In addition to my research and teaching, I develop, formulate, and compound technical scent applications for non-commercial purposes. My unconventional path to scent creation draws on over 12 years of research on scent-themed interactions, practices of cultural mediation, smell walking/mapping, aromatic resources in the context of wine education, traditional perfumery, and experimental/technical applications. My focus is on mixed-media (i.e., natural and synthetic) applications, which are intended for smelling, rather than wearing (i.e., conventional fragrance, such as perfume). While I do not manufacture commercial fragrances, my practice is compliant with international and Canadian regulatory limits used in professional fragrance formulation and cosmetic applications. Indeed, the benefit of adopting a slow learning ethos and working at my own pace is that I have been able to focus intensely on my own learning, rather than growing a business. This also reflects the reality that my scent practice is ancillary to my broad-based research on varied domains of practice beyond scent and my critical, rather than commercial, orientation to pedagogy and practice. 

A critical orientation 

Drawing on my doctoral field work studies in Grasse, France and my post-doctoral research on sourcing (and creating) aromatic training standards wine education, my practice is firmly rooted in learning, literacy, and skilled practices involving scent and aromatic materials. As I (continue) to argue throughout my work, there is a gap in the knowledge related to understanding scent from the ‘inside out’  thanks to the still dominant sensory paradigm of olfaction that has maintained narratives of scent at the site of consumption, rather than production and that I refer to as ‘sensory solipsism.’ To this end, my work calls attention to the environmental and material contingencies of aromatic learning, communicating, and making that reside at the other end of the nose. 

In contrast with commercial appeals to emotions, memories, and hedonics and that encourage us to “nevermind what‘s IN the bottle — how does it make you feel?” my own scent practice is materials-centric (rather than affective or purely aesthetic) that calls attention to unconventional, uncanny, and hard-to-access ingredients (both natural and synthetic) that do not scale to commercial production and depart from the cliched and unimaginative corporate fragrance products, such as elevator-filling colognes and other largely non-voluntary impositions of fragrance, that permeate our daily lives. 

From this critical standpoint, my orientation to understanding aroma ‘from the inside out’ encourages the public to ask more questions about the politics of production (beyond the pleasures of consumption alone), such as the provenance, cost, and labour required for fragrance creation, the regulatory landscape (and why it matters), and why it is we know the names of artists but not the perfumers who create our favourite fragrances. This is not to discount the pleasure of fragrance but to consider how universalist appeals to emotion, psychology, packaging, and devices discourage a more extra-social and material understanding of the contingencies of production. 

Contrary to popular belief, the notion that scent should be valued merely because it might ‘trigger’ fixed emotional responses (i.e., Lavender is universally ‘calming’ to anyone; Orange is universally ‘stimulating’ to anyone, etc) independent of lived socio-cultural diversities, geographic location, and physiological factors (i.e., anosmias, impairments, genetic differences, etc). This is not to say that I am arguing that scent (and other modalities, such as sound) does not have powerful and often wonderfully pleasurable influence on our emotions and physical states but that it is not the only story and that it is possible to appreciate scent from more than one perspective. For me, this involves a strategic emphasis on aromatic materials and sources as a modal resource for learning, literacy, and deliberate forms of communication – much like cooks, sommeliers, chemists, or perfumers do not merely ‘feel’ their way to literacy and competence but train in very specific ways with very specific materials. 

The Proustian problem

Contrary to popular belief, smell is NOT the ‘most’ powerful or even effective cue for memory or emotions. In fact, scientific studies of olfactory cued memory (against other modalities such as visual images or sounds) found that the majority of participants had much stronger recall with visual stimuli, such as photographs [see Avery Gilbert’s, What the Nose Knows for an accessible and non-specialist explanation of the science of scent].

The dominant myth that any scent will magically and ‘automatically’ trigger emotions or trigger the recall of lost memories fails to account for a great many real factors, such as prior exposure to the odourant and also, most importantly, the properties of the chosen odourant (not merely ‘what’ it – supposedly – smells ‘like,’ but, more technically, what it does). What is often (incorrectly) attributed to ‘memory’ is much closer to the unremarkable process of association (i.e., the smell of coconut reminds me of suntan lotion – that is not a olfactory triggered memory but a simple association). As neuroscientists explain, the things we call ‘smells’ are both an outcome of functional processing and ever-changing cross-modal cultural, social, and lived associations, such as the common association of lemon scent with cleaning products or association between the use of red colours for products with a perceived spicy or ‘warm’ scent. As well, multi-modal associations between colours, words, and sensations is not the same as synaesthesia or sensorial exceptionalism/giftedness but the very ordinary way all humans go about ‘making’ sense of, and communicating, our perceptions of varied stimuli. These associations are not ‘fixed’ or static but ever evolving and can be learned, re-mapped, and forgotten.

