Contemporary Authors

• Perfume: Century of Scents - 2015 Hutchinson, UK

• Aspects Beauty - http://www.aspectsbeauty.net/news/216/exclusive-interview-with-lizzie-ostrum-aka-odette-toilette-part-1

  Exclusive interview with Lizzie Ostrum aka Odette Toilette (Part 1)

  Lizzie Ostrum talks stage names, Scratch and Sniff and what she’s going to do next...
  Lizzie Ostrom is one of today’s most exciting commentators on all things perfume. A lifelong fragrance fan, she began hosting events for people to discover the world of scent in 2010, as her alter ego Odette Toilette. From evenings on the aroma of outer space to scent tours of art galleries and trips through the past via the medium of perfume, she brings intelligence and wit to this most captivating of subjects. She is also the co-host of the popular podcast Life In Scents.

  The obvious question is how did you get the name Odette Toilette?

  Well I can’t really claim credit for the name as its a friend of mine who came up with it. When Odette Toilette was born I’d done one event for fun, and was planning more. And I wanted a stage name. So my friend took it upon himself to come up with one when he was over for dinner. After a few false starts he just said Odette Toilette and I knew it was the one. So I said ‘I’m stealing that’.

  You clearly have a passion for fragrance where did this come from?

  I did start young, but I should qualify. Some people think that when I was seven I had this massive perfume collection and was dancing around the playground in Dior! It really wasn’t like that, I wasn’t some terrible brat with 20 perfumes, but I did like my Avon catalogue and loved those gross sort of kiddy perfume type things that were around. And obviously my mum loves perfume and was always talking about it with me and so I’d always choose which one she was going to wear that morning, which I loved doing. As a child I was always into the imagination and the enchantment in what you couldn’t see, so I think perfumes are part of that way of experiencing the world.

  Can you tell us what your first fragrant memory is?

  First ever? That would be my Strawberry Shortcake doll, which I had when I was really young. I used to enjoy sniffing my toys and my teddy had a very particular smell, which used to make me sneeze as it was so dusty. I loved my Strawberry Shortcake, I think my grandparents gave her to me and I carried her around everywhere. I used to bash her tummy and make her smell and I just loved the idea that the smell of strawberry came from her……..

  What lead you to set up Scratch + Sniff Events?

  Hmmm they were really born out of creative frustration at a time when I was feeling a bit lost in my work. I had always had perfume as this side passion and that’s really where the impetus came from to do something. I had a gut feeling about doing perfume events, I wanted to try doing something to express the way I felt about perfume as there just wasn’t the outlet I was looking for. So it was definitely a case of create what you can’t find for yourself.
  My first event was at The Book Club. It was in the basement of this bar in Shoreditch, which had a ping-pong table outside the room - so I was always running outside to tell drunk people playing to shut up when they got too noisy! There was a talk in the first half which was a whistle stop tour through the 20th century in smells and that’s when Les Senteurs first got involved as they provided samples and James Craven came as guest speaker. In the second half I decanted loads of stuff into little bottles and each table got this little dish of samples and there would be different ways they’d have to share and talk about them and then we’d reveal what they were at the end so it was a sort of blind sniffing exercise. After that when I brought back Scratch and Sniff as a series each one had a theme.

  YOU Magazine have called you “The Heston Blumenthal of Perfumes” how do you feel about this?

  It’s one of those quotes that is handy as people know who he is - and people feel the need to compare something new against what they know - but I can't say I feel particularly Hestoney! I suppose there is the spirit of experimentation I identify with, but in my work it takes a completely different form especially as I am not at the coalface of being a perfumer or the chef equivalent.

  On that note would you ever think of making a fragrance of your own?

  What’s fun is that for various projects I’ve got to work with fragrance houses and we’ve made scents for installations, which is so enjoyable but there is only so far I can go. I know a lot of the materials now, but I’m not a trained perfumer nor would I wish to pretend to be.

  You’ve just published your first book ‘Perfume A Century of Scents’ which tells the incredible stories of 100 perfumes for each decade of the twentieth century. What was the initial inspiration, what made you actually want to write a book?

  Well in 2012 I was approached by a literary agent, Nicola Barr from Greene & Heaton. Nicola is brilliant, so the book was sort of in the works although it took a while to solidify in terms of the theme. Because I was doing my history events that eventually became the starting point after Sarah Rigby at Hutchinson picked up the writing. There are so many perfume books that I love and I’ve got all of them basically but I felt that there was an angle on the subject that hadn’t been done quite yet. So for example if you think about the Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez books and Barbara Herman’s Scents & Subversion, they are brilliant reference books for being able to use when you want to sniff something. I wanted to come at scent from its cultural role. I thought that what the book needed to be was a both a history OF perfume but also look at history THROUGH perfume so that you can use scent to illuminate other subjects as well. I thought that was the way actually to get perfume to a wider audience as sometimes if it’s too specialist it can be a little frightening…… whereas if I’m talking about the 1970s and Jaws the movie people will come further in with me. Perfume is a very big subject area but from the outside it can look very niche. It is actually huge and you can’t do everything in one title.

  Was there a special story within the book you really enjoyed writing?

  There are so many that I loved researching! There were certain moments that got me really excited like when I found the Travel Guide to Cairo from the 1920’s. There is a big bit in there about perfume shopping in Cairo and I’d been reading around Egyptomania and Egyptian themed perfumes for a while and I was really interested in it because it felt really modern as a story. We think that these days the number of perfume launches has gone wild, but then I kept finding all these gazillions of Egyptian perfumes in 1924 and they were just as wild as we are in terms of perfume ‘fever’.

  We’ve heard that a special fragrance was created for your wedding can you tell us a little bit about this?

  It was by Sarah McCartney. I wasn’t planning to have a perfume made but Sarah asked me and since she offered……. well YES. The brief was to create a winter version of my favourite perfume. Sarah sent me a few versions of this scent and it was really exciting especially as we did it quite quickly. The final version was wonderful, and then she showed it to some people and thought she would like to sell it. It’s now out as ‘Doe In The Snow’.

  We’re sure you must have quite an extensive wardrobe of fragrance – which one are you wearing today?

  Today I am wearing Worth’s Je Reviens ‘cos Stephan Matthews got me some parfum as a book launch present, and then I got another bottle at Kingston Antiques Market, and am rather enjoying it.

  We are always inspired by your creativity what does the future hold for Odette Toilette?

  I had the book on the go that was such a big milestone, but now it’s out I want to see what people respond to. I want to chill out a bit up to Christmas and then get planning, as life has been a bit full on!

• author's site - http://www.odettetoilette.com/

  ABOUT ME

  Odette Toilette

  “Odette Toilette…whose experiential Scratch+Sniff events, such as fragranced tours of Tate Britain’s Pre-Raphaelites exhibition and cake-fuelled vintage scent afternoons, have delighted Londoners.”
  – Financial Times

  Welcome to your olfactory playground. Who needs slides and roundabouts when you’ve got some tinkling bottles of scent to explore?

  I’m Lizzie Ostrom, a perfume obsessive who in 2010 started hosting olfactory events under my stage name, Odette Toilette. One of my friends said I’m a scentertainer which I thought was gross. Yet here I am, using it anyway.

  To me, scent (or smell, call if what you will) is as important to life as books and music. I wanted to open up this magical yet often mysterious world, and to connect it with lots of other cultural subjects. Whether that’s history. Literature. Film. Fashion. Art. Music; I haven’t yet done video games.

  I love coming up with interesting ways we can can enjoy, learn and be creative with our noses, whether you’re already interested (ie. addicted), or simply open to the adventure. I do truly believe that tuning into scent can offer us much joy – and it’s not just about smelling nice on a Friday night (wink wink).

