A whiff of strawberry sweetness

Posted by Robin on 17 April 2023 Leave a Comment

A whiff of strawberry sweetness hits you as soon as you walk into “The Pink Bedroom,” an exhibit at the Museum of Sex in New York. The installation is a jumble of shocking pink objects (stuffed animals, makeup compacts, music boxes, shoes and sex toys) arranged around a bed made with pink sheets and pillows. But it also features a mishmash of smells: rose, baby powder and … is that cat pee?

The world’s most iconic perfume

Posted by Robin on 20 December 2022 2 Comments

The room dedicated to No5 – [Thomas du Pré de Saint Maur of Chanel's] personal favourite, he tells us – features Andy Warhol artwork that’s never before been shown to the public, as well as an interactive VR experience where you take on the role of perfumer Ernest Beaux in 1921, presenting Gabrielle Chanel with samples of what became the world’s most iconic perfume.

— Read more in A spectacular new fragrance exhibition, Le Grand Numéro de Chanel, opens in Paris at Harper's Bazaar.

Wherever there’s air, there is a smell

Posted by Robin on 19 September 2022 2 Comments

One of the few champions of the olfactory senses as an artistic medium is Sissel Tolaas, a Norwegian-born, Berlin-based artist that has been exploring smells for more than 25 years. [...]

“Smell is everything. Wherever there’s air, there is a smell,” said Tolaas. “It’s why I call myself a professional in-betweener, because life is everywhere. Where there’s smell, there’s life.”

The Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania is now hosting Tolaas’ first major U.S. exhibition, with the abstract title “RE______.” An earlier version of the show was originally created by the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo, Norway.

— Read more in Dollars and scents: Follow your nose through this exhibition at ICA at WHYY. The exhibit runs through December 30, and you can find out more here.

We merged two arts

Posted by Robin on 28 May 2022 2 Comments

For me, perfumery is an art itself. In the '60s, a perfumer called Edmond Roudnitska said that perfumery is an art and it's between sculpture and music. It's like music because as perfumers we speak about notes, accords, and composition, and when we describe a perfume we can give them shapes. It can be a square, round, velvety, sharp, or metallic. Here we merged two arts: painting and perfume. Research has shown that you remember something better if you are smelling at the same time as seeing, so it's a good idea to combine the two.

— Puig perfumer Gregorio Sola on creating the fragrances for Museo Nacional del Prado's scented installation for the painting The Sense of Smell, by Jan Brueghel (see post from April). Read more in Gregorio Sola, Senior Perfumer At Puig, On Crafting Scents For Public Spaces at BeautyMatter.

His now-legendary personal perfume collection

Posted by Robin on 22 April 2022 5 Comments

It was in the early ‘60s that Warhol began regularly wearing fragrance and adding to his now-legendary personal perfume collection (the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which holds hundreds of Warhol’s possessions, is home to a wide variety of his perfumes). “Andy said that he’d wear one perfume for a few months and then switch to another, so each short period of his life would have its own unique scent-association,” explains Murphy.

— Our own Dr. Jessica talks to Vogue about Andy Warhol's obsession with fragrance, in conjunction with the Andy Warhol: Revelation exhibit at Brooklyn Museum (she's also giving tours there; the next one with tickets still available is on May 5). Read more in Andy Warhol Was Fragrance-Obsessed—Here Are the Perfumes He Loved Most. (And you can find Jessica at Twitter, Brooklyn Brainery or at her blog, Perfume Professor.)

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Now Smell This

a blog about perfume

A whiff of strawberry sweetness

The world’s most iconic perfume

Wherever there’s air, there is a smell

We merged two arts

His now-legendary personal perfume collection