L'Odorant

23/07/2024

Materials, smells, colours, tools, textures, layers

10/02/2024

If you want to train your nose, you don’t necessarily have to buy expense perfumes or essential oil kits. Paying more attention to your surroundings can pay off too! Taking a mindful stroll or just smelling more attentively on the way to work or school, and trying to name what you appreciate or dislike, is a great way of expanding your smell palette.

On the first photo you can see a couple of workshop participants going on a walk around the block in Venice to “collect” smells. Back in the gallery, we shared the smells we had gathered to see if there were duplicates, and we put them on a cart of the city.

13/01/2024

It’s been almost a year! And what a year it’s been.

It started out with a terrible nausea which made one of my favourite smells (garlic and onion frying on a pan) turn my guts upside down.

Three months later, the nausea stopped, but a new perfume free life had begun. My nostrils were (more than usual) extremely attentive to the smells surrounding me. If someone wore Chanel Coco Mademoiselle in the metro, I had to pull my scarf up to protect my fragile nostrils.

Later in the spring, my friend Margot and I had to run down and sit in the basement of a bar we were having a drink in, when the awfully smelling (and painful) tear gas that the police threw, made its way through the windows.

In May, the big city smells were replicer with the one of lilacs in my childhood garden.

Since October, I’ve been sniffing warm skin, breast milk and diapers.

And now I’m looking forward to continue working with L’Odorant although the settings have changed :)

Photos are a selection of smell encounters during this period of my life - do you recognize any of them from your own?

16/05/2023

We had a lovely time smelling, talking and discovering different smell cultures across the world. Thanks for the invitation Soul Food, and thanks to the group of boys for sharing this afternoon with me, it was a true pleasure!

06/02/2023

Il reste quelques dernières places pour les ateliers chez le 9 et 11 février ❤️‍🔥

#972

05/02/2023

While in Martinique, I’ve had the chance to inhale some interesting smells. A few days after arriving, I went to visit a communal garden in the Citron-Trenelle neighborhood of Fort-de-France. Here, I met up with Jean-Michel and Giovanni who are taking care of the garden, and using planting techniques respectful of the environment, with an afro-descending approach to botany.

In the garden, you’ll find the Shampoo ginger, a species of plant in the ginger family.

Once the flower heads are mature, they fill with a slimy and aromatic liquid and turn a bright red color. The fragrant juice that has a pleasingly sharp and sweet ginger scent is used for softening and bringing shininess to the hair. It really does smell and feel like shampoo as you rub the flower head in your hands!

The plant originates from India but has since travelled around the world. Early Polynesians used the dried rhizome powder of the plant to scent their clothes 😍

02/01/2023

🌅
A few moments captured during my last workshop at Ola’s bringing together some of the volunteers that work with Soul Food as well as the founders of the organization.

Scents are such a great conversation starter! And playing with them makes you feel like a kid again.

Here’s to playing and smelling a lot more in 2023 💛

🌅
Voici quelques instants capturés lors de mon dernier atelier chez Ola’s réunissant quelques-uns des bénévoles qui travaillent avec Soul Food ainsi que les fondateurs de l'organisation.

Les odeurs sont un excellent sujet de conversation ! Et jouer avec elles vous fait vous sentir à nouveau comme un enfant.

Jouons et sentons beaucoup plus en 2023 💛

23/12/2022

A couple of weeks ago I led a workshop for a group of girls who are helped by France terre d'asile

Giving them a break from an otherwise hard reality, we spent an hour and a half smelling, drawing, talking and laughing. At the end of the workshop they each made their own little perfume, combining three different essential oils 🌸

This activity was part of Soul Food’s cultural programme for migrant youth. You can support their work by buying their merchandise or donating via their website 🧡

All photos are taken by Kryssandra Heslop 📸

11/12/2022

Blocking the nostrils for a little moment in order to fully understand the fonction of retronasal smell. This particular exercise was done with pink peppercorns.

09/12/2022

Translating smells into shapes 🟢🙌👀

03/11/2022

It was while listening to the song “Almeda” by Solange Knowles that I first came across it a couple of years ago. In the chopped and screwed song, she sings that “black faith still can't be washed away, not even in that Florida Water”. Something about the way it was sung repeatedly piqued my curiosity; what did it actually mean?

Very happy to share with you that my first essay is up on the blog. Click the link below to read more!

An introduction to the history of Florida Water and its magical powers

31/10/2022

Walking in the rain in an area that I’m not so familiar with, I stumbled upon this magical store, specialized in ancient newspapers and magazines. Such a great dusty smell in there. Can’t wait to go back to study the “Parfum” section…

07/10/2022

Which smell from today would you save for tomorrow?

What does air smell like?

How can we reconstruct smells of the past?

These questions among many others were raised at a workshop led by Ineke Huysman and Nadine Akkerman on October 5th at Atelier Néerlandais in Paris.

We started the afternoon off with discussing the reconstruction of Dutch scientist (and amateur perfumer) Christiaan Huygens’ perfume for his mother (oh boy, did he love clove!) and ended up talking about creating smell archives for the future.

An extremely inspiring bunch of history researchers, perfumers, neuroscientists and curators all added their layers to these exciting questions.

A beautiful example of an entirely field, where one of our challenges is to create a common language.

So many exhibitions, events and workshops to do, research to make, questions to raise !

Photos :
- An attempt of replicating the smell of the embalming of William the Silent, Prince of Orange after his assassination in 1584
- A look inside the brain, showing the parts that connect to smell and memory
- Ineke Huysman presenting the workshop

15/09/2022

~ Smelling time! ~

During this workshop, the participants were introduced to 18 essential oils. Not knowing the names of the different ingredients, the first challenge was to sniff, describe and discuss! And perhaps recognize some of them 😉

The five groups then created their own “smell concepts” inspired by themes associated with their company. The smell concepts all turned out super interesting!

Image : Yann de Gaetano
Sound :

26/08/2022

~ Welcome to L'Odorant ~

Website’s up and running, go check it out :)
Link in bio.

Logo by .studio ✨

Stay tuned for fragrant posts coming up soon!