  Since then I’ve hosted hundreds of events, from my own productions to curating and collaborating with many of our best-loved cultural institutions and companies. A few favourites:

  The Scent of Space with the Royal Observatory Greenwich, hosted in the historic Faraday Lecture Theatre at the Royal Institution

  An Ancient Greek scent symposium at the British Museum, held in the ruins of one of the Seven Wonders of the World

  Arranging the first Japanese incense ceremonies in living memory in the UK, in partnership with Fornasetti Profumi – an unforgettable experience which involved flying over Souhitsu Hachiya of the Shino-Ryu incense school in Kyoto.

  I’m asked by companies from L’Oreal to Ruinart, Peroni to Unilever, to develop memorable experiences and launches for press and consumers, or to host creative workshops for corporates looking for unusual client and team entertainment. Backstage, I often consult within the fragrance and food industries on new product development.

• cpl aromas - https://www.cplaromas.com/fragrance-trends/talking-scents-with-odette-toilette/

  Talking scents with Odette Toilette
  Words

  CPL Aromas
  Posted
  1 October 2016
  Share

  Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Email

  Lizzie Ostrom, aka Odette Toilette has many strings to her bow; event curator, author, blogger, purveyor of olfactory adventures and perfume obsessive. She chats to us about her fragrant events, her views of the industry and her most beloved scents.
  Your role in the fragrance industry is quite unique, how did you get into it?

  You could say the whole thing started by accident! I didn’t start with the intention for it to become a business, I wasn’t a professional in the industry I just decided to start running events as a hobby from the position of being a really engaged consumer who loved fragrance. There was a way that I wanted it talk about it and enjoy it and I didn’t feel like that was out there. I wanted to see if it was possible. I wanted to explore what fragrance could be about and see what the limits were and where it could have relevance for people. That’s what has always really driven it. To take scent and look at it and try to discover what it really is and what it means to people.

  The first events were called Scratch + Sniff as I wanted it to sound fun, like something that would be a fun event in a bar on a weekday night, that’s where it grew from. I started doing little evening events, then they became bigger evening events, then I’d be asked to do corporate events and then suddenly the fragrance industry heard of me and became intrigued. That was when I thought, “this is much more fun than my actual job” so I decided to fully concentrate on it and turn it into a business. I was working in the events industry previously and worked on quite creative ones so that had me in good stead on how to create interesting events. It was one of those things that got a of bit momentum behind it and built up fairly organically.
  What was your first event like?

  The first scratch + sniff event was a bit of a random free-for-all. I held it in a bar and it involved a lot of drinks! It started off with a tour through fragrances of the 20th century. There were scents for each decade and each table had vials containing unknown fragrances. I had set different games and challenges so it got them to really get talking about what they were smelling. The first event was quite simple and experimental. It was a one off event, but then I started doing them monthly and that became the time when each one had more of a theme.
  And Odette Toilette?

  The name Odette Toilette came randomly from a friend of mine one evening, we were playing around with ideas for a ‘stage name’ and he came up with it, so I owe him! Most people seem to know me as both so it’s like a fun Jekyll and Hyde situation now!
  What’s your favourite thing about the fragrance industry?

  From the point of view of someone who is outside of the fragrance industry, not a professional or perfumer, just a consumer who loves fragrance, my favourite thing is that it’s a bottomless well of incredible creative practice, technology, people and ideas. I sometimes think that those who are in the industry don’t realise just how fascinating it is to those outside.

  “I wanted to explore what fragrance could be about and see what the limits were. To take scent and look at it and try to discover what it really is and what it means to people.”

  From the outside people think the fragrance industry is really quite specialist and tiny but it’s actually this huge creative entity. If we think about something like the wine industry, it’s one drink but it’s huge and there are endless fascinating things to learn about it you could go on forever and I think the fragrance industry is the same. That’s what I love about it, the more you get into it the more there is to discover, it’s endless. Also I’ve been increasingly interested in functional fragrances, alongside fine fragrance, there’s now so much creativity that goes into those kind fragrances that people in the public realm just don’t know about yet. It’s just so fascinating.

  I also love the heritage and the history of fragrance but also how fast moving it is. And I love thinking about where the excitement for new fragrance comes from. It often doesn’t come from where you think it would, there always so many different types of story in there.
  How do you think promoting and selling scent has changed? Do you think it’s become more difficult?

  If you look back to the 1970’s everything seemed much more straightforward then. You had a handful of launches per year for a start. There was a formula for launching them and there was a relatively good bet that they would succeed if they had the right ammunition behind them. And now I think that certainty has very much gone and so I feel a lot of fine fragrance marketing has become more conservative. Some marketing campaigns now can be derivative and unimaginative, there is no wow. There is also a challenge now that the way that we want to buy fragrance is changing, for example; hand bag bottles, discovery sets, experimentation, so it’s almost like the product model needs a new kind of marketing, because with fragrance you’re not selling someone an identity, you’re selling them a set of possibilities which is what I think the market is moving towards.

  The niche market is not so niche anymore. It’s also very much collection based now too than one fragrance so you need to how do you sell a collection? If you have one fragrance, you can have a great story behind it, but now you have to have a story around a whole collection. I also think as ecommerce grows there will have to be more innovation in marketing.
  What do you think a new fragrance needs to do these days to stand out and be different?

  I think increasingly it needs a compelling story coming from its creator. Over the last 15 years or so, the perfumers have finally become more important but I think that the founder of the product has to be able to represent the fragrances, whether it’s because they are also the perfumer or because they are very good at working with the perfumers. Without the ability to talk confidently and in detail about the story of the fragrance and about its creation then you’re sort of stuck, you’re not going to get beyond that surface layer, the layer of a general release. It may smell nice and be a great perfume but to stand out there needs to be a story behind it and some passion.

  The fragrance pyramid is obviously still relevant but the appetite is growing to know what’s really in a perfume rather than just what it smells like. So I think you need to be more open about that and not be so scared about sharing it. Don’t be scared about competitors because they’re going to be able to smell it have a good guess at what’s in it anyway.

  I also think that the danger at the moment is lots of gimmicks and, especially in niche, there’s the idea of “let’s launch a line themed around some really ‘out there’ ”. I recently saw one inspired by sea urchins, so I can’t help but wonder if we really need that? New brands need to think carefully about what their story is and why is it going to be interesting. A story that is quirky isn’t necessarily going to be a scent that people want to wear just because it’s crazy.

  I do think that brands that have fewer launches, that take their time and don’t launch with 15 fragrances but instead launch with three or five are easier to get a handle on. Brands need to think carefully about the range and how they’re classifying them, I don’t think it has to be about novelty. But I think you do need to have something you really want to say with a fragrance.
  What predictions do you have for the fragrance industry and it’s consumers over the next 5 to 10 years?

  It seems to be that in Europe and the USA enthusiasm for fragrance is growing and it seems to be growing outside of fine fragrance. Like the perfumery of laundry care, and air care and hair care. Functional products where scent is so important, there’s a chance to do something really interesting. I think there could be a fatigue of being overwhelmed in the fine fragrance market but open to excitement when it comes to your body lotion, so I would say alternative formats for fragrance could grow.

  “it seems enthusiasm for fragrance is growing outside of fine fragrance. Like functional products where scent is so important, there’s a chance to do something really interesting”

  Home fragrance has so much potential to grown even more, it’s never ending, there so many new applications for air care. However I do worry about the gadget side because there are lot of people in technology who are adding fragrance to their products, but they don’t understand fragrance they understand gizmos and the danger is having this range of products with possibly unremarkable scents purely for the novelty of it. I think it’s a real missed opportunity.

  Wearable fragrance, as in jewellery and accessories, has loads of potential. If we think about it in relation to regulatory, if there are ingredients that we can’t put on our skin then that opens up the pallet for perfumers again. But it’s got to be commercial, it’s got to be something that people actually want, it can’t be some silly hat that no one is going to wear. If it’s done well then I’m excited about it because if means materials that have been difficult to use in fine fragrance can be used again then that’s great. Also, I think that encapsulation and where that’s going is really exciting, there are so many possibilities for encapsulation, it’s really great for hair care and longevity of fragrance.
  Lastly, if you could pick one fragrance or scent to wear from now on, what would it be?

