Arts & Humanities
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Scent of Museums
The scent of a museum is generally considered quiet, idealized and hermetic. Institutions try hard to create sterile moments for the visual and non-touchable to speak aesthetically without the intrusion of other senses (no touching! no smells! no voices please!). Regardless of old or new art, museums often smell like their audiences (often stale le…
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On the Nose: What to Learn from Funk and Fragheads
Happy grad season!! This Odorbet word selection is by Alexandra Segal*, Wesleyan University class of 25, who recently wrote her undergraduate anthropology thesis on perfume and queerness. It received both High Honors and the 2025 Gay, Lesbian, and Sexuality Studies (GLASS) Prize for best research and writing in the field. Alexandra grew up in Los…
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Leonardo & Perfume Rennaissance Recipes
(Image 16th-century censers, Blois Cathedral © Léonard de Serres) In a museum which was once the living and dying chambers of Leonardo De Vinci, Château du Clos Lucé in central France, there is an exhibition exploring scent during the time of this Rennaissance man and parenthetically his mother “Catarina’s” life. The exhibition press materials share that his…
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Smell Squiggles Breathe Life to Images
Universal visual squiggles can communicate direct, heretic qualities of smell – stink, stunk, smell and fragrance can be communicated with the deft wiggle or stroke of a pen. The wafteron (also spelled waftarom) is a simple technique used by comics illustrators to express the smell of something. Cartoonists that use wavy lines in this fashion make…
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Excess Leads to the Power of Wisdom
During this season of excess, a few words to round out – in excess – the sense of scent. As with gift giving, these are some treasures I thought should be illuminated for use in scent dialogue. Some to be challenged, some to be embraced. Wishing you a balanced, brilliant, inspired new year. Please be…
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Everything is Better with Butter – Getting Agrestic in Vermont
Thank you to Diane St. Clair of St. Clair Scents for contributing to the Odorbet! Diane’s evolution as a perfumer is nothing short of inspiring. The combination of her environment and her history of dairy farming and urban health care is the foundation for her inspired creative practice. Please enjoy this thoughtful reflection of her…
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The Space Between
Today’s installation is the first provided by a perfume reviewer: Joseph Colbourne is known as Alphairone on Fragrantica, Colbourne on Basenotes, and has his own Youtube channel. Joseph shares his love of scent was kindled when he was a child smelling lily of the valley in his backyard. He also shared that he has studied…
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South Asian words for stimulating the nose, brain and palate.
Image: Left: A Prince Having Audience, 17th century Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; Height x width: 28.5 × 20.8 cm (11 1/4 × 8 3/16 in.); India, Credit Line: Denman Waldo Ross Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Accession Number: 22.685 Right: Narcissus tazetta, grown and photographed by Nicolas Roth in his garden in…
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Image of Horizons Olfactif exhibition courtesy François Talairach I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Sandra Barré curator of olfactory art and writer who just completed an ambitious olfactory art exhibition in France Horizons Olfactif (below!). There were over 40 olfactory art projects and artists featured in the exhibition that just closed March 18, 2023. Knowing fully…
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Start making Sense/Scents!
Chester Gibs is a multi-disciplinary artist born in The Netherlands and of Indonesian descent. Growing up he took note that his home smelled differently than others, and these unique notes have become one of the roots of his olfactory designs and artistic creations. Chester graduated from Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam in…
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