if they have a sip of a drink, they’re reaction is a resounding, “BE-LUCH!”

When I moved to Dublin last year, within the first week or so, I would smell the unmistakable odours carrying heavily across the city—the Guinness brewery at work, roasting barley. Sometimes it would be in the morning and slightly gentle in its potency. You’d step off the LUAS or the bus and it would catch your attention. Other times it would be really strong and you could smell it at your desk in work. What a smell…

Approaching St James’s Gate

After all this time I finally got to visit the brewery I was excited because I knew there’d be some fantastic smells in there, just waiting, roasting, brewing away.

As I’ve said before, sometimes the first odours you come across from the Guinness brewery are from the roasting, unmalted barley that carry all across the city centre. More often than not you can smell it best on any of the bridges on the river Liffey. I have smelled it before near St. Stephen’s Green, but the smell sometimes doesn’t carry well through the other smells of the city—the car fumes, the garlicy restaurants, the coffee shops. Those smells are more immediate and closer.

When you get up to the brewery, the roasted barley is sometimes like potatoes to me. I’ve previously written about this, sprouting potato smell before. It’s not unpleasant either, but kind of comforting and as some Dubliners tell me, it is the smell of home to them.

The Giant Pint Glass

It’s worth mentioning at this point, visitors do not get into see the actual brewing of Guinness, which in some respects really disappoints—it’s the reason you go. But you can understand the “closely guarded secret.”

The old fermentation plant is what visitors explore, a giant seven storey pint glass, that, if full, we’re told, would hold 14.3 million pints. Each floor of the pint glass is dedicated to an aspect of not only the drink, but the man, the brand and the brewing process.

The ground level, is about the ingredients. To your left is a huge water feature, the gushing and rushing of the fast-flowing waterfall is slightly deafening, but the smell is like pure clean, crystal water. It’s hard to say how water smells exactly when there’s lots of it, but in this room there is a mixture of copper-like odours. The pool that collects at the bottom is filled with 1, 2 and 5c coins. Wishing coins that I think have mixed with the water.

One level up, is the brewing floor. Here (on videos) you’re shown how the barley is malted, roasted, milled, mixed with hot water and finally, mashed. The liquid is then filtered off and boiled with hops. The yeast is added and the fermentation begins. Fermentation is the best description for the odours in this floor. It’s like stepping into a bakers, before the bread is baked. It’s (yes) yeasty, sometimes sweet and doughy, sometimes sour and sharp. In the other side of the room is a tray of roasted barley. Here, the grains smell like coffee, without the familiar bitter quality. In some ways it was again, bread like. Like a mixture of the two. You can lift a handful of the barley for tasting, and I have admit, it’s like I imagine crunching down on bitter, off-coffee beans. It tastes like really burnt toast too.

The rest of the floors of the pint glass are pretty nondescript. There’s the advertising floor, the pour-your-own-pint floor, transportation floor, the Drink IQ floor, another advertising floor, and a weird convention floor.

The Gravity Bar Reward

At the top though is the Gravity Bar, the head of this massive pint glass, and undoubtedly a great end to the tour. With 360° panoramic views of the city, the Wicklow Mountains and Phoenix Park, it’s kind of breath-taking. Here, you are rewarded with your free pint and, on a busy Saturday it’s like stepping into any pub.

Guinness itself, well to me it smells like coffee, iron and bread, and obviously of Guinness—like trying to describe how coffee smells, it is its own smell, as Guinness is its own smell. Guinness smells invitingly creamy too, and smells really nice. I think I had half a pint or so before I had to give it to my friend, and she wasn’t complaining! I don’t know what it is, for someone who is such a foodie, who loves coffee, flavours, spices, sweet things, savoury things, I just can’t like Guinness. I wouldn’t say I’d be forcing myself to like it either, but it’s an acquired taste in some respects.

Some people “poison” it with a dash of blackcurrant cordial. I think next time I’ll choose to poison myself.

Leaving The Brewery

When you leave the building altogether and step out into the street, horse-drawn carts are waiting for tourists. Need I say what a bunch of horses smell like? It’s an unusual (but not unexpected) smell after walking around the brewery. The smell of fresh and old manure, because they’re so different, is unmistakable and not overpowering. It’s kind of befitting. There’s the smell of sweaty horses themselves, dry and dusty and if you close your eyes, like stepping into a time-warp. With all the cobbled streets, and old world features you could be forgiven for thinking you have stepped back in time.

When you walk through the quieter back alleys back to the city centre, on a day like today, you’re presented with another familiar Irish smell, that of burning smoky turf from peoples’ homes…

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What do you think?