  That’s so hard! I can’t pick just one! It would usually just be whichever my current favourite is, but that will always change! If I really had to wear one fragrance for the rest of my life I would rather wear no fragrance at all because I wouldn’t want to be stuck with something and end up resenting it. I’d actually rather be able to bottle the smell of my home than a perfume because I think that what is comforting and meaningful is every day scents.

  But if I really have to whittle down my list, I‘ve got huge soft spot for White Musk by The Body Shop, I don’t wear it that often but I really love it. It’s almost like it quietens me down, I smell it and it makes me feel cocooned and feel good about things. If it disappeared from the market I would be really sad as I love the fact that it is always there to buy. I would also pick Diorella by Dior. It’s a sort of herby, fruity, chypre fragrance, so very sparkling on the one hand. You spray it on and it’s a bit like a cologne but then it turns quite weird and interesting. It’s a really good every day favourite of mine. Lastly I would also choose some kind of rose perfume; I would probably go for Nahema or Mitsouko by Guerlain. Just to be able to smell them and really appreciate them and just go “wow these are amazing creations”.

  I love fragrance, but sometimes there’s too much choice, there are more fragrances than we could ever want and yet we still say “oh I still can’t find what I really want!” Most of us are still yet to find the holy grail of the fragrance world, but what a brilliant world of scents we have to explore to go on and find it.

• les senteurs - http://www.lessenteurs.com/pg/211/INTERVIEW-Odette-Toilette-Subsection

  For five years, Odette Toilette has organised some of the most exciting, fun and ground breaking events in fragrance. Her Vintage Scent Sessions, where she looks at the art, culture and fragrance of past decades, have become a firm favourite and a Les Senteurs staple. Elsewhere, she has covered everything from chocolate to superheroes.

  Which perfumer amuses and intrigues you most?

  Amuses and intrigues? What a question! Most definitely Germaine Cellier. Her perfumes are so full pageantry as to be almost like a cast of characters from a commedia dell'arte. They just seem to come out of nowhere in the 1940s and then she's gone again. What a woman. I don't know that much about her (in fact most comes from you, James) but she sounds like someone I'd have like to have met.

  FracasFracas for Robert Piguet, created by Germaine Cellier in 1949

  Do you ever take a break from perfume and as it were "go commando", fragrance-wise?

  Not intentionally, but now and then I forget and it's no biggie. Unless it's a pitch meeting and then I think they're thinking: "You cretin! You work in perfume and you're not even wearing any!"

  I am more annoyed when a perfume wears off through the day, and then it's 6pm, I'm out that evening and have been deserted by my fragrance.

  Do you have a favourite perfume era? Was there truly a Golden Age of Scent?

  A Golden Age for whom? For the "it" crowds with pots of money probably 1910-1914 and the 1920s when perfumes really were exquisite little packages of delight, tasselled and all, and when houses had that frontier mentality of experimentation. I'm thinking of all those Rosines and early Carons. You look at the old adverts and they really were fetishised. But for most women and men then the 1970s were just brilliant: give me a truckload of Diorella, Magie Noire and Opium and I'm happy.

  Also for all our hearking back on the good old days, if a woman from an hundred years ago could come to the Les Senteurs of 2014, she'd be aghast and delighted by the spoils.

  Tabac BlondTabac Blond for Caron, created by Ernest Daltroff in 1919

  Do you think there will ever come a time in this fast-changing world when perfume becomes obsolete?

  I doubt perfume will become obsolete, it is more that sometimes the tide goes out a little, and then swishes in again to knock you off-balance.

  Which "lost fragrance" would you most like to smell?

  For sentimental reasons: Biba perfume. My mum used to shop there and has been telling me about it since I was about eight. Aargh I want to go. And annoyingly she chucked out all her Biba clothes before I was born! Even though she doesn't talk particularly about loving own-brand scent, I feel like if I got to try it, it would be some way of hanging out with her back in 1975....if anyone has a bottle lurking, call me...

  Do you yearn to create a fragrance of your own?

  No. I am no perfumer and so rely on the experts who know what they're doing.

  Also I got an utter treat when Sarah McCartney made me something for a special event which links to the Richmond Park answer below - so I kind-of do alright.

  What is your favourite smell?

  Richmond Park: the smell of the bracken in high summer, and frosty old trees in the winter.

  Cheese on toast in the oven, too....

  Where do you stand on the Oud Question?

  If the industry needs a bandwagon to keep itself chugging along and making some dough, then why the hell not?

  Who is your favourite writer on perfume?

  Why Lemon Wedge of course!

  If you were a perfume...who would you be? And of course, why?

  Hmm, who would I be? Or who do I aspire to be.

  On a good day Chanel's Coco for its scent of mellowed glamour. And I've always loved the artwork of a lady in evening dress chilling out in the library on a leather sofa as if she's having a rest. Because why be in the thick of the party when you can be lying down and listening in the room next door?

  For some reason I feel a personality match with Nuit de Noël. Hard to articulate - maybe you'll know better than I?

• cos stores - http://www.cosstores.com/us/Magazine/SS16/Lizzie-Ostrom

  Lizzie Ostrom believes that, of all the senses, smell is the least understood, leaving her plenty of scope for wild olfactory experimentation. Indeed, from an office in London’s Somerset House, Lizzie has been busy becoming the world’s foremost purveyor of “scent adventures”. Just a spritz from her magic bottles can take you on a fragrant journey from the boudoir of a 1920s courtesan to the interior of the Apollo 11 shuttle. Her freewheeling but meticulously planned events, hosted under the alias Odette Toilette, have explored phenomena as diverse as scent’s role in teen nostalgia and the ancient Japanese incense ritual Ko¯do¯. Lizzie recently parlayed her encyclopaedic enthusiasms into a book, Perfume: A Century of Scents, and she’s also the proud inventor of Ode, a fragrance-release system designed to subliminally stimulate appetite among people with dementia.

  ANDREW TUCKER: What’s your earliest scent memory?

  LIZZIE OSTROM: Well, if you’re expecting me to say that I remember my first birthday from the smell of blowing out the candles on the cake, you’re going to be disappointed. I’m suspicious when people make those kinds of statements. In the act of remembering, you often falsify memory or reinforce it and because smell is intangible, it’s particularly prone to reinterpretation.

  AT: There must be some smells you associate with being little, though?

  LO: Oh, yes. I can’t have been much more than a toddler when I was given a Strawberry Shortcake doll that exhaled a synthetic strawberry scent. She must have been loaded with scented beads or something. It was a really fake strawberry, but it smelled so good – really artificial but addictive – and it lasted and lasted. I looked her up online recently and she’s terrifying!

  AT: When did you succumb to more conventional scents?

  LO: I was given some Tinkerbell cologne at my birthday party and I became so obsessed by it that my mum confiscated it. She thought it was inappropriate for a small child.

  AT: Aha, so it became a forbidden fruit.

  LO: Maybe. I also really loved cooking when I was little, but because I made such a terrible mess, mum was reluctant to let me loose in the kitchen. Nowadays that’s my other great passion.

  AT: Food and fragrance. You sound like a bit of a sensualist.

  LO: Maybe. When I think about how much pleasure can be had from food and fragrance, I’m sad for people who don’t enjoy them, for whatever reason. For instance, I once had a boss who hated food and would eat tuna straight from the tin for lunch. I’m just trying to remember if she wore a perfume...

  AT: I deliberately wore no fragrance today as someone once told me that you shouldn’t when you meet people for the first time. What if I was wearing something that stirred up bad memories for you?

  LO: You have a point. My mum used to wear Chanel No. 19 until she and my dad went flat-hunting and the owners of one place were boiling cabbage.

  AT: A bold sales tactic!