In the case of olfactory ‘triggered’ memories, they are actually far less frequent and rare than marketers (and journalists) often claim. The problem with the popularity of the Proustian notion of scent memory is that it is an exercise in storytelling and a quite laboured attempt at “recollection” (Gilbert, 2008). True olfactory triggered memory, on the other hand, is immediate, jarring, often unwanted, and, sometimes, even traumatic. Contrary to popular belief, putting a scent inside a pretty box to smell will not ‘magically’ retrieve memories and emotions among diverse individuals, and neither will those individuals be able to perceive or correctly identify specific odour without prior exposure and/or deliberate and ongoing training — just as a drug sniffing dog at the airport or competitive sommelier requires costly and ongoing exposure and practice training with specific odourants to correctly identify them – ‘use it or lose it’ as the saying goes. From a more scholarly angle, these critiques also reflect the shortcomings of so-called stimulus-response theories that James Gibson long ago rejected. In my own research on applied and skilled domains of aromatic practice, I have observed that the over-determination of subjectivity, emotion, and memory also serves to actively obscure important and critical counter-perspectives – of scientists and non-academic practitioners alike – that contradict the cherished myths and bogus anecdotes that continue to enjoy circulation in the media and popular culture.

While these still dominant narratives of scent may well be more accessible and attractive to consumers and non-specialists, they are far less interesting (to me) than the material and molecular basis of scent as a tangible modal resource for learning, communicating, and making. Given that I am often asked about these kinds of narratives, I felt it was important to articulate my own position here and how, specifically, my work departs from the functional and sensory paradigms of smell.

Scent mediation versus ‘device-driven’ interactions

Through my field work studies in Grasse (linked in the first section), I observed (and smelled) first-hand how the most meaningful and relevant uses of scent in the context of curation, interpretation, and public education requires a full-time staff of mediators to provide the kind of one-on-one tutored explorations of raw materials (such as a hunk of vetiver root pictured in my dissertation), and the living plants in rooftop greenhouses and multi-acre garden (run by the perfumery museum), and hands-on workshops, in contrast with leaving it to the museum’s many scent devices to, somehow, scaffold context that actually requires many years of training and experience to skillfully mediate.

As I explain in my dissertation, there are many problems with leaving it to a device (or static novelty scent feature) to ‘mediate’ a meaningful visitor experience with scent. As I often observed when recording data about visitor interactions was how little visitors understand about the scent they were smelling, how to smell it, or its relevance to the collection. Yet when these same scent devices were used during tours with the mediators, the visitor experience was much more interesting and meaningful as guides would not only provide important context but also help visitors make personal connections and compare their impressions with others on the tour. While I was initially curious about the scent devices when I arrived in Grasse, my dissertation ultimately became an extended critique of ‘device driven’ approaches to scent features, including the problems with poorly designed devices that either absorb or mute the (very very costly) scents inside, or else require almost continuous maintenance and malfunctions. 

The use of scent in galleries and museums is not ‘new’

While the use of scent in galleries and museums isn’t new, the fascination with scent delivery devices and novel scent interactions continues to grab headlines. Indeed, almost weekly there is another media story declaring that scent is being used “for the first time” in a museum or art exhibit thanks to often hastily prepared articles (that borrow anecdotes and claims from other hastily prepared articles) that ultimately function as viral marketing for the use of scent devices that Canadian curator Jim Drobnick likens to “precision air fresheners” (Drobnick, 2006). I argue that the media’s preoccupation with devices and gimmicky displays is akin to the consumer preoccupation with fragrance packaging (i.e., pretty bottles and boxes). From an even more critical angle, the fixation on formats also helps to conceal the embarrassing fact of how little many of us actually understand about about scent. As with fragrance marketing, appeals to emotion (and aesthetics) are often implicitly also appeals to ignorance reducing scent features to a kind of ‘vapourware’ as myself and my colleagues argue in our ‘Beyond Vapourware: Considerations for Meaningful Design with Smell’ (McBride et al, 2016). 

Bold claims and trendy gimmicks

The use of so-called “behavioural fragrance” features in hotels, retail, and entertainment venues used to sell scent delