Perfumers are the architects of the invisible. Fragrance is a metamorphosing capsule of the human experience—one that unfolds into shapes, colors, textures, and temperatures. Scent carries no physical presence, no weight, yet it unlocks archives within us that trigger extraordinary physical responses. Like architects, perfumers construct space, albeit ethereal and unconfined. This space becomes a “choose your own adventure”-like experience of the subconscious where the sensory encounter has a function dependent on the digestion of experience.

Having recently graduated from the Grasse Institute of Perfumery, located in the fragrance capital of Europe, I have noticed a major shift in the way I experience the world around me. Our education revolved around a universe of raw material producers, and Grasse, France, was at the center of the orbit. As spring faded into summer, the air grew warm and thick, suspending aroma molecules like insects in a spider web. While riding my scooter through the factory streets at any given hour, I was enveloped by the unending distillations of seaweed, hay, and tonka beans, to name a few. Each block is sheathed by its own invisible forcefield of scent—I imagine a sweetspot-like Venn diagram of materials overlapping into an atmospheric perfume, akin to the perfect seat in a concert hall or the bottom of a rainbow.

We began our education at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery with a thorough investigation of both natural and synthetic materials—the structural components of the medium. Take linalool, a molecule found in over two hundred materials—rosewood, lavender, allspice, apricot, artemisia, basil, bergamot, cardamom, carrot seed, cherimoya, jasmine, kohlrabi, wine, yarrow, and so on. Our purpose was to get to know these molecules like personalities, to understand their core identity: Alone, what are their characteristics and how do they evolve? Furthermore, how do they interact in a broader context of a formula? Similarly with friends and faux; the force of magnetization can both attract and repel. Linalool, for example, in the right context will emanate a lavender-like floralcy, but under different circumstances it will take on a sudsy and technical characteristic. 

By studying the individual molecules, we gained the skills to attune to sense and articulate the subtitles of aromas among species, essential to choosing a material for a composition. In a given composition, the differences among species, terroir, and extraction method can shape the way a fragrance is experienced. For example, the artichoke facet of Damascena Rose Absolute from Morocco might play a seemingly small but significant role in the context of an earthen fragrance compared to a more lychee-jammy note deriving from a Damascena Rose Absolute from Bulgaria. Understanding the innate characteristics of molecules provides us with a deeper understanding of the interactions happening within a formula—one of the determining reasons the craft is considered a lifelong dedication, procured through trial and error. 

Life began to feel like a Sherlock Holmes cosplay. We would embark on investigations to uncover the molecules in the world around us: a handful of soil, a decaying rose, chopped celery root for bolognese, chlorine dried pool hair, a stinky cheese, a walk through a wet forest. Every experience presented an opportunity for olfactory inquiry and analysis. Take salts, for instance, an element that appears transparent and unilateral. Yet even within such specificity, there exists a remarkable expansiveness, opening further avenues for exploration and interpretation: the salt of lactic acid fermentation (sauerkraut), an oyster sipped from its shell, a black olive, umeboshi plums, tears, castoreum resinoid, dried osmanthus, moss, or an orange wine aged in amphora—all of which carry distinct nuances. If we aim to encapsulate an oyster, we must ask: What sea are we hailing from? The Kumamoto oyster has a melon facet that distinguishes it from the briny Atlantic oyster or the hazelnut nuance of a belon. A touch of calone or a small dilution of 2-Methoxy-3-cis-methylpyrazine might translate these subtleties. 

After spending a great deal of time in study groups, blind testing, and being humbled by the French education system, we embarked on “accords,” reconstructions of an odor, landscape, or abstract idea using two or more materials that either stand on their own or get implemented as  “material” in a perfume. Throughout our program we had the absolute luxury of experimentation, as well as assignments to cover the classics; fruity, floral, gourmand, chypre, fougere, and amber accords were at the core of our curriculum.

Price point aside, there are many reasons one might want to create an accord—to situate an existing material within a more specific context, to encapsulate a material that cannot be extracted, or to create something entirely abstract. If we aim to recreate jasmine, for example, it is important to study the evolution of the flower’s arc from day to night, as well as the origin and species, contributing to the varying levels of salicylates, the indolic and narcotic nature, and the fruitiness. Is it pear or banana?  Am I picking Jasmine sambac at dawn in India or Jasmine grandiflorum growing straight off the trunk of a fig tree in a fever dream? Depending on what materials are available to us, we can aim to recreate these nuances through molecular dressing. 

