You can learn to feel, see, touch and listen to a scent

If you believe that your sense of smell is the only sense involved in a perfumery experience, you’re missing out. And if you believe that scent does have the possibility of telling a story, taking you on an adventure, or reminding you of something special, but you don’t quite get how to feel, see, touch or listen to a scent, that’s ok, because it’s something you can learn. 

It’s not the responsibility of the scent to take you away; sometimes you must do a bit of the work yourself. You have to explore, rummage around and possibly even cause some mental friction. Sarah explains it like this: 

“If you are completely new to perfumery you might find this part doesn't make any sense yet. As you become familiar with your materials you will have your illuminating moments when it becomes clear. At first, if I ask a student what linalool feels like to them, who it reminds them of, what it sounds like or what texture they imagine it would have if they could run their fingers over a solid manifestation of the aroma, they have no answer, and might think it's a pretty daft set of questions. However, we all get better at using our additional senses to identify aromas as we get better at picking out scents.”

Sarah created the Scenthusiasm Challenge, a short video course on multi-sensory scent appreciation for mental fitness. It’s made up of 12 parts, each encouraging us to explore ideas such as the temperature, the taste and even the time of day we are transported to when smelling something. 

If you think you’d enjoy this challenge and want to give your brain a workout, you can do it here: Scenthusiasm Challenge.