  LO: Ricidulous, right? Anyway, the next day my mum put on her No. 19 as usual and my dad said, ‘Oh my god, the cabbage!’ The green plant extract in the perfume – the galbanum – had become irredeemably mixed up with cabbage smell. She never wore it again.

  AT: Has that ever happened to you?

  LO: In the UK, at least, the body spray Impulse 02 is guaranteed to make women of my age cringe. It’s a pretty innocuous smell in itself – a bit like Juicy Pear jelly beans – but it reminds us of school bullies and feeling insecure.

  AT: Surely, as a teenager you were wearing something more esoteric though?

  LO: Yes, L’Artisan Parfumeur Premier Figuier. I initially saved up enough pocket money to buy a small scented candle, which I’d burn while I did my homework. Then I tracked down the shop in London and bought a bottle.

  AT: You must have been considered quite the sophisticate.

  LO: Oh no, I didn’t dream of telling anyone what I was up to. At school the obsessions were make-up and spots – not fragrance.

  AT: So you didn’t end up studying perfumery?

  LO: No, I studied English at university and then ended up getting a job in restaurant PR. Perfumery remained a mystery.

  AT: So how did Odette Toilette come into being?

  LO: I’d lost a sense of purpose at work; I was just coasting along. Then a friend told me about a venue that was looking for people to stage events and convinced me to sign up. As the date got closer I tried to back out, but I was already in the programme so I had to bite the bullet. I started with events that examined a particular era in perfumery. After that came more abstract experiences.

  AT: Why did you want to diversify?

  LO: My number one love is perfume, smells constructed for the purpose of seeming beautiful and interesting. But you have to remember that if you’re only tuning your nose into perfumes you can become inured to other smells around you. The more esoteric experiences are a reboot for the senses. I once did an event around the smell of space.

  AT: Surely as there’s no atmosphere, there’s no smell?

  LO: Quite the opposite. Apparently, moon dust smells of gunpowder because its particles combust as astronauts re-enter their spaceships.

  AT: How fascinating.

  LO: I worked closely with Marek Kukula, the public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Part of our research was based on the compounds and constituents of various gas formations – and then trying to approximate something that could work as a smell. Obviously, some of the gases are deadly, so we had to tread carefully. We approached the suppliers of raw fragrance materials with a brief – for instance, something that’s sulphurous – and then we’d get it in a non-toxic form.

  AT: Are people ever disgusted by what they smell at your events?

  LO: There’s only one perfume I’ve ever brought along that’s made people retch and that’s Secretions Magnifiques by Etat Libre d’Orange – although some absolutely love it. It’s so metallic and weird, with an asparagus element, and a blood accord.

  AT: Do you have a cupboard full of strange compounds at home?

  LO: No, but I do have a lot of molecules. I’m not a chemist but, when there’s a component that’s really instrumental in a fragrance it’s helpful for me to isolate it so that I can recognise it elsewhere. For example, now that I know that isobutyl quinoline smells quite tarry, I can detect it all over the place.

  AT: Which molecules are prevalent at the moment?

  LO: There’s a molecule called Iso E Super which seems to be in everything. Depending on what that’s combined with it can smell woody or metallic. Hedione is another classic.

  AT: What’s that?

  LO: It doesn’t exactly have a smell of its own. You could say it’s loosely based on jasmine, yet it doesn’t really smell of flowers; it’s also a bit mariney, a bit ozonic and it makes more latent ingredients pop and fizz – a bit like the monosodium glutamate in a lot of Asian food.

  AT: Taste and smell seem to be very close cousins, wouldn’t you agree?

  LO: Absolutely. Supermarkets and bakeries have known for a long time that smell is the most effective way to get us excited about eating.

  AT: How did you come to be thinking about fragrance in the context of care?

  LO: Well, increasingly, the designers of care homes are thinking about how they can design spaces sensitively for Alzheimer’s sufferers, and how to make people feel as comfortable as possible given that they’re not in their own home. I’d already done an event in a care home during which residents got to revisit fragrances from the early 20th century – things they might have worn in their youth. The organisers later told me that the residents had remembered my event for a long time afterwards, whereas normally they’d forget activities almost instantaneously.

  AT: How did that translate into a product?

  LO: Then came a call for entries from the Design Council. Supported by the Department of Health, they were looking for ideas that could improve quality of life for those with Alzheimer’s, and originally I thought about developing a perfume to make people feel comforted. But dementia isn’t just about a decline in memory and behaviour change; it’s also about physical decline. The thing that came up again and again when I was researching it was weight loss. When people get admitted to care, they often just stop eating so much.

  AT: They forget to eat?

  LO: Yes, or they just don’t feel like eating because they’re not subject to sensory cues that you get when cooking is going on around you. So I thought about how to artificially create smells that whet the appetite. It seemed like an obvious way to help address behaviour-related malnutrition. I teamed up with design agency Rodd Design and we saw significant weight gain in people who trialled our diffuser, which can be programmed to emit hunger-inducing fragrance before mealtimes. It’s available commercially now and we’re hoping it goes somewhere.

  AT: How challenging is it to recreate food smells?

  LO: It can be really hard to make them authentic. Cake is easy enough, because there’s a well-developed palette of sweet, so-called ‘gourmand’ smells in the fragrance industry – such as ethyl maltol, which smells of caramelised sugar, or benzaldehyde, which is like an almond frangipane. Authentic fruit is generally tougher to replicate, which is why manufacturers so often go down the Strawberry Shortcake doll route.

  AT: What about a beef stew?

  We do have one now, but it was a struggle. In a lot of cooking, the smell comes from the Maillard reaction, the chemical reaction as foods brown. In the case of a savoury dish you can’t just simulate burning sugar, because it’d be too sweet and one-dimensional. Yet meat-evoking smells can be tricky because they tend to cling to fabrics, which can be unpleasant.

  LO: What’s the most popular smell for the diffuser?

  Bakewell tart. Cakes are popular generally, because you tend to get a sweeter tooth as you age.

  AT: Can you do a curry?

  LO: Originally a lot of homes said that residents wanted mostly traditional British food. But as our ageing population is more and more ethnically diverse, it’s changing. So yes we do have a curry. We used things like cumin, clove, coriander, coconut, and lots of prune bases, that give a dried-fruit edge.

  AT: What, apart from demographics, dictates whether a smell is in favour or not?

  LO: It’s always evolving, and for so many reasons. In the early 20th century there was a lot of writing in which different psychological traits and behaviours were ascribed to certain scents. For example, during the First World War there was a very successful morality play on Broadway called Experience in which patchouli represented deceit. Right now there’s a lot of discussion about how fragrances react with the wearer’s own skin. It’s much more personalised than before.

  AT: Are there other trends you can put your finger on?

  LO: At the moment we’re still in what I call the post-Angel world, Angel being the Thierry Mugler scent that heralded the popularity of ‘gourmand’ or candy scents. Interestingly, it’s an equally powerful trend in men’s fragrance.

  AT: Do those mainstream scents have a place in your library?

  LO: Absolutely. Lots of scents that have sold well aren’t great examples of the ‘art of perfumery’ but they offer a better lens on history than some obscure work of genius that may not resonate with anyone but a perfume historian. It’s like what Noel Coward said about the potency of cheap music.

  AT: To what degree is our perception of those fragrances dictated by the packaging they come in?

  LO: Everyone is obsessed with cross-modal perception at the moment – the idea that you perceive with all of your senses. I was at a trade event recently and we were given a specific scented molecule on a piece of card. Simultaneously, the organisers showed us some typography and we were asked to write down three words to describe the smell. Then we got another tester strip and another font – except it was the same molecule again. A trick!

  AT: Did it work on you?

  LO: Yes. The first one I experienced as a watermelon-like smell, but the second time it smelled like fennel. This kind of thinking is trendy at the moment but you can trace it back from the Futurists to the development of neuroscience and our quest to understand the brain and what sensory information is doing to it. The look and the smell of something aren’t totally distinct.

  AT: Clothes make the man.

