This Weekend is All About Staying In and Polishing the Bannisters

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The Holy Trinity: Perfumes Made by Monks

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The rarefied aura that surrounds fragrance dates back to the remotest times of antiquity, when incense and fragrant oils would be offered up to the gods and deities of the ancient world. The Arab world is credited with introducing modern perfumery to the West, having preserved the ancient arts of distillation, evaporation, and filtration that had been lost to Christian society, and in turn heralding great advancements not only in the field of fragrance but of chemistry and science too. In passing this tradition on, Christian monks began to adopt the practice of creating fragrances as an expression of faith, before eventually the art form became available to the wider public, for a price. Today, most perfume is manufactured on a grand commercial scale; a far cry from the artisanal monastic traditions that gave birth to modern fragrance! However, some perfume houses still survive from this bygone age and serve to remind us of our industry’s history while continui...
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The following feature by Lawrence Roullier White appears in the September issue of Absolutely Magazine. Brent Leonesio of Smell Bent will be in store on Thursday 25th September - come and say 'hello'.  Traditionally perfumery has always been a difficult skill to learn, expertise and knowledge was handed down through the family so it was very much a closed shop. Budding perfumers could seek entry level work at one of the great fragrances houses and hope to learn the ropes on the job or train as apprentices with a master artisan perfumer but opportunities were few. Things opened up a little when the Givaudan Perfumery School in France opened in 1946. The school claims to be responsible for training the noses behind one third of fragrances on sale today, including Chanel’s Jean Polge and Hermes’ Jean-Claude Ellena, mastermind behind my beloved Cologne Bigarade for Editions Frederic Malle. Another school, The Institut Supérieur International du Parfum, was founded in 1970 ...
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