In my new novel, THE LOST PERFUMES OF PARIS, my main character, Élodie, dreams of becoming a perfumer as successful as her legendary mother.

To gain insight into Élodie’s creative process, naturally I had to take a perfume-making course myself. The first one I went to was with two of my closest girlfriends and we had a delightful morning, trying out different essences. We put a drop of each essence on a separate strip of paper, then fanned out the strips and waved them in front of our faces to smell the resulting combination. I asked a lot of questions and gained much useful knowledge to use in the novel.

What I loved the most about the process was learning that perfumers often compose a vignette describing a scenario or mood they want to capture with the perfume before they begin. This informs the essences they will use for the perfume. They might seek to evoke a mood or an emotion, recreate the memory of a place or an encounter with someone special. As I wrote my novel, I enjoyed the creative exercise of coming up with vignettes like this:

The cold scent of marble, a faint whiff of sulfur from ancient
Paris limestone, beeswax candles burning, worn oak pews. The must of old prayer books bound in butter-soft calfskin, holy incense arcs through the air. A waft of roses and lilies from the flower markets nearby. The secret mistress at the funeral; beneath her black veil, a slash of scarlet lips against white skin.

Top notes: cloves, black pepper, pink pepper, something floral(?), bitter orange. Middle notes: rose, violet, jasmine (to evoke the Madonna lily). Base notes: frankincense, tuberose,vanilla, labdanum, vetiver, cedar, amber

When I was in Paris recently, I couldn’t resist taking another perfume class, this time at Molinard in St Germain-des-Prés. I brought my son along with me and he had a lot of fun, too.

If you are looking for a special activity to do with friends, I highly recommend seeking out a perfume-making class near you.