  LO: Everything is interlinked. People often say to me ‘oh you’re so niche’ but, for most of us, smell is one of the five senses, so that’s patently not true. It’s one fifth of the way we experience the world, and yet it seems, we’re only just starting to appreciate that now.

  P.S. Every month Lizzie’s events series The Vintage Scent Sessions brings a welcome waft of the past to the salon at Les Senteurs, a perfume shop in the London neighbourhood of Marylebone.

• wired - http://www.wired.co.uk/article/lizzie-ostrom-smell

  Lizzie Ostrom wants to transform people's lives through their noses

  By Oliver Franklin-Wallis
  Friday 30 October 2015

  This article was first published in the November 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

  Scent designer Lizzie Ostrom wants you to think differently about smell. Odette Toilette, Ostrom's London-based design firm, uses olfactory experiences to evoke reactions our other senses cannot -- from reimagining paintings as perfume to exploring the subconscious through events and products. "A lot of my practice is about how to apply fragrance where it's not normally used," says Ostrom, 33.

  Take ode, her device designed to help stimulate appetite for people with dementia through smell. "As dementia progresses, you
 see high instances of malnutrition," she says. Like an alarm clock, ode emits hunger-stimulating scents around mealtimes. "Sweeter fragrances seem to be very good at stimulating appetite," she says. "We did a test with 50 people, and over a ten-week period more than half of them put on weight." ode is now being used in care homes around the UK.
  READ NEXT

  We got sprayed in the face by a 9D television
  We got sprayed in the face by a 9D television
  By Matt Burgess

  Self-taught in the art of scent-making, Ostrom insists she is not a parfumier. "I didn't go to France and train for seven years," she laughs."I think of myself as an entrepreneur."

  Add author to the CV: on October 22 her first book, Perfume: A Century of Scents, is published by Henderson. "It's a story about technology and innovations in the perfume industry, but also how lifestyles and cultures changed," she says. She also recently worked with design studio Flying Object on Tate Sensorium, a multi-sensory installation at London's Tate Britain museum.

  Such high-profile projects, Ostrom says, illustrate the quiet revolution happening in the perfume world. "There's been a huge growth in
the indie or 'scent designer' scene," she says. "Fragrance has been shrouded in mystery. My work is trying to help dispel that."

Lizzie Ostrom: PERFUME
(Oct. 1, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Lizzie Ostrom PERFUME Pegasus (Adult Nonfiction) 26.95 ISBN: 978-1-68177-246-2

A British perfume aficionados breezy tour of some of the 20th centurys most popular scents.In her debut, Ostrom examines 100 years of fragrance history, dividing the text into 10 chapterseach of which discusses 10 different perfumesthat cover a single decade in the 20th century. The earliest decades saw a turn from all-natural floral scents to those like Le Trfle Incarnat, which incorporated such synthetic molecules as coumarin and vanillin. At the same time, perfume began to seep beyond its traditional home among royalty and the aristocracy and become a novelty for popular consumption. The 1920s and even the Depression-era 30s saw a dazzling profusion of scents. These perfumes were sold as part of an elegant and liberated (for women) lifestyle, of the kind suggested by Chanel No. 5, which was declared a classic from the moment it was unveiled in 1921. World War II brought with it a scarcity of production and shift away from France as the sole center of fragrance production. American perfumes like White Shoulders began to arrive on the scene. With the 50s came a return to elegance, but without the free-spiritedness of the 20s. Change and rebellion characterized the scents of the 60s, which ran the gamut from classics like Shalimar to the hippie favorite, patchouli oil. The 70s were an era of blockbuster perfumes intended for mass consumptione.g., Love's Baby Soft. In the decade that followed, scent grew in volume to become an extension of female and, increasingly, exposed and glorified male bodies. After the excesses of the 80s, the 90s brought a refreshing unisex simplicity and youthfulness, of the kind found in CK One, Tommy Girl and Joop! Homme. Witty and informative, Ostroms history reveals the way fragrance speaks for historical eras while also evoking them.Light, pleasant reading for both lovers of perfume and popular culture.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lizzie Ostrom: PERFUME." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA465181776&it=r&asid=1dbc77f4210e0660737ead86860f0916. Accessed 9 July 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A465181776

Ostrom, Lizzie. Perfume: A Century of Scents
Liz French
141.13 (Aug. 1, 2016): p92.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
* Ostrom, Lizzie. Perfume: A Century of Scents. Pegasus. Dec. 2016.384p. illus. notes, bibliog. index. ISBN 9781681772462. $26.95; ebk. ISBN 9781681772899. DEC ARTS

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

British perfume blogger Ostrom (odettetoilette.com) does what many would say is impossible: she describes scents and perfumes in an accessible way. This title does so much more, though. It also glides through the 20th century, touching down on Paris in the Twenties, London in the Swinging Sixties, and the United States in the form-fitting Fifties, with historical tidbits sprinkled throughout. Charmingly and never cloyingly, the author presents 100 fragrance profiles, organized by decade, each with a brief historical overview of four to five pages. Each era is assigned exactly ten perfumes, but more often than not there are mentions of other smell-alikes of the times and knowledgeable references to certain scents' forebears. The entries are delightfully short, some poetic, some tongue-in-cheek, one a pastiche of a 1960s spy movie. Ostrom has nicknamed every elixir to perfect effect (a few favorites: "Poison, the pollutant perfume"; "Hai Karate, the self-defence fragrance"; "Joop!, the boyband perfume"), and her musings about celebrity scents (Celine Dion has 16!) and the online perfume community are on the nose. VERDICT Some Britishisms may sail over U.S. readers' heads, but this pleasantly illustrated scent sampler will send perfume lovers and fashion historians over the moon.--Liz French, Library Journal

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
French, Liz. "Ostrom, Lizzie. Perfume: A Century of Scents." Library Journal, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 92+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA459805018&it=r&asid=ccc4cf64ed2f20ee40f93df9f8d87aa3. Accessed 9 July 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A459805018

Lizzie Ostrom: Perfume: A Century of Scents
.5691 (Nov. 6, 2015): p18.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 The Bookseller Media Group (Bookseller Media Ltd.)
http://www.thebookseller.com
LIZZIE OSTROM

PERFUME: A CENTURY OF SCENTS

Hutchinson, 16.99[pounds sterling], 9780091954536

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This is a giddying, gleeful, whistlestop tour of the 20th century through 100 perfumes, 10 for each decade, led by the lively Lizzie ostrom. a lifelong lover of scent, a few years ago she ran a sampling event--like winetasting, only for perfume--on a whim. As odette Toilette, she now regularly runs such gatherings and also hosts a podcast, called "A Life in scents". A chatty, personable voice presumably honed by these experiences comes across in her zippy prose. Her extensive research--embracing novels, adverts, magazines, journals, newspapers and films--communicated with a light touch.

REVIEW BY xxx

for welovethisbook.com

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lizzie Ostrom: Perfume: A Century of Scents." The Bookseller, 6 Nov. 2015, p. 18. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA433881731&it=r&asid=07bae3996157c60938144bd4fbcc6840. Accessed 9 July 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A433881731

O Rose thou art sick
India Knight
329.9772 (Dec. 12, 2015): p86.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
http://www.spectator.co.uk
Perfume: Century of Scents

by Lizzie Ostrom

Hutchinson, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 384, ISBN 9780091954536

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Choosing to smell of something other than ourselves, and then perhaps in time coming to view that fragrance as 'our' smell--essence of us--is an odd business. I can't wear Mitsouko because it smells of my great-aunt, for instance, which is at least relatively straight-forward, but I also can't wear Angel by Thierry Mugler because it smells of the Nineties and desperation; or L'Eau D'Issey because it smells of makeupless women in oversized clothing, stranded balefully in minimalist interiors; or anything with tuberose, tragically, because it powerfully reminds me of having morning sickness while wearing Fracas ('my' scent, until suddenly it became my kryptonite--so disgusting, now).

