FRAGRANCE
Jo Jacobius – IFRA, UK Richard Scott – Editor, Personal Care
‘Our Fragrant World’: review of IFRA Fragrance Forum
The annual Fragrance Forum 2015 ‘Our Fragrant World’ held at The Royal Society in London in October and opened with IFRA UK director welcoming guests and introducing the Chairman of the Association and of the first of three sessions, Jonathan Gray. He had just been voted to remain as Chairman for a further term, at the Association’s annual general meeting, held immediately prior to the Fragrance Forum. Opening the presentations was Dr Alex
Rhys-Taylor, a sociologist from the Centre for Urban & Community Research at Goldsmiths College, London. Dr Rhys-Taylor gave a fascinating account of how the smell of cities can be just as informative as their skylines. People also judge areas on their olfactory signals, and so think differently about a street depending on whether a wave of fried chicken scent hits them or the smell of freshly made flat white coffee. These smells represent an almost unconscious socio- economic flag and can as a result also significantly affect the prices of houses in the area.
The smells of industry have also shaped the city of London, with more affluent areas being developed in the West, while the poorer areas were historically in the East. The prevailing wind travels from East to West and so, the more well-to-do areas never had to suffer the effects of unpleasant city smells.
Medicine’s relationship with the sense of smell In his presentation, Professor Jonathan Reinarz, a specialist in the History of Medicine at the University of Birmingham, revealed how much greater a role scent and the sense of smell played in assessing the health of people and environments in the past.
In his talk, entitled ‘Detecting Disease
– The Pathological World of Smell’, he introduced his research on ‘past scents’ and the historical use of olfaction in medicine. Prof. Reinarz said: “Histories of smell often offer a selection of foul and fragrant subjects and situate them within particular
18 PERSONAL CARE February 2016
The annual Fragrance Forum 2015 held at The Royal Society in London.
eras and a specific thematic field. Religion is one topic where such an approach has dominated, with good smells regularly associated with heaven and hagiographies, and bad smells effectively demarcating sin and Satan. This early sensory model was readily applied to the world of medicine and health, with good smells indicating health and healthy environments, and bad smells being closely associated with pestiferous regions.”
Other senses, notably sight and hearing, were extended with the introduction of new instruments, while smell appears to have been forgotten as a diagnostic tool. Professor Reinarz wondered whether we will ever see similar efforts to augment smelling power.
Prof Reinarz pointed out that: “The rise of aromatherapy initially linked to the new bacteriological tradition, given the germicidal strength of the oils at the heart of this therapeutic practice. Simultaneously, it appears connected to an unbroken chain of practices which originated in ancient civilizations, as existed in Egypt.” He concluded: “The traditional views that have associated pleasant smells with health have been overturned in the last
decades of the twentieth century. Besides bans on smoking, increasing numbers of individuals and groups, citing allergic concerns, have tried to ban perfumes from public places. “Are perfumes destined to go the same way as the peanut?”
Folk stories brought to life Many of us strive for a better memory. Whether it is teenagers taking exams or older people questioning why they came into a room, we encourage scientists to find a key to improved memory. A key to that particular door has, it seems, been under our noses for centuries or as the next speaker, Dr Mark Moss, put it: “I study the bleedin’ obvious – things our grandmothers told us. What I’ve managed to prove is what everyone knew already,” citing the Ophelia quote: “There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance,” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5. Dr Moss, head of Department of
Psychology at Northumbria University, has been researching the effects of certain common aromatic herbs – in particular rosemary. His finding is that by sniffing this apparently simple staple of so many
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