What Goes Into Being a "Nose"
Inspiration and input for fragrances
Check out my first post here to read more about the namesake of this newsletter and make a copy of the input/output tracking sheet if you so desire.
I’ve gotten heavily into the world of fragrance recently, and among the many, many things I enjoy about my new hobby is the way in which perfumers (or “noses”) talk about the inspiration for their iconic, often generation-spanning, scents.
I love this entire article (yes, I know it’s also an ad for the new perfume, I don’t care!!) tracking the workday of Christine Nagel, the current in-house perfumer for Hermès. Here’s the section where she speaks about her inputs for scents:
“More than 20 years ago, my very first trip to Greece was to Kythira. I arrived by boat and I saw a landscape that really moved me aesthetically. On the hillsides I could see olive trees, grass underneath. I felt a second emotion when I was walking under those olive trees; there was a light breeze that brought a scent of toasted cereal to my nose, and I felt that this was a lovely idea that I needed to do something with at some point in time.
I kept this idea in the back of my head, and three years ago I was told that it was time to think of a new Jardin fragrance. Usually, the perfumer tries to capture the soul of a place by going to that place and spending some time there. I thought that I should create a Greek Jardin, so I booked my ticket but unfortunately the pandemic hit and it was impossible to travel. So I had two possibilities. Either I had to forget about my idea and wait for things to improve or I could use my memory and my emotions of the place and continue my creative process during the pandemic. And that’s the decision I made; I thought it was poetic.
“I could use my memory and my emotions of the the place and continue my creative process….” Excellent advice for not letting “inspiration” (also for many people: research) become a hangup to starting a project.
I also enjoyed this section:
What’s a new material that you smelled and were excited by recently?
“It actually happens quite frequently. One day I was walking and I saw a lantana flower. The lantana flower is a bush, you make hedges with it and the flowers can be black or red. When you smell them like that, they don’t smell of anything, but when you touch them with your hand, it leaves a scent that’s almost like passion fruit. This sparked my curiosity and I asked my suppliers to prepare lantana extract, and I used it in Eau de Rhubarbe Écarlate. (Ed note: I LOVE THIS PERFUME, here are the notes)
But you have to tame a raw material. Even if it smells good it will not necessarily produce a perfume that smells good. And when you add two materials together; imagine a painter who mixes blue and red and the result is a violet, but it could also be almost pink. And let’s say in a formula you have 20 ingredients, the number of possible combinations is almost infinite.”
Emphasis mine: “But you have to tame a raw material.”
You have to temper that heightened set piece with grounded character emotions. You have to balance the structure of a sitcom with the wild pace of the jokes. You have to take the unique, high concept hook for a piece of work and transform it into something that can sustain an entire satisfying story.
Iconic perfumer (creator of Baccarat Rouge 540, Burberry Her, Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male, and so many others) Francis Kurkdjian is also asked the inspiration question quite a bit:
Where do you seek inspiration?
Inspiration is the invisible part of creation. So far, my inspirations have not been driven by raw materials or specific notes. My sources of inspiration include culture, art, fashion, couture, and my own personal experiences and vision.
In another interview, Kurkdjian emphasized again that inspiration is not something you wait for, but something you go out and seize:
Most of the people think inspiration is passive. You can’t just wait to get inspired. It’s the opposite. You must work for and seek an idea. You must pursue it, chase it until you find you hold something relevant, and a story good enough to become a scent.
As I wrote this newsletter, I was wearing one of my favorite current fragrances: Narciso Rodriguez For Her. Here’s the breakdown:
It’s an enticing, clean, and to my nose, almost unbearably lovely scent. And who are the noses behind this lovely perfume? Well, it’s a collaboration between Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian. Two iconic noses working as one!
I’ll leave collaboration and co-creation as a topic for another day, but this inspires me to think about writing a romance between two rival noses, each vying for a chance to create an iconic scent, perhaps sabotaging one another, perhaps falling in love when they realize they love the same obscure scents…maybe in the future!
OUTPUT: Smell is a sensory detail that can often be lost in writing, or is emphasized more in the negative than the positive. What is your character’s favorite smell in the world? How would you describe it, from their point of view? What does it symbolize to them?
Do you have a scent memory tied to a certain smell, fragrance or more naturally occurring? Have you ever tried to write about it?
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ABOUT ME: My name is Caitlin Kunkel and I’m a comedy writer, long-time teacher, and creator of The Second City’s Online Satire Writing Program. I currently teach classes and consult on gift book proposals, modern adaptation, satire, and comedic literature. I co-founded The Belladonna Comedy and the Satire and Humor Festival, and I co-wrote the satirical gift book New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay, named one of the Top 10 Comedy Books of 2018 by Vulture.
I appreciate this, since this is something I am completely ignorant about.
It also reminded me, that, when my writing seems boring, to check if I included any other senses besides sight. For some reason I forget about scent too much.