Perfumery Discovery Day Workshop by Nose who Knows @ The GoDown : Spending Two Lovely Mornings with My Wonderful Nose

Dear Little Nose,

How are you? 

I hope you’re working fine.

Today’s gonna be a wonderful day!

As you’re gonna to do some work today.

We’ll be sniffing different scents on blotters,

So please do clear your snotters!

Love,

Little Brain

I used to dream of prancing around the lavender fields in Grasse, France like how Maria ( Julie Andrews) and the Captain’s children from The Sound of Music ( a musical) would dance along the hills. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be surrounded by the sweet and calming scent of fresh lavender? I even fantasize about working in Grasse as a perfumer, concocting the different scents of nature and creating ever-lasting perfumes. Looking at the current situation I’m in right now, I might just have to use a needle to poke that magical bubble of thought for now. 

But just as I was going to burst the bubble of thought, I suddenly saw this flicker of light in this dark corner and there stood a lady – with a lighted candle in her hands. And that lady who gave me a glimpse of hope is Sandy Blandin, a French fragrance expert who runs Nose Who Knows. 

I met her at Ambi Pur’s event a few months back where she conducted a talk about fragrances. Her talk on perfumes and our olfactory senses had stroke my passion of flames for perfume once again. And through our conversations, I got to know that she actually conducts olfactory workshops, fragrance consultancy and tailor-made programmes for professionals, students and for anyone who are interested in learning about perfumes. Her company, Nose Who Knows, which is in partnership with Cinquième Sens, a renown Perfumery School in Paris, specializes in providing olfactive training and fragrance strategy.

A fragrance workshop? 

I’m not going to miss out on this opportunity to venture into the perfume world!

Upon Sandy’s invitation, I decided to attend her Perfumery Discovery Day Workshop at The GoDown last week. It’s a 2-day hands-on workshop where you not only get to learn about our sense of smell, fragrance composition but also learning how to create your very own fragrance!

The ambience and atmosphere at The GoDown was simply perfect. Besides looking at the pretty furnishing in the store, we had to smell a variety of pleasant scents as well. You can’t help but to feel so upbeat and chirpy here. To feel happy about yourself, you first need to surrounded yourself with beautiful things and positive thoughts.

It was about 9 am in the morning and it’s nice to start the day off with a cup of coffee and tea with some chocolate chip cookies and freshly-baked cupcakes.

During the first day of our workshop, Sandy taught us about our olfactory system and how our noses and brain function to pick up scents. I like the way how she explains the science behind our sense of smell using layman terms which could be understood easily.

Sandy also incorporated some simple fragrance games for us to exercise our olfactory senses.

I couldn’t wait to get my noses trained! Okay, time to think : What does this scent reminds you of? Roses…powdery…grandma?

Cinnamon

These glass jars stores raw materials like spices which are commonly use as ingredients in perfumes.

Vetiver 

Tonka beans

Sandalwood

Time passes quickly when you’re doing something enjoyable. By Day 1, I’ve learnt how to differentiate a natural scent from an artificial one and recognizing the scents of patchouli, cinnamon, lemon, tuberose… I hope I could still remember them if I ever smell these scents again! Even though I’d took up  a cosmetics and perfumery module in university before, I still find that there’s so much more things about perfumery to learn. It takes years for perfumers to hone their noses and get acquainted with scents so you can’t expect to learn everything about perfumes with 2 days! But I find that this workshop is rather comprehensive in covering the essence of perfumery. It’s also made alot more fun and interesting with the mini games, exercises and the fragrance creation activity ( that is held on Day 2 of the workshop).

Sniff.Sniff.

Doggie has sense some ‘excitement’ in the air.

Bye bye, doggie. 

See you tomorrow.

Day 2

The much-awaited activity was about to begin!

We were given this fragrance creation olfactorium  by Cinquième Sens to work and play with. It’s like a mini perfumer’s kit for fragrance creation. By the way, you could purchase these fragrance creation olfactoriums from Nose Who Knows. Read further below for more information.

The olfactorium initiation which Sandy’s using was different from the purple kits we have as it consists of raw materials and accords used by perfumers.

The scent library

This is laboratory time! Suddenly, we are all looking like chemists – mixing chemicals in the lab.I felt totally like a ‘perfumer’s apprentice’. Where’s my lab coat?

Each of us were given 3 empty vials to store our perfumes. So, we’ve got about 3 trials to create that perfect scent we’ve in mind.

Suddenly, everyone was quiet. 

Dead silence.

That’s right. This process requires us to stay focus and concentrate on working our noses, and brains. There’s alot of neurones firing in my head as I was designing my very own pefume recipe.

Inspiration! I need inspiration!

Look at those serious faces!

Since the class size was kept small, we get to ask Sandy lots of questions and also got her advice and help during the scent creation activity. It’s always more conducive to learn in a smaller groups.

Besides conducting workshops for adults, she also runs fun workshop for children where they get to make scented soaps and body lotions. Scents aren’t just limited to just perfumes. We use them in our shower gels, air fresheners, creams and cosmetics. I must say that Sandy’s really creative in generating fun ideas for her workshops.

I ended up creating scents which were familiar to me – sweet,floral and fruity scents which I love.

I didn’t expect that Sandy would hand each of us a training certificate at the end of the workshop! Now, I’m one step closer to my dream! 

Some day, in the future, you might just find me working at a perfumery in France.

Fat hope.

I know.

Anyway…

This perfumery journey has been ammmmmmazzzing! If you love perfumes and enjoy wearing scents, this is the perfect workshop for you to discover what goes into your perfume. You’d be surprise to know that world of perfumery is a rather mysterious and secretive world…

Fragrance Creation Olfactorium
by Cinquième Sens


A unique Christmas gifts for your loved ones!

Includes 24 Vials of 3 ml (19 olfactive families and 5 empty bottles),

a booklet and a set of blotters to play the perfumer’s apprentice!
For more information, you can email Sandy at sandy@nosewhoknows.com

www.nosewhoknows.com

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