I judge people on how they smell, in a wildly snobbish way: anything too clean and fresh gets them dismissed as either simpletons or Americans, who like things to smell of laundry or cake; anything too recherché and 'interesting' seems crudely attention-seeking; anything too loud is too loud; but then anything too quiet is mimsy and annoying. So many scents are awful, which is why airport beauty halls smell of toilet cleaner. Sometimes the perfumes people wear make me chortle to myself, because they're so at odds with that person's external presentation: the jolly, ruddy-cheeked lady, stout-shoed, who favours the dirty-knickers notes of musk or ambergris; the sultry bombshell who smells of English gardens after rain rather than, say, opulent, damp, tropical gardenia; the gritty bloke who perhaps isn't aware that he smells of 18th-century aristocrat. It's all to do with sex, of course (you can always tell people who hate sex by the scent they wear. As a broad rule, people who really like sex tend to be unperfumed --sweat and skin, innit--though there are exceptions).

Lizzie Ostrom is a terrific perfume blogger, writing under the not entirely successful pen name Odette Toilette. Perfume is a marvellous and illuminating romp through the 20th century's most historically significant fragrances. She picks ten scents to define each decade, each of these scents representing a particular aspect of perfume. So in the 1920s, for instance, she takes the sublime Habanita--clove, carnation, vanilla and leather--and tells its story: it was the first 'smoking' perfume, she says, because flappers and jazz babies smoked as they partied and because Havana, with its suggestion of tobacco rolled on gleaming brown thighs, was suitably risqué-sounding. In the 1930s we have, among others, Tweed by Lenthéric, which Ostrom catagorises as the 'outdoor' perfume, 'practical and hardy', the antithesis to the self-consciously glamorous scents that came before. In 1946, the launch of Black Satin by Angelique --the 'publicity stunt' perfume--saw America's towns and cities literally bombarded with scent, in the form of perfumed dry ice (this was called Operation Odiferous). It's a wonderful, well-informed read and I loved it, but what Ostrom doesn't do enough is to tell you how things actually smell, which is especially irritating when she is dealing with scents that are no longer around. Writing about the actual scent of something in an adequately evocative and opinionated way is unbelievably difficult, and where she does write about the actual smell she does so beautifully (of Ma Griffe, it 'refashioned the scent of gardenia, taking it from candlelight to neon ... Ma Griffe turns a 7 am Monday morning wake-up in February into a shriekingly bright day').

I wish there were more of those bits. But it's a lovely book, and if you're thinking about Christmas presents I would buy it in conjunction with Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez's magisterial Perfumes: The Guide, which I swear on my life is better and more entertaining than most novels, and which tells you exactly what things smell like. As a series of stories about the stories we tell when we wear X or Y, though, Ostrom's book is charming and illuminating.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Knight, India. "O Rose thou art sick." Spectator, 12 Dec. 2015, p. 86. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA437118055&it=r&asid=6f39fc00bd3313cef5282d9e68e8fc0b. Accessed 9 July 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A437118055

Connect: Behaviour - The rise of scentertainment
(Sept. 1, 2015): p53.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 Haymarket Media Group
http://www.haymarket.com/home.aspx
The effect of aroma has long been recognised, and now many brands are keen to add some olfactory seduction to events, says scent aficionado Lizzie Ostrom

Whether it's food creatives Bompas & Parr's Flavour Conductor for Johnnie Walker belching out scented chords as it's being played, or perfume-making events turning gin into wearable scent, the popularity of aromas in the design of events has never been stronger.

Offering a novel twist, scent is an under-explored, quirky medium that, used with originality, can help to generate buzz around an event. More than that, for audiences it enhances a feeling of immersion within a place or theme. As a sense, smell is famously powerful in helping an occasion stick in the mind. And, when so many of our experiences are now mediated by screens, there is something refreshingly analogue about aroma, even when delivered using the latest kit.

Scent events have changed dramatically since 2010: what began as themed perfume discovery nights, the equivalent of a wine tasting for clients in the fragrance industry, has evolved, to the extent that brands beyond the beauty world increasingly want to animate their offer through scent.

This desire to create sociable experiences has included hosting masterclasses on perfume history for Ruinart's sommelier programme; scent tours for French drinks brand Teisseire; 'edible perfume' creation evenings; and producing an armchair journey into modern Rome through sequenced scents and sounds for the House of Peroni.

As consumers became inquisitive about flavour through the growth of cocktail or coffee culture, that interest broadened to include the sense of smell. And ever more nuanced event propositions are required to meet that growing sophistication.

Although these experiences are new, there are some incredibly bold examples of brand activation in the 19th and 20th centuries that may inspire today's event planners.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Eugene Rimmel founded one of the most fashionable perfumeries in London, which is still going strong today Rimmel knew how to get the word out using an arsenal of scented collateral at events. He would partner with theatres to provide fragranced programmes. He would sell scented Valentine's cards, almanacs and calendars. And, most impressively, he developed a range of fountains that spurted out perfumed water, which were hired out at events and parties to promote his range.

In the first half of the 20th century, brand activation took to the skies. In 1908, the John Gosnell Company promoted its Cherry Blossom scent using giant perfume bottle-shaped hot-air balloons, which hovered over cities, dispersing promotional material overboard. Famously, in post-war 1940s Paris, couture house Carven generated buzz for its Ma Griffe perfume by tying samples to little parachutes dropped over the city. My favourite example comes from the two American entrepreneurs behind the then best-selling Angelique perfume brand who, in the 1940s and 50s, staged a number of aerial tricks. These included perfume 'bombs' thrown from planes manned by pin-ups, taxis emitting puffs of fragrance, and even a scented snow descending over parts of Connecticut.

Performance was another hot area for scent. Early silent cinema experimented with fragrance diffusion even before musical accompaniment was included, and performers - whether in the Ballets Russe or English music hall entertainment - were figureheads for renowned perfumes promoted alongside a live show.

In the 1930s, Lentheric created La Danse des Parfums, a series of scented concerts in which each piece of music was inspired by a scent, which turned into a sell-out national tour and slot on NBC radio. More recent examples have revisited this trend: Lush's scent off-shoot Gorilla Perfume has been running Scented Songs, an in-store events series based on collaborations with musicians, who play tracks that are accompanied by pairings of Gorilla's scents. Meanwhile, Penhaligons, as a partner of London Fashion Week, will fragrance the catwalks of British designers.

In the past, it was, perhaps obviously, perfume entrepreneurs who saw potential in extending their scented products into experience. Now, drinks and car brands are natural bedfellows for the medium. What will be interesting to see is how far this goes: will scent remain the novelty option, or will it overcome its sometimes faltering progress and realise its creative potential?

RECENT EXAMPLES

The new BMW Seven Series will offer customers a luxury add-on of one of four exclusive fragrances diffused within their cars. To launch the offer, BMW commissioned TRO to host VIP events where the venues, including Goodwood and Gleneagles, were suffused with the scents as guests arrived, using technology from The Aroma Company.

In January this year, Glade launched a pop-up gallery in New York that encouraged customers to explore its new household scents in emotion-themed rooms, such as 'Relax' and 'Anticipation'. They could also wander through a virtual (and scented) field of flowers using Oculus Rift.

To promote its fragrance offer and new Salon de Parfums, Harrods recently produced a range of interventions, from a bus stop emitting floral scents to a wall of scented paper flowers, as well as a garden at the Chelsea Flower Show that invited visitors to explore how perfume is made, and which linked back to products in-store.

When transitioning Office 365 from a desktop to mobile product, Microsoft hired agency Nock to create a promotional installation divided into four zones, each of which animated a different environment, from 'outdoors' to 'on the move'. Scent, alongside sound design, was key to curating these distinct spaces and attracting people to the stand.

Lizzie Ostrom (also known as Odette Toilette) is a scent expert, events producer and author of the forthcoming Perfume: A Century of Scents, which will be published by Hutchinson.

