Thanks to their exclusive partnership with Cinquième Sens, a renown Perfumery School in Paris, Nose Who Knows NWK offers olfactive workshops for professionals, students, kids and all the curious out there.
A “sense of place” is a combination of characteristics that make a place special and unique. It is used to refer to the feelings people have for particular locations and the meaning they gain from them. Many different things contribute to a sense of place, including the lay of the land, the sounds that are heard, and even the smells.
One of the reasons that we travel is to experience the sense of different places, in order to understand ourselves and our lives at home differently when we return. I was recently travelling from my home in Florida to a town in Spain. On my journey, I was taken by all the different smells that I encountered and how I will forever associate them with the places where I smelled them.
As I was packing the car to go to the airport I turned and entered the house one last time. I was struck by the smells that lingered from cooking my breakfast and the fresh smell of the detergent used to clean laundry that morning. As I returned to the car, I noticed that pollen has begun to fall from the trees, scenting the air and reminding me that I was indeed in Florida.
A haze of dirt and grime seemed to hang in the air at the JFK airport in New York. And when I ran at full-speed through an entire terminal, I managed to arrive, huffing and puffing, with a full two minutes to spare before my flight. However, the doors to the plane had officially closed and would not be reopened.
My disappointment was compounded by the fact that I had managed to breathe in some of the filthy germs and would very quickly develop a rather serious upper respiratory infection. My sense of the JFK Airport will always be of that dingy, dirty smell of the air.
When I finally arrived in Spain, the cool mountain air greeted me. But, when I stepped through the front door of my host’s home, the smell immediately reminded me of my aunt’s home in the United States. There were the same rustic wood walls and the spices in the air took me back to my childhood visits to her home.
My aunt’s house was a cozy, warm place to spend time with loved ones. So, I immediately relaxed and felt on a deep level that no matter what happened, I would be fine.
This is the power of scent, to transport us and to connect us to places.
Question, is there a smell that reminded you of a special place?
A TEDx speaker, Ms Sandy Blandin is the founder of Nose Who Knows, a fragrance studio dedicated to Olfaction. With a Masters in the Chemistry of Perfume and Aroma, Sandy has accumulated over 15 years of vast experience and worked closely with perfumers to create winning fragrances for global companies including Procter & Gamble, Unilever and L'Oreal.
By working alongside the marketing and consumer research teams, she developed in-depth market & consumer knowledge for Europe, the US, Latin America and Asia, where she has lived for the past 8 years. Sandy has been conducting workshops for Sephora & Coty, product launch events for Procter & Gamble, Team building for Ferragamo & Dior.
Sandy has been partnering with International Schools to hone children’s sense of smell and since last year, she has been collaborating with the Ministry of Communication and Information of Singapore on an initiative called MAnyWaysOfSeeing.
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