Of Perfume and Memory

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As a kid, I loved the smell of perfumes, but I never had any myself. In elementary school I hated "girly things" such as the color pink, perfume, concerns about my hair or appearance, but as I grew older I began to embrace the change that comes with being an adult. I don't know much about perfumes, and I'm sure there's science about it I could learn, but I usually go off of how pleasant the smell is to me, which I don't think is based on statistics.

 

Last semester I went to Syracuse, New York to visit some friends, and we went to the mall where I picked out my first perfume. If I had to describe it, I would call it complex, mature, something that doesn't quite fit my image but I'm okay with that. In A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, she meets with a perfumer who talks about the mechanics of making a successful scent to then sell to the public. As a kid I didn't know what the big deal was; I enjoyed sweet smelling perfumes on other people but I myself wouldn't be able to smell of on me unless I purposefully doused myself in it. Yet at the same time, smell is one of the senses that aids us every single day without realizing it. In her book The Aroma of Righteousness, Deborah A. Green talks about the idea that smell is one of the lesser senses, but I'm sure Ackerman would disagree. Ackerman talks about how scent is related to memory, something I cannot deny. It's impossible to explain the frustration of not being able to link scent and memory, especially if there are words to describe what the scent may be.


Now, whenever I smell the perfume I bought it makes me think of Syracuse, of visiting my friend, of the pond we went to at this park during a costume party, as I visited in October. I'm reminded of the feelings I had when visiting my friends, and I think of them, of the fall colors, of the house my friend lives in. There's no way that smell, despite being debated in regards to religious context and culture, can be a lesser sense if it's able to invoke thoughts and feelings of vivid memories.

Without scent how how would we know when something is rotten? When we could be delighted by the aroma of a freshly cooked meal, the distinct, different scents our friends have? Yes, there are bad scents and good scents, but without them the world would be exceedingly empty, desolate, what would even be the point of existing?






Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausMarch 2, 2020 at 8:06 AM

    Where is your picture of the blue and green lakes from? We saw something called that on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores, a quite memorable experience of sight, smells, tastes, sounds, and sensations on the skin.

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