Make Scents

Choosing perfume often felt like picking a wine – knowledge seemed to be necessary to define quality and to find the perfect match.
Some elitist connoisseur were able to communicate and analyze its structures, whereas the majority, probably intimidated to reach out for the refined, just consumed driven by promises or price.
Like a tasty wine enhances a good meal, a well composed perfume underlines life in its most beautiful way – without distracting, it intensifies emotions, character, moments.

Perfumery workshops are now trending – and will make haute perfumery more fun but also accessible. All courses are hosted by real enthusiasts and professionals, always featuring an arty edge and are open to specialists but also amateurs.

The workshops hold by independent perfume house AER once a month in Berlin focuses on all natural perfumery, which is still special in the business. Within in 3,5 hours basics are teached and a personal, unique and botanical fragrance is created. In a cool and cozy apartment in Berlin Mitte, it feels like being in the founders living room, with a glass of sparkling wine of course.
Creative Director Ted Young-Ing and Head Of Perfume Stefan Kehl present the workshop themselves – it’s handmade like their bespoke perfumes.
The course includes a short take on history and ingredients plus some more technical knowledge to form an understanding before each participant starts mixing.  Everyone is encouraged to associate and work on their personal preferences, though the AER experts assists with their trained taste and noses. After three hours, many exciting scent-explorations and combinations, it’s time to finalise the mix.  The last touch, after the 10ml elixir is bottled, is naming of the perfume – and it’s almost as fun and interesting as creating the scent.

Extensive courses like the ten day program  Art Of Perfumery À La Francaise in Versaille dig deep into the world of perfume, not only focusing on the actual smell but also chemistry and marketing. With different courses hold by many big names from the industry, this is most pro version of all events.

A poetic and very modern take on perfume is performed in Brooklyn: Marissa Zappas, experimental scent artist, holds the Foundations Of Perfumery: Scent And Decay events. In four evenings, students learn hands-on methods of basic perfumery, techniques of creating accords, olfactive language and the history of perfumery through the lens of decay. Each class will begin with a short introductory lecture before delving into a hands-on practice of perfume formulation – at the final day, everyone will mix their own fragrance.

But, unlike wine, perfume can be more than just a night’s sip – ideally, it’ll be in the air and on skin for many moments, months or even years. Learning about it makes sense – and better scents.