A Whiff of the Past

Our everyday life is experienced using all of our senses. Yet when we learn about the past, it is usually only through the senses of sight and sometimes hearing. But that is about to change, as sensory historians bring smells from the past to life.

Perfumer Christophe Laudamiel told the Boston Globe, "Scents are very much linked to memory. They are linked to remembering the past but also learning from experiences." Historians are now using technology to recreate smells that can give us insight into how people lived their lives. For example, history buffs can discover how women viewed themselves and their femininity in 1927 by sampling the jasmine and leather notes in a popular Chanel perfume and can compare that to today's perfumes to see how their views have changed.

Another perfumer, Roman Kaiser, has been traveling the world to capture the scents of plants that are close to extinction. These scents have been captured and reproduced synthetically by his employer, fragrance house Givaudan. The fragrances can be used commercially, but also can be studied by botanists to give them clues about the evolutionary and ecological journey of that particular plant.

Other perfumers are preserving and recreating scents from the past. One organization in France, Osmotheque, keeps many of these historically important fragrances for posterity. New perfumes can be based from these fragrances, like the perfume Kiss Me Tender, which was inspired by a perfume from the 19th century. Laudamiel is working to bring this historical fragrance project to the US. This cutting edge perfumer will be speaking at ScentWorld this December.

Some historical museums imbue the scents of the time into their exhibits. The Jorvik Viking Center in York, England does just that, exposing visitors to the odors of a fish market and a latrine. Bonn University's Egyptian Museum is working to recreate a pharaoh's perfume from the residue in a 3,500 year old bottle. While it is impossible to know what the people of the past felt or associated with the scents of their time, the addition of fragrance can at least give us a more complete understanding and experience of our history.