There are foundational accords in perfumery that lack available raw materials, such as certain fruits or fleur muettes (silent flowers), that cannot be transmuted. Nevertheless, these flowers remain significant players in the context of perfume. Hyacinth, lilac, and violet are a few examples. Fruit is another example of an accord made without any existing natural raw materials. Perhaps I want to make a raspberry; the aim is for something perceivable by the collective conscious with touches that contribute to the story we aim to convey. Is the fruit freshly foraged from the bush or eaten off the fingers of my cigarette-indulged lover? In my first accord class (fruit) I worked with dear friend and classmate Luis Fernando García on recreating pineapple and then fermenting it into a tepache. We aimed to articulate the scent of aliveness. Redolent and fruit forward, fermented in glass, with a pinch of clove and heavy with funk. We used dimethyl sulfide, butyrates, and esters to translate the autobiography of yeasts. In a more abstract context, one might encounter accords such as “concrete” or “adrenaline” in Secretions Magnifiques by Etat Libre d’Orange—an ode to our industrial landscapes.

The process of dissecting an experience into a sum of its parts raises numerous philosophical questions. When approaching a loquat accord, I begin by eating many loquats. I then document the experience and map my findings. The flesh and texture of the juice reminiscent of a cherry, benzaldehydic and balsamic syrupy drips with a zing meets the rotund flavor and skin of an apricot. How does the loquat maintain its own identity without reference to otherness? Is there anything without a reference? How can we use an apricot as a reference while an apricot is articulated through the hybridization of a peach and plum? Everything is constructed through the molecular building blocks which are shared and exist in varying gradients, amounting to a whole. Can we not ask ourselves the same? When I look at myself deeply, I contemplate how much of me is raw spirit, how much is the product of my experiences, and how much is my innateness to the collective consciousness. 

In perfumery, tuberose can differentiate itself from gardenia through the presence of styrallyl acetate, yet it avoids the character of ylang-lang by using a lighter touch of materials with a cresolic nature. You learn to describe things through other things, but how do you break them down to their original roots? Every moment in life offers a world of curiosity and reflection. At the end of the day, I imagine making accords like jazz standards. My loquat accord is essentially a “cover” of mother nature. Some creations are off-the-bat identifiable, while others might need more dissecting. Take Sam Gendel’s cover of “Let Me Love You,” an ode to Mario through a whalesong-like hook which aims to highlight a recognizable thread. Perhaps a perfumer is trying to capture the texture of the skin of the fruit, or the almondy pit, without the entire experience.

After a recent visit to the Paul McCobb museum in Los Angeles, California, I realized how greatly connected perfumery is to architecture. I was briefed in mid-century modern architecture and furniture design by Yogi Proctor, collector and expert in the field. Architecture and perfume can both function as a sort of capsule of time and place. Modular furniture in particular feels deeply connected to the building blocks of perfumes. Dominating the market in the post–World War II era, a time rich with the aspirations of the American dream. There was an integration of pop-up architecture anchored in versatility. Proctor and I dove deeply into these concepts, exploring how, despite the mass production of “sameness,” these pieces could become unique to the owner through their interchangeability. Modular furniture can be seen as a collection of individual units that, when combined, form larger installations. This concept is similar to creating an accord in perfumery, where individual elements are assembled to form a unified fragrance. However, even though two perfumes may share materials and accords, no two perfumes will ever be identical. Similarly, no two individuals will experience the same perfume in the same way; no two people will inhabit the same space in the same manner. It is amazing to see how a chair or a desk can hold so much information about an entire period in our history. In the world of perfume, there are also trends that can reflect mountains of intel on what a generation was feeling or the general spirit of the time. These art forms are essentially time capsules of our ever changing civilization.

If you ever have the chance to read the vast and at times raw universe that is the review section of Fragrantica, you’ll see how wonderfully different each experience is with any given perfume. From the very moment we begin our lives, we start collecting information about our world through multisensory encounters, each of which can shape our perception. We have collective understanding, but no two people will experience entirely the same thing due to our emotionally specific archives of perception. Grass, for example, an objectively green note, can expose memories rich with childhood extravaganzas, somersaults, summer lake trips, and dewy early morning walks, shaping the way we might experience, for example, Balmain’s Vent Vert. 

As a social experiment to support this idea, I took a trip to the park and captured some videos: flowers, a dog running, and an elderly couple holding hands on a park bench. I then took one of the videos and added five drastically different types of audio. After rewatching the clips with their newly assigned soundtrack, it became clear that the video has a distinctly different feeling with each track, even though it’s objectively the same experience in observance. This shows us that although the world around us is happening, our emotional projection or mindset might set the tone for a certain experience. How does my perception of a flower change after I’ve just had a connection with god, felt success or failure, had a dream of a six-foot-tall owl, felt in connection with my soul’s purpose, ate a handful of cherries, or drank my third coffee of the day? Our subconscious shapes our archives through our innate humanness.

 At the end of the day, there is something so physical to perfume, and something so ethereal about architecture. Each moment in life is a precious sensory world, and we will never experience everything (anything) exactly the same way twice. Something I have continued to hear from perfumers is that after a lifetime in this industry, they remain amazed, surprised, and curious about the fascinating and ever expanding world of perfumery. Scent is the ever changing, living architecture; I myself feel as though I have never ending questions and I pray that when I die I can pull out my mile-long scroll, look to god, and ask, Do you have a minute?