Insight into the fragrance industry

For the second time in succession I find myself presenting a video that gives a great insight into the world of fragrance creation.  This time it was made by IFRA North America - the NA branch of the International Fragrance Association - and it features interviews with several perfumers and others involved in the creation process.  It's about 17 minutes long and I heartily commend it to anyone with an interest in the subject.

Koku - an interview with a perfumer

I'm including here a video made for television featuring an interview with another perfumer, working in Turkey.  It's in Turkish but with English subtitles, which though occasionally imperfect are easily good enough to enable understanding.

Vedat talks to his interviewer about the nature of olfaction, the history of scent, its connnection with art, science and the industrial scale production of most modern fragrances: fascinating stuff and well worth a few minutes of your time to watch:



 Oh and Koku? It means scent but also fragrance, smell, olfaction and so on - a wonderfully multi-purpose Turkish word.

Storing Perfumes

A question that often seems to come up is What’s the best way to store my fragrances? So I thought I’d give some advice and the logic behind it here.

Open shelves might not be the best choice to store your fragrances

Heat and light are the enemies of fragrance longevity, but a bit of temporary warmth is unlikely to do any great harm.  Leaving the bottle on a sunny windowsill will almost certainly result in changes though.