Smell and feel
According to Patrick Mac Leod, a world-renowned neurophysiologist, we do not become "addicted" to our perfume by chance: there is nothing innate about our taste and dislike of smells. From birth until the end of the first year of life, babies have no preconceived ideas about anything that is in front of their noses. He can like everything, from flowers to the smell of garlic or even worse. Everything will change with the influence of the parents' own appreciation, and then that of a wider circle who will say to him, and therefore influence him, "this is good, this smells bad".
Our more personal interests will be formed during 'smell' adventures linked to happy events. Let's suppose that your beloved grandfather took you for a walk on your 10th birthday (the weather was good, he gave you a wonderful present, the lunch was delicious) and, as a lover of the countryside, introduced you to the smell of lilacs. It is very likely that all your life you will keep the emotional memory of this lilac.
Below is an article I found interesting on the subject of olfactory memory, which illustrates that smell or perfume is the most intense form of memory. "We should be faithful to a perfume so that our grandchildren will be faithful to our memory", wrote Marie Claire Pauwels a few years ago.
Perfume consultations by Sylvaine Delacourte
This is the approach I take in my perfume consultations. In a living room conducive to confidence, I take people on a journey through memory to find and relive happy moments, from the earliest times to the present (based on the fact that the olfactory heritage is determined in childhood, before the age of 10, and that human beings seem to spend their lives searching). I collect, for about two hours, all the positive smells associated with moments of happiness, recorded in the "very secret black box". I thus determine the olfactory heritage. Then, I validate with notes or olfactory accords that I give to smell, to make people react and validate my choices. I am ready to start working on the bespoke perfume. Over the last two years, we have created about fifteen perfumes: as many for men as for women.
Psychology
The sense of smell is the only one of our five senses that has direct access to memory, in other words to our black box.
A fragrance, a smell coming from the kitchen, the sweet scent of summer rain, and we are propelled into the past. A memory rises to the surface: the colours, the lights, the precise place where the action took place. "One day, when I entered a house, I burst into tears. I had just rediscovered the smell of my childhood home," recalls Christiane Samuel, co-author of the book Êtes-vous au parfum ? (InterEditions).
This is because the sense of smell allows access to emotions and sensations stored since early childhood, adds Patty Canac, a perfume expert who also collaborated on the book. "No other sense can stimulate memory in such a powerful way."
The experience may seem irrational, but there is a very scientific explanation. The nose picks up odours that reach the olfactory bulb, which is connected to the limbic system. The limbic system is like our black box, the seat of emotions and memory. Strangely enough, the sense of smell is the only sense to be in direct contact with this precious black box. The result is that emotion precedes information, meaning that what is perceived will arouse pleasure, anxiety or nostalgia before the brain can even identify it.
"Our sensitivity to smell begins at a very early age. When searching for the mother's breast, the infant is attracted by a smell secreted by the nipple," confirms André Holley, professor of neuroscience in Lyon and author of Éloge de l'odorat (Odile Jacob). Until the age of 12, children register a large number of pleasant scents and unpleasant smells. These memories are permanently stored in the child's memory and form the individual's olfactory heritage. It is these memories which, throughout life, will, among other factors, influence the individual's taste for a particular fragrance.
If we like an eau de toilette, it's often because we find our past in it. I like Heure Bleue because it reminds me of the white glue of my childhood, the vanilla waffles and the lipsticks I used to steal from my mother.
Smells like perfumes play an important role in social life. They reveal information about the other person: their hygiene (body odour), their health (mouth odour) and their personality (seductive or discreet, simple or sophisticated). "Smell is the body, and perfume, clothing or make-up is there to give us an advantage.”
In my opinion, it is even more than an outfit or an ornament, it must correspond to the olfactory heritage and therefore reveal the deepest personality. It is connected to our identity!
"Smell is on the intimate side, whereas perfume is on the social side," says Samuel Socquet-Juglard, author of various books on perfume. But sometimes body odour has a link with culture and civilisation. For example, the Japanese call Westerners 'butter stinkers', given the amount of dairy products they consume. It seems that we smell like curdled milk to them.
The nose is a guide. "It can attract us to someone or, on the contrary, drive us away. That one I can't smell means you smell it too much," analyses Christiane Samuel. Loving someone whose smell you can't stand is in fact extremely difficult, if not impossible. "You can get used to an unattractive physique, but not to an unpleasant smell. We can be friends, but not lovers," adds Samuel Socquet-Juglard.
For perfume, it's less categorical - the loved one just has to change it, after all. “If it makes you feel nauseous, it's interesting to find out why," he says. "If you go back to your own olfactory history, you may discover, for example, that a rose reminds you of a grumpy grandmother you were afraid of when you were a child.”
The unconscious, always the unconscious. It is the unconscious that reacts to a freshly squeezed lemon, the pages of an old book or a walk in the woods. Effects that can even be therapeutic.
For the past two years, Christiane Samuel has been using odours in her work as a speech therapist for rehabilitation. This approach is new in France and has no equivalent in Quebec. She helps amnesiacs or patients who have come out of a coma to recover their memory by titillating their nostrils. A very specific smell can sometimes trigger the memory system. “We can even make comatose patients react by giving them the smell of their own eau de Cologne," she explains. “Their reaction is then immediate, like that of an infant who wants to communicate.”
Ammonia for sexual desire?
The Centre d'étude et de recherche de l'Université de Montréal (CERUM) uses a process called olfactory conditioning to help people with sexual deviancy to better manage their impulses. During the therapy, which lasts several months, the individual (often a recidivist rapist) has to break an ammonia ampoule as soon as he gets an erection. The fumes cut short his excitement. Gradually, he is able to control himself.
Sylvaine Delacourte perfumes
Discover Sylvaine Delacourte's brand with her Orange Blossom, Musk and Vanilla Collections. You can try them thanks to the Discovery Boxes (5 Eaux de Parfum x 2 ml) and rediscover these raw materials as you have never smelled them before.