Tried the black stuff before? I’m sure more people think of its taste than its smell, but what do you make of it? Coffee-like? Iron-like? A good-for-you drink? Or a pint of black shite?

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The Hedges

I’ve been smelling the lovely odour of hedges all day. Dublin has been hit with some stunning weather the last few weeks and everything is coming into beautiful bloom, the trees, the cherry blossoms and the hedges.

The ones where I live

It starts off in the morning. As I leave my building I’m greeted by a near-summer’s morning. The air is cool and my breath fogs just a little. The sky is a little misty and the sun is warm. Things are a little tinged with orange and as I turn the corner to make my way to the LUAS, the hedges outside my apartment give off a lovely green smell. I have so many memories firing off each morning I smell these particular ones:

• Hedges smelling of Eelburn, Donegal
• The hedges and bushes again reminding me of Sichuan, China
• Hedges again remind me of home
• Warm Spring morning, teasing blooming plants
• Post rain and the smell of the hedges
• Hedges today smelling like wet dog
• Softly verdant, memories of Rye, New York and that evening with Drew and Caitlin
• The hedges—primary school trip to a park

In each memory, the hedges remind me of something so different. I can’t understand why this is the case. Some are location-based, some are animal/people based. It’s also funny because this is just one hedge and… well, it’s a bloody hedge! I have no conscious memory of ever stopping to smell a hedge in any of these memories. In just a few days all these memories are brought straight to my mind at a time of the day where I’m still really only waking up—7:50am.

It’s interesting to think that when I was 15 in America I never thought that over ten years from then would I still be taken back to that place. A hot summer’s night spent with my friends, sitting in the dark in a house with the windows open and the over-whelming odour of the plants wafting in.

The ones down the road

Five minutes down the road from the first hedge, a different one smells completely different and before I get to it, I pass by a dirty smelling fir tree sandwiched in the middle. Sometimes plants smell dirty too. This fir tree is a little like a dog, but mustier and not so animal smelling. I can obviously smell a fir tree smell like you’d expect from it, but that smell is muted, hidden by something rank coming through.

My favourite hedge is the one with the sharp thorns and yellow flowers. It smells so sweet and rich. Sometimes it is honey-like. Sometimes it is bursting with pollen, powdery, but not like a perfume-powder. Sometimes it mixes beautifully with the freshly cut grass, or the dew. Sometimes it is pleasantly rank of its floral odour. Sometimes it’s liquidy in its odour. Sometimes if I close my eyes I still see a yellow colour in my head. Maybe I’m associating that odour with the colour yellow now to remind myself of it.

I’ve begun to notice that my smell and memory is definitely linked to the seasons. My memory of being on a primary school trip makes complete sense to me as it was during the summer/spring months. Before Christmas I can recall those hedges near where I live reminding me of walking to school on an autumn morning. It sounds obvious when you think of it, but to discover it through my own memories and thoughts is a bit profound. To make the connection without it being pointed out.

Maybe the full-on summer months will remind me of a few other places, people or animals!

Hong Kong’s One Memory Policy

I’ve been keeping a smell diary for close to five months now. Intermittently I’d jot down a smell here, and a smell there. For the last month though I’ve made a determined effort to jot down more and fill it with detail than simply; “pastry,” “cut grass,” or “Chinese food.” Instead, I write; “Golden, buttery pastry, sweet with raisins,” “Freshly cut grass, sharp and softly green,” “Vinegary, spicy, garlic and wet Chinese food.”

What I absolutely love most about this is that over time I get to see not necessarily what it is I smell on a daily basis, but what it makes me think, what I remember or what I feel.

Hong Kong’s Piss and Perfume

On my way to work I’ll frequently make the same rabbit-tracks through the streets, I simply aimlessly make my way without thinking much about the route. It’s at these points that a smell passes by me. The usual hum-drum of the city is there, the backdrop, the fuel from the cars, the concrete dusty smell, cigarettes. But in-between the grey come the rich browns from the coffee, the greens from the street florists or the golds from passing strangers’ perfume.

On Wednesday of this week a girl a few feet in-front of me was wearing Burberry Original. Instantly, right there and then I was taken back to my first time spent in Hong Kong, New Years Eve 2002/03. I was doing my Duke of Edinburgh Award and we had our connection here and then onwards to New Zealand. What I remember most about this time in Hong Kong was the smells. One in particular was the perfume a girl wore when I was there, Burberry Original. I wasn’t over fascinated by it, but it connected itself to Hong Kong.

