A Sense for Scents

The Academy of Perfumery and Aromatics kindly sent me their A Sense for Scents Edu-Kit, containing 20 Whispis and some instructions. Whispis are neat little devices that provide a metered puff of perfumed air and also lock safely. They are apparently good for a few hundred puffs. The kit does not feature aromachemicals, but accords, like apple, wood, rose and more abstractly glacier, feathers and fur and fresh air. It comes with instructions and links, an aroma wheel and a mission statement from Christophe Laudamiel which —rightly— emphasizes the importance of smell to our lives. The kit costs $99 and is available in several languages. The design, intentionally or not, is in delightfully old fashioned 1995 PowerPoint style. It is intended as a teaching aid for schools. I shall be using it to explain smells to 6-year olds (they get it instantly, in my experience) at the French Lycée in Athens.