This year, our theme for International Fragrance Day is the concept of redolence – the ability of scent to evoke memories, experiences and emotions. At Lore Perfumery, part of our ethos is to engage with fragrance in a multi-dimensional way and explore the storytelling ability of perfume (hence our name!).
Perfumery, being a pretty abstract art form, prompts us to tap into all of our senses or memories of our sensations in the process of experiencing it. So we wanted to talk about the way smell interacts with all of our senses, not just our olfactives – and trust us, it actually does!
SMELL
The sense of smell is an ancient one – organisms developed it very early early on as a way to detect different chemicals in our environments that might indicate hazards or opportunities, thus aiding us in survival. Our olfactive nerves have a particularly direct message pathway to the limbic system which are the part of the brain responsible for learning, memory and emotion. This is why scent is particularly powerful at triggering strong emotions and memories. It also means that the way each person experiences fragrance can vary quite broadly, because everyone has their own memories and emotions attached to a particular scent.
Given how many fragrances we have in store, it’s pretty hard to choose a category of fragrance that best represents how the sense of smell operates and its subjective nature. But after doing a little asking around on the shop floor, we think it has to be… molecular musk fragrances!
Molecular musk aroma chemicals were invented as an alternative to natural, animal derived musks, allowing for large-scale, consistent production of cruelty free, vegan fragrance. Some molecular musks you might have heard of include: Ambroxan, Iso E Super, Timbersilk, and Habanolide. Molecular musks are synthesised (ie: don’t come from nature), so don’t really remind us of anything we come across in our day to day life, therefore they’re pretty open to interpretation!
Adding a molecular musk to a fragrance is like adding a magical secret ingredient – they contribute to a composition with their own scent, they enhance and amplify the other notes in a fragrance, and help perfumes to stick to the skin for longer. Is there anything they can’t do?
Here are our favourite fragrances that contain molecular musks at Lore:
TASTE
The most closely linked sense to smell is taste. In fact, so closely linked that our sense of smell is actually responsible for most of what we taste! If our sense of smell is taken away, we are restricted to only the basics of taste – the flavours of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. When smell is involved, we can perceive more complex flavours and flavour combinations (cue Homer Simpson drooling sound). This is why referring to taste is really helpful in describing fragrances.
In fact, there is an entire fragrance category dedicated to the relation between smell and taste – gourmands! “Gourmande” is the French word for someone who loves to eat and drink, who derives great pleasure from indulging in only the best food and beverage. Therefore naturally, gourmand fragrances are those that smell good enough to eat; usually sweet, candy-like or desert-ish, but they can also be lactonic, savoury, boozy, umami… the list goes on!
Here are our most popular gourmand fragrances at Lore:
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TOUCH
While our sense of smell and touch aren’t as directly linked as smell and taste, they still interact seeing as they are both processed through the thalamus, and together help us to piece together our surroundings.
So, for the same reason, we do sometimes describe some fragrances by referencing tactility. One of the more common examples is describing a fragrance as “warm” – of course, a fragrance can’t actually smell “warm”, but we can better understand its impact by comparing it to physical sensations that make us feel cozy, comforted, or enveloped.
Here are our most cozy, comforting, warm fragrances:
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SIGHT
Vision is one of our stronger senses – the phrase “seeing is believing” exists for a reason! Studies have shown that in the presence of visual stimuli, olfaction takes a backseat. That being said, like all senses, they’re still connected. We find that connection is especially powerful when it comes to smells and colours.
On the Lore Perfumery shop floor, we’ve found colour is something a surprising amount of people bring up when they smell something. It may be that our brains make a multisensory link – for example, a rose fragrance may smell red to someone because they know the smell of rose and also know that roses are red. Another example is “green” fragrances or fragrance notes, referring to scents that smell like things that are green in nature – cut grass, moss, herbs, etc.
Here are our top green fragrances at Lore:
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HEARING
Hearing and smell are definitely not the most closely linked of the senses, but like all senses, are still woven together in the tapestry that is our physical experience as humans. An illustration of this came to light in a study done on hearing-impaired people – apparently the more severe someone’s hearing impairment is, the more their sense of smell is dulled.
The link we like to make between smell and audition has more to do with the employment of fragrance and sound in art. Music has a profound effect on the limbic system (the one in the brain responsible for our memories and emotions) just as scent does. We know this because we all have that song that reminds us of an ex, or one we hear for the first time that brings us to tears.
See below for fragrances inspired by music:
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6th SENSE
While according to science the 6th sense doesn’t exist, the more woo-woo among us can certainly appreciate the way smell is linked to life’s more unexplainable phenomena. In fact, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about how abstract and hard to describe smell is, so it kind of makes sense to link it to the abstract and hard to describe things in the universe.
Many people who have had supernatural encounters say that their experiences were accompanied by a smell. People often report experiencing “phantom odors” – like smelling the fragrance of a loved one that has passed on, be it their favourite flowers, their shampoo or laundry detergent. There are also psychic smellers out there – those who through the process of clairolfaction interpret messages from their spirit guides via smells.
Here are the spookiest and most magical fragrances we have at Lore:
Redolence Discovery Set
This year for International Fragrance Day 2025, we’ve gone a step further in curating an incredibly special and unique Discovery Set.
At Lore Perfumery, we are all about engaging with fragrance in a multi-dimensional way (in case you couldn’t already tell) and exploring the storytelling ability of perfume. So, each fragrance in this discovery set addresses a different sense – olfaction, gustation, tactition, audition, vision and a bonus one for our witchy sixth sense!
This set doesn’t only contain fragrance though, it also contains a link to a private webpage with bonus information and videos where our fragrance experts will walk you through how each fragrance connects to each sense, and explain how perfume is so much more than just how it smells!
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