I also remember walking around the Temple Street Night Market and how much the place stank. Literally, it did. There were street works going on and they must have opened up all the sewers because the smell of fermenting shit and piss made every single one of us heave! The next day another girl on the trip was actually sick and we joked that she started the SARS outbreak—no joke, actually we stayed in the Metropole Hotel which apparently was the start of it all…

Two Smells, One Memory

A couple of minutes later on that same Wednesday on my way to work I passed the usual health-food shop near my office. And there it was, Hong Kong. The memory of the city I fell in love with was sitting in the back of my mind. Only this time my memory was of the second time I spent there, August 2007. This health food shop was exactly like the Chinese herb shops that line Nathan Road in Kowloon—both shops with the same purpose really. What fascinated me most was how initially I wasn’t thinking of two separate occasions but one—my memory of Hong Kong is just one big place rolled into itself with technically three visits. And what else interested me was that on Wednesday, when Hong Kong popped into my mind from the perfume, something else triggered off another memory, the health food shop. It got me thinking, if one smell reminds me of a place, and another separate smell reminds me of the same place, is it coincidence? Or am I meant to remain in the same frame of mind, dwelling on the same memory? And, why couldn’t I distinguish between two separate visits? The three times I’ve been there were all very different so I assumed I could fragment the smell memory that way…

The two odours on Wednesday were smelled about 5 minutes apart so I might be more inclined to put it down to some sort of temporary-memory function in my brain. But, what I will be looking out for in my smell diary in the future is if the same memories come up based on the same smell over time, i.e. will smelling Burberry Original in two-weeks time always remind me of Hong Kong or smelled in two months time, or even two years time! Or will burning turf on Jewellery Lane off Grafton Street always remind me of my cousin’s town growing up? And will egg in a cup for breakfast always remind me of getting ready for school in the mornings?

Places Smell Too

Every day as usual as the one before, I notice a smell, something that twitches my nose or just plain gets right up there. Sometimes I really do stop to smell the roses, daffodils, or lilies. And as usual as the day before, I make a note of memorable odours in my smell diary. Smells that are pleasant, smells that are shit. Smells that make me hungry, or a smell that just makes me smile.

Coffee and Lilies

Last Wednesday as usual in work after lunch, I get a carbohydrate-induced wave of tiredness (not that I only eat carb-heavy meals but when you’re broke, bread is cheap). And as usual I went to treat myself to a coffee from my nearest favourite coffee shop.

I stepped in and the wave of fresh blossoming lilies was captivating. I think for a moment I could actually taste the sticky nectar and my mouth filled with saliva. In a strange mix too, the smell of coffee mingled perfectly with the ripeness of the flowers and I stood there waiting, loving it.

Today was Monday morning. As usual in work on a Monday morning I needed an extra kick to start me off good and proper. A trip to my nearest favourite coffee shop was in order.

I stepped in and this time, not expecting anything odour-rific I could smell rotting lilies in the window. Instantly I was reminded how the last time the smell of the lilies pleased me and how much it took me by surprise. Today though, I wasn’t necessarily unimpressed, saddened or even annoyed, but a little glum at the thought that the flowers had passed their full.

Location based smells

As obvious a question as this is, why does a place smell different one day from the other? I didn’t think a coffee shop should smell of flowers last Wednesday, and in that nuance, that it would smell of ripe lilies one day, and dying lilies on another. Places eventually change either slowly over time or drastically in one fell swoop. Crowds of people alter the smell of pubs—from wooden floors and wooden bar tops to sweaty b.o., perfume and farts. Cleaning products can change things too—from cheap pungent cleaning fluid washing the tiles of a hall to rich smelling candles in the entrance.

How much of a place really stays the same? Is there a smell that becomes so engrained in a place that it becomes just as much a part of it as the stone and bricks it is made from? Or the trees that fill the park? Or the books that make up the shop? Or the food that fills the restaurant? Or the water that fills the river? Or the person that shares your pillow?

My home smells different now. A mother is the home—and they make it.

In January it didn’t smell of the vegetables being washed and chopped, or dish clothes boiling on the cooker, or her cigarettes and ironing, or the whiskey and the lemon, or the Saturday bleach and hover. It smelled of home, but not her home. Not the place she wanted for us, but just the smell of the wallpaper, of the carpets, of the stale cigarettes clinging to the ceilings, of the dull, banal things that fill a house. They probably fill your house too. These smells are the backdrop to the smells my mum made a home. To all the shepherd’s pies, clean bedding and perfume she wore, or the just the way the house smelled in summer and the way the garden would trickle in, these smells are like the main affair, like the attraction.

