First of all, I can remember very specific odors in extraordinary detail pretty much indefinitely.
First of all, I can remember very specific odors in extraordinary detail pretty much indefinitely. Moreover, I can conjure the memory of these odors exactly and at will. I have it on excellent authority from several researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center that this is a very rare capacity. Many people can imagine the smell of Apple, (which is also a taste by the way which I understand makes it easier) hardly anyone but I can conjure the precise odor of Just Sharpened Pencil On Freshly Mimeographed Paper On Rainy Fall Day At Dalmatia Elementary School 1969 – let alone reproduce such a smell so exactly that it might bring my former classmates to tears even now.
Not only does my brain hold exact memory of all the smells I’ve encountered in my life, it also automatically records every new accord and raw material I develop or approve for use in my work. At present, there are THOUSANDS of catalogued ingredients I can choose from. Now, I can pull olfactory records instantly from the archive in my head for consideration whereas it can take a day or two to gather them from real physical storage to actually smell them.
Secondly, I can mentally and very accurately forecast how the perceived odor of any given substance will change at various levels of concentration. This is a very useful ability to have when dealing with a great many aroma materials both Natural and Synthetic which are often quite overpowering and utterly unintelligible in their pure state.
For example, at full strength a particular olfactory compound may clear the room when initially opened, yet I can tell if I drop the concentration a certain amount, I have a gorgeous delicious butterscotch. I know if I drop it a bit further, I have Shortbread, further still, I get Pancakes and at an even lower level, I have that perfect Ice Cream Cone I was searching for. By altering the concentration slightly, I can even differentiate between Sugar Cone and Waffle Cone and other people will immediately recognize it as such. Again, I am told this ability is both unique and uncanny.
Thirdly and largely because of the two previously mentioned strange abilities, I can imagine discrete odors and know what will happen when I combine and arrange them while adjusting their concentrations – entirely in my head without even opening a bottle or picking up a pipette. Often when I appear distracted and am staring vacantly at a blank wall for hours on end, I am in fact designing some new smell. While there is actually a great deal of work going on, you can understand how this would hardly make for riveting television…
The last and perhaps strangest quality my brains possesses is its Synesthesia. This means that input from one of the senses is experienced and interpreted by one or more of the others. I am told this is an EXTREMELY rare condition – perhaps one in a hundred thousand or even a million depending on the research – although I’ve met at least a dozen other genuine synesthetes in my time. My own synesthesia takes many forms (which is supposedly SUPER rare – usually people have just one) but the most useful to my work is that I often experience odors in terms of sound, vision and texture as well as smell.
Unpleasant odors often manifest to me as having a whining buzz and a prickly, sharp feeling. The more awful the smell, the louder it sounds and the pricklier it feels. On the other hand, smells I find myself loving can come with the sound of tinkling crystal bells or a pleasant cello hum, beautiful shapes with shifting vibrant colors and soft velvety textures.
Thanks to my synesthesia, I can tell instantly if a perfume is not properly composed. One sniff and it instantly fractures into several disparate parts which obviously (at least to me) do NOT go together in any pleasurable way. Between ourselves, this is one major reason I do not rush right out to smell the work of the growing number of DIY ““niche”” perfumers – this experience is NOT fun for me at all.
Posted Aug 1, 2018, 11:01 PM UTC
First of all, I can remember very specific odors in extraordinary detail pretty much indefinitely. Moreover, I can conjure the memory of these odors exactly and at will. I have it on excellent authority from several researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center that this is a very rare capacity. Many people can imagine the smell of Apple, (which is also a taste by the way which I understand makes it easier) hardly anyone but I can conjure the precise odor of Just Sharpened Pencil On Freshly Mimeographed Paper On Rainy Fall Day At Dalmatia Elementary School 1969 – let alone reproduce such a smell so exactly that it might bring my former classmates to tears even now.
Not only does my brain hold exact memory of all the smells I’ve encountered in my life, it also automatically records every new accord and raw material I develop or approve for use in my work. At present, there are THOUSANDS of catalogued ingredients I can choose from. Now, I can pull olfactory records instantly from the archive in my head for consideration whereas it can take a day or two to gather them from real physical storage to actually smell them.
Secondly, I can mentally and very accurately forecast how the perceived odor of any given substance will change at various levels of concentration. This is a very useful ability to have when dealing with a great many aroma materials both Natural and Synthetic which are often quite overpowering and utterly unintelligible in their pure state.
For example, at full strength a particular olfactory compound may clear the room when initially opened, yet I can tell if I drop the concentration a certain amount, I have a gorgeous delicious butterscotch. I know if I drop it a bit further, I have Shortbread, further still, I get Pancakes and at an even lower level, I have that perfect Ice Cream Cone I was searching for. By altering the concentration slightly, I can even differentiate between Sugar Cone and Waffle Cone and other people will immediately recognize it as such. Again, I am told this ability is both unique and uncanny.
Thirdly and largely because of the two previously mentioned strange abilities, I can imagine discrete odors and know what will happen when I combine and arrange them while adjusting their concentrations – entirely in my head without even opening a bottle or picking up a pipette. Often when I appear distracted and am staring vacantly at a blank wall for hours on end, I am in fact designing some new smell. While there is actually a great deal of work going on, you can understand how this would hardly make for riveting television…
The last and perhaps strangest quality my brains possesses is its Synesthesia. This means that input from one of the senses is experienced and interpreted by one or more of the others. I am told this is an EXTREMELY rare condition – perhaps one in a hundred thousand or even a million depending on the research – although I’ve met at least a dozen other genuine synesthetes in my time. My own synesthesia takes many forms (which is supposedly SUPER rare – usually people have just one) but the most useful to my work is that I often experience odors in terms of sound, vision and texture as well as smell.
Unpleasant odors often manifest to me as having a whining buzz and a prickly, sharp feeling. The more awful the smell, the louder it sounds and the pricklier it feels. On the other hand, smells I find myself loving can come with the sound of tinkling crystal bells or a pleasant cello hum, beautiful shapes with shifting vibrant colors and soft velvety textures.
Thanks to my synesthesia, I can tell instantly if a perfume is not properly composed. One sniff and it instantly fractures into several disparate parts which obviously (at least to me) do NOT go together in any pleasurable way. Between ourselves, this is one major reason I do not rush right out to smell the work of the growing number of DIY ““niche”” perfumers – this experience is NOT fun for me at all.