--------------------

Did you find this article useful? Why not subscribe to the magazine? Please call 08451 55 73 55 for more information or visit www.haysubs.com

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Connect: Behaviour - The rise of scentertainment." Marketing Event, 1 Sept. 2015, p. 53. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA430711088&it=r&asid=d99da9b91bcb6cb30c9a3f1352a3bc42. Accessed 9 July 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A430711088

Scent Specialist Takes Cardiff Met Students on a Journey Through the Scents of the 70s
(Nov. 11, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Plus Media Solutions
http://european-union-news.newslib.com/
Cardiff: Cardiff University of United Kingdom has issued the following news release:

An audience of students, alumni and 70s fans have stepped back in time to enjoy an interactive and nostalgic scent journey through the defining smells of the 1970s at an event hosted by Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Students were given an insight into trends and fragrances from the era and the biggest influences on these scents such as fashion, from fragrance expert and author Lizzie Ostrom

Lizzie, also known by her stage name Odette Toilette, holds perfume themed events around the country, sharing her expertise on perfumes. At her events, she connects perfumes with cultural subjects such as history, literature, film, fashion, art and music, exploring these topics with her audiences through sense of smell.

Lizzie was invited by Sally Grant, CSAD's Senior Lecturer in Textiles and Fashion, to hold one of her famous interactive olfactory events at Cardiff Met's state-of-the-art School of Art and Design. Sally is researching Glam Fashion and the City: from 1969-1975.

Lizzie brought with her a collection of defining perfumes from the era, including lots of 40-year-old vintage original bottles. Testing the perfumes allowed the audience to engage with typical scents and helped contextualise the defining smells of the 70s against fashion movements, trends and designers.

Some key perfumes, smelt by all and discussed at the event, included Opium by YSL, Jean-Louis Scherrer, Empriente, Charlie and Diorella, by Dior, a personal favourite of Lizzie's

Lizzie showed how each fragrance played its part in defining the times by offering a social commentary and snap shots of fashion that was influential in the era, such as work from designers YSL and Halston.

Lizzie said: "The 1970s is my favourite decade for perfume. It was the era of big budget, blockbuster scent fashion houses like Yves Saint Laurent and Halston. Oriental perfumes like Opium were spicy, animalistic and decadent to go with the 'Me Generation' mood - the notion that everyone should have access to self-expression and entitlement.

"You also had more sexual liberation in the 70s and the open marketing of fragrances which would allegedly have erotic appeal. We saw this particularly in the craze for synthetic 'skin musks', the most popular of which was Jovan Musk Oil, which commercialised and made mass-market the counter-culture appeal of the late 1960s musk and patchouli oils that had been put out there by counter-cultural pharmacies and head shops.

"There were also fragrances that quite deliberately tried to get on the bandwagon of feminism, but flaunting themselves as offering modern-leaning, breezy perfumes for the modern woman - not the bourgeois housewife styles of the past. So think the breezy, green geranium Rose Rive Gauche by YSL as a perfect expression of this mood. "

The event was also a great opportunity for Sally Grant to showcase dresses from her personal archive by Ossie Clark, as well as designs from Celia Birtwell's recent collections for Topshop and Laura Ashley originals, also from her personal archive.

Sally said: "The event was inspirational for all who attended. Odette Toilette aka Lizzie Ostrom, has a unique take on fragrance and cultural history and reminds us of the significance of the financial clout of perfume to the fashion houses they bankroll. Vintage fashion is also a huge area of interest in the UK."

In case of any query regarding this article or other content needs please contact: editorial@plusmediasolutions.com

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Scent Specialist Takes Cardiff Met Students on a Journey Through the Scents of the 70s." European Union News, 11 Nov. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA470389743&it=r&asid=6cb20ff9931217fbbeab5983e3d1be4a. Accessed 9 July 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A470389743

"Lizzie Ostrom: PERFUME." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA465181776&asid=1dbc77f4210e0660737ead86860f0916. Accessed 9 July 2017. French, Liz. "Ostrom, Lizzie. Perfume: A Century of Scents." Library Journal, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 92+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA459805018&asid=ccc4cf64ed2f20ee40f93df9f8d87aa3. Accessed 9 July 2017. "Lizzie Ostrom: Perfume: A Century of Scents." The Bookseller, 6 Nov. 2015, p. 18. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA433881731&asid=07bae3996157c60938144bd4fbcc6840. Accessed 9 July 2017. Knight, India. "O Rose thou art sick." Spectator, 12 Dec. 2015, p. 86. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA437118055&asid=6f39fc00bd3313cef5282d9e68e8fc0b. Accessed 9 July 2017. "Connect: Behaviour - The rise of scentertainment." Marketing Event, 1 Sept. 2015, p. 53. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA430711088&asid=d99da9b91bcb6cb30c9a3f1352a3bc42. Accessed 9 July 2017. "Scent Specialist Takes Cardiff Met Students on a Journey Through the Scents of the 70s." European Union News, 11 Nov. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA470389743&asid=6cb20ff9931217fbbeab5983e3d1be4a. Accessed 9 July 2017.

• independent
  http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/perfume-a-century-of-scents-by-lizzie-ostrom-book-review-sweet-smell-of-excess-a6697011.html
  Word count: 454

  Perfume: A Century of Scents, by Lizzie Ostrom - book review: Sweet smell of excess

  Hutchinson - £16.99

  Suzi Feay
  Sunday 18 October 2015 10:22 BST

  Click to follow
  The Independent Culture
  Perfume-A-Century.jpg

  It can be socially awkward to ask acquaintances what delicious fragrance they have on. For each one who replies: “Thanks! It’s Mitsouko,” there’s another who will back away silently. “Your perfume’s lovely. Is it Diorissimo?” I once enquired, only to get the oddly furious response: “NO.” Perhaps it’s just us Brits; something to do with a historical aversion to hot water or the notion that only a lover should get close enough to know what we smell like.

  Lizzie Ostrom’s entertaining romp through a century of perfumes, 10 per decade from 1900 to 1999, quickly makes the connection with sex, but also with snobbery, hygiene and aspiration. What she does not do is go into detail about how things actually smelled or were formulated. Rather, this is a collection of stories about the historical significance of perfumes in the modern era, going way beyond “the juice” into how they were marketed and packaged, and what magic quality or meaning they were intended to convey.

  Even putting perfume on skin is a relatively new idea; rather, it was dabbed on handkerchiefs, fur or leather gloves. But who knew that there was once a product aimed at scenting the eyelids? Or that there were fads for eating perfume dripped on to sugar cubes, or even injecting it?

  Ostrom has assiduously trawled early magazines, studied adverts and even found references to perfumes in now-forgotten novels, as well as Ulysses, where Molly Bloom turns her nose up at the generic cheapie “peau d’Espagne” (Spanish leather). Wacky stunts, lavish launches and celebrity endorsements always featured, with fragrances attached to famous swimmers, Gaiety Girls and actresses. Samples of Ma Griffe were dropped on Paris via parachute, and one company soaked all its cheques in its signature perfume “to provoke intrigue among female clerks”.

  You would never guess from this book that many veteran perfumes have changed their formulations over the years, owing to high costs of materials and EU regulations. Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez’s indispensable Perfumes: The Guide has fuller details, along with a vivid sense of how things smell. (Though Ostrom’s “Calvados-infused fruitcake” description will certainly make me sniff again at Chanel’s Coco.)

  This book is as delectable an artefact as the product it describes. The classification on the back is “Gift/History”, which is about right: the perfect accompaniment to a bottle of J’Adore in your stocking.

• el paso times
  http://www.elpasotimes.com/story/life/2016/12/24/perfume-lizzie-ostrom-solid-pop-culture-guide/95625814/
  Word count: 462

  Perfume' by Lizzie Ostrom a solid pop culture guide
  Oline H. Cogdill, Associated Press Published 9:06 a.m. MT Dec. 24, 2016 | Updated 9:06 a.m. MT Dec. 24, 2016
  Book-Review-Perfume-Jone.jpg

  (Photo: AP)
  CONNECTTWEETLINKEDINCOMMENTEMAILMORE

  Fragrance has always been wrapped in social and economic issues, controversy, memories and history as Lizzie Ostrom so persuasively shows in the lively "Perfume: A Century of Scents."