Home is a deeply personal place. The smells of a home are, I imagine, so unique I bet they’re like fingerprints to everyone. And, home isn’t a building with your immediate family, it can be a friend’s house, or the home you make for yourself…

Ah fuck, I’m sounding like Mrs. Doubtfire here!

The Torturous Smell of Food

I recently joined the gym. This is quite a feat. I haven’t taken up exercise, sport or general fitness activity since P.E. in school. I tried here and there to go running, swimming or play squash—It just wouldn’t work. I also have asthma, and it isn’t severe so I shouldn’t be held back drastically.

Post Gym

I’m at the gym around 6pm most days. When I’m there, I do half an hour on the treadmill and muscle workouts after. My asthma never flares up. I’m not left wheezing or short of breath and I can’t figure out what’s so different at the gym as opposed to fresh air? In any case I’m glad I can keep it up—however the no-fresh air/being indoors does bother me.

When I leave the gym it hits me, the smell of rich, sumptuous aromas wafting through the narrow alleys as I make my way home. Curry powder (not curry), garlic (fried), chicken, chips, all manner of bread, warm and fragrant. It genuinely pains me how delicious everything smells. My stomach gurgles, rumbles and my mouth fills up with saliva. I swallow and it sets my stomach off again. I know I’m hungry. Usually I’d not have eaten since 1pm that day and I curb my hunger before the gym by eating a banana or piece of fruit.

On a side note, I seen two girls sniff the bananas in my nearest supermarket yesterday evening—I had to see for myself. Smells like any typical green grocers.

What strikes me though is how much more acute my sense of smell is post gym. Maybe because I’m breathing more through my nose and out my mouth, the blood around my nose is doing something? Maybe I’m so hungry that I’m preconditioned to hunt out food using my sense of smell? I like he sound of the later. I’m no anthropologist but that last one feels right.

Taste The Smell

Imagine it. Thousands and thousands of years ago early man and woman foraging and hunting for food using their senses. Not like today—well kind of. We know where food is these days, sure it grows in supermarkets, in plastic trays, in plastic bags, vacuum packed, sealed, on a shelf, near you. A lot of people still grow their own food, for the novelty of it, for a genuine passion and for survival. I’ve seen firsthand the later and it’s a sad sight.

I take food for granted and I shouldn’t. More often than not the luxury of eating never enters my head. It does though when it’s nearing pay day and all I can make is beans and toast for a week to tide me over.

I never take the smell of food for granted though. And I’m not saying that to be predictable. Honestly, I love the taste of food which we all know is linked to your sense of smell. Ergo, I love the smell of food. Have you done the test? You know, chew some food, don’t swallow, plug your nostrils, keep chewing—you may as well be eating grey mulsh for all you know! With exception of course. You can still taste sweet, salty, sour, bitter and unami—I just love that last one. But without your sense of smell, food is flavourless and bland. I wonder why that’s the way it is… Why is it that we simply can’t taste all the tastes and smell all the smells separately? Why are they intrinsically bound like forbidden cousins?

Smell The Taste

When I was nine or ten, me, my mum, dad and sister went to Florida. Like typical Irish holiday goers we were the whitest people everywhere. Great times and all that—Disney, NASA, Universal Studios, Busch Gardens…

In typical Florida heat I remember getting lots of soft drinks. One day I got a can of a grape flavoured fizzy drink. It was incredible. It came in a white can and the liquid was bright, bright purple. It tasted of the usual sugary stuff but… the taste, it’s so indescribable. In hindsight, or hindtaste, I think it was a synthetic grape flavour. If anyone from the UK/Ireland has tried Shloer (the grown up soft drink as it calls itself) it tastes somewhat like what you’d expect real fizzy grape juice to taste like. This other stuff was more fake and thirst–quenching. Me and my sister weren’t given many fizzy drinks as kids so you can see why I’m raving about this stuff!

A good few years later in my teens I found a bottle of bubble bath in my house. As you do, you twist the cap and take a sniff. There. It. Was. The smell, of the taste of that grape juice I had in America when I was younger. I couldn’t describe what I was experiencing. Was I drinking the bubble–bath? What was going on? I was smelling how the taste of that drink was. Not the other way around—tasting the smell. It’s obvious that the bubble–bath also contained this mysterious synthetic grape ingredient.

I still can’t describe exactly what this experience was like. It’s not like smelling a curry, than eating one. The two senses are totally different and in the case of a curry, two different smells, both experienced in different ways, actively and passively. The grape thing is the only instance this has ever happened, where the smell AND the taste were exactly the same.

Fascinating.

Update: As it turns out, I stumbled across a can of grape juice just a few weeks ago in Belfast. The stuff, Welches. Mystery solved, phew!