The Macy’s Scent Event starts on 29 March, with events at 500+ stores and a number of special events at the Herald Square location..
The smell of a room
“The smell of a room can bring you to that room faster than a picture,” Benaim remarked. To create what he called a “reconstruction of an epoch,” the students and researchers are delicately capturing the smells of different objects and historic areas of the 1906 Morgan. They’ve descended to the basement, with its antique Otis elevator works, examined the fireplace, and climbed up to a 16th-century tapestry, which is the only textile known to date to J. P. Morgan’s time.
— Perfumer Carlos Benaïm and others are trying to figure out what the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan might have smelled like when it was founded in 1906. Read more at Researchers Bury Their Noses in Books to Sniff Out the Morgan Library’s Original Smell at Hyperallergic. Hat tip to Monkeytoe!
A dollar’s scent evolves as it circulates
The hunt is complicated by the fact that a dollar’s scent evolves as it circulates—from an inky-cotton fragrance fresh from the bank to an earthier, greasy-palm smell that should remind people to wash their hands more often. [...] Starting with base notes of cotton, soap and ink, Mr. vom Ende says, the scent sweeps in odors derived from more than 100 volatile organic chemicals. It includes whiffs of leather from time spent in wallets and handbags, a metallic tang that evokes cash registers, salty human sweat and even bacterial and bathroom smells.
— Perfumer Marc vom Ende of Symrise bottles the smell of money for artist Mike Bouchet. Read more at What Gives Money Its Distinctive Smell? One Chemist Tried to Find Out at The Wall Street Journal, or go smell it at Bouchet's exhibit Tender, which runs through February 25th at the Marlborough Chelsea gallery in New York City.
Christophe Laudamiel Over 21 ~ exhibit
Perfumer Christophe Laudamiel will present Over 21, an adults-only fragrance exhibit, at the Dillon + Lee Gallery in New York City, from January 19 through February 17…
Summertime, and the city is stinky
Summertime, and the city is stinky. Trash bags ooze, urine coats subway platforms, and the scent of frying kebabs curls among the skyscrapers. The warm-weather assault on New Yorkers’ noses has taken place every year since New Amsterdam days, but its specific qualities keep changing. These days, the funky tang of marijuana has become as ubiquitous as cigarette smoke once was — surely a sign that city life is improving.
— Read more at The History of That New York Street Smell, From Manure to Marijuana at New York Magazine.