  The 10 chapters — each devoted to a single decade — examine 10 different perfumes that influenced that decade. A sharply focused introduction to each chapter further puts the decade — and its fragrance fashion — in perspective.

  While "Perfume" is by no means an encyclopedia about scents, it is a solid pop culture guide that incorporates fragrance fashion into the shifting tides of society. Many of the perfumes mentioned through the decades have disappeared — a mere whiff of a memory — no matter how popular at the time.

  This is true not just of those from the 1920s but also those manufactured in the 1990s. Others such as Chanel No. 5 have been classics from the first day and remain favorites of all generations.

  Advertising fragrances isn't a new idea. In 1908, the British firm Gosnell's launched a hot air balloon shaped like the bottle of its Cherry Blossom to fling out flyers over crowds — an idea that seems modest next to perfume fountains that threw fragrance into the air during the Victorian Era in England.

  What has changed is the rise of the internet and certain sites that curate myriad scents in one-stop shopping, making exotic perfumes even more accessible.

  Celebrities' influence on fragrance also goes back decades. Compare the Gibson Girls of the 1900s mentioning the "utterly obscure" Poinsettia with the avalanche of current pop stars such as Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber hawking their scents.

  Technology and chemistry gave companies new ways to produce scents, taking it away from the rich and elite of society and making it available to the masses. Ostrom shows that each decade had certain scents that define it. During the global depression of the 1930s, Joy by Jean Patou, "the most expensive scent ever released," was introduced and is still available today.

  World War II brought a new challenge as many perfumeries urged their customers to "treasure your last pinch" of fragrance as advertisers urged against buying until after the war. As a result, France ceased being the epicenter of fragrance production as more began to be manufactured in America. The return of fragrance during the 1940s was seen as a symbol of hope. That's a far cry from the "big, bad, loud-and-proud perfumes of the 1980s" when many restaurants put up signs banning Giorgio Beverly Hills, along with smoking.

• now smell this
  http://www.nstperfume.com/2016/09/26/perfume-a-century-of-scents-by-lizzie-ostrom-book-review/
  Word count: 692

  Perfume: A Century of Scents by Lizzie Ostrom ~ book review

  Posted by Angela on 26 September 2016 15 Comments

  Perfume: A Century of Scents by Lizzie Ostrom

  Halfway through Lizzie Ostrom’s Perfume: A Century of Scents, I set down the book and wondered who it was written for. Not the perfumista. Ostrom’s essays on the book’s 100 featured fragrances often leave out key lore or information on a perfume’s place in the pantheon, its history, or sometimes even how the perfume smells. Then it occurred to me: the book isn’t about perfume, it’s a telling of social history through perfume.

  Perfume: A Century of Scents presents ten fragrances for each of the twentieth century’s decades and an essay introducing each decade. Each fragrance gets a Thurber-style illustration and a snappy nickname. The book starts with Houbigant Parfum Idéal in 1900 (“the Queen-Bee Perfume”) and ends with 1996’s Demeter Dirt (“the Un-Perfume”).

  When I say that the book isn’t really about perfume, I mean that, for instance, in Ostrom’s essay on Diorissimo you won’t find the story of Roudnitska’s study of his patch of lilies of the valley, or even much of a description of how the fragrance smells. Instead, once you’ve waded through a page of how tough it is for men to buy perfume for their wives, you get a comparison of Diorissimo to Grace Kelly and Dior fashion’s “modest, appealingly feminine lines.” It's a comment on the times. Similarly, the essay on Youth Dew ignores how it was one of the first fragrances women bought for themselves, or its queer relationship to Tabu, and talks about the smell of retro suburbia. I don’t note this to put the book down — I enjoyed these takes on each fragrance — but rather to let you know what you’re getting into.

  Also, in the “wow, this is fabulous” or the “please, no” category is the book’s voice. At her best, Ostrom is Auntie Mame, waving her bejeweled cigarette holder as she weaves a hilarious and on-the-nose story about a particular fragrance’s place in history. I laughed out loud more than once. However, I can imagine some people growing weary of the style and zoning out through the pages of semi-colons, dependent clauses, and adjective-laden chattiness.

  Perfume: A Century of Scents is packed with great stories and fascinating nuggets of information. Did you know that Michael Jackson wore Bal à Versailles? Or how about Paco Rabanne’s briefing for Calandre, quoted via Michael Edwards, which instructed perfumers to imagine a story where a man “takes the girl for a ride along the seaside…He stops in a forest…there he makes love to her on the bonnet of the car”?

  That said, in my casual reading, I stumbled over a few errors. For instance, the book lists Sophia Grojsman as the nose behind White Diamonds, when it’s Carlos Benaïm and Olivier Gillotin. Old Spice’s debut falls under 1937, which is true — for the original Old Spice, a women’s fragrance. This matters, because her description is about how Old Spice is the ultimate “nice guy” male fragrance. Ostrom writes about the “Normandie” cruise ship and Patou “Normandy” in the same sentence. They're both named Normandie.

  But for many people settling down with the book on a cold afternoon with a pot of tea, these are nitpicking details. Most people will take in the book a few essays at a time, enjoying Ostrom’s wit and potpourri of anecdotes. This is how I recommend reading it. Pretend you’re at a cocktail party in the company of a chatty magpie of knowledge with an interest in fashion and a fat stack of vintage magazines at home. With this approach, Perfume: A Century of Scents will be a fun companion over your holiday break.

  Perfume: A Century of Scents by Lizzie Ostrom is available now in the UK. The US edition (Pegasus Books) will be available on December 6, 2016, and is $26.95 hardcover.

• salt lake tribune
  http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment/4735417-155/book-review-perfume-by-lizzie-ostrom
  Word count: 374

  Book review: ‘Perfume’ by Lizzie Ostrom a solid pop culture guide
  By OLINE H. COGDILL The Associated Press
  First Published Dec 21 2016 01:05AM • Last Updated Dec 30 2016 04:24 pm
  Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest Email Print
  Share This Article

  Fragrance has always been wrapped in social and economic issues, controversy, memories and history, as Lizzie Ostrom so persuasively shows in the lively "Perfume: A Century of Scents."

  The 10 chapters — each devoted to a single decade — examine 10 perfumes that influenced that decade. A sharply focused introduction to each chapter further puts the decade and its fragrance fashion in perspective.

  While "Perfume" is by no means an encyclopedia about scents, it is a solid pop-culture guide that incorporates fragrance fashion into the shifting tides of society. Many of the perfumes mentioned through the decades have disappeared no matter how popular at the time. This is true not just of those from the 1920s but also of those manufactured in the 1990s. Others, such as Chanel No. 5, have been classics from the first day.
  VIDEOS
  TOP JOBS

  Celebrities' influence on fragrance goes back decades. Compare the Gibson Girls of the 1900s mentioning the "utterly obscure" Poinsettia with the avalanche of current pop stars such as Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber hawking their scents.

  Technology and chemistry gave companies new ways to produce scent, taking it away from the rich and elite of society and making it available to the masses. Ostrom shows that each decade had certain scents that define it. Joy by Jean Patou, "the most expensive scent ever released," was introduced during the global depression of the 1930s and is still available today. World War II brought a new challenge as many perfumeries urged their customers to "treasure your last pinch" of fragrance, while advertisers urged against buying until after the war. As a result, France ceased being the epicenter of fragrance production as more began to be manufactured in America. The return of fragrance during the 1940s was seen as a symbol of hope. That's a far cry from the "big, bad, loud-and-proud perfumes of the 1980s," when many restaurants put up signs banning Giorgio Beverly Hills, along with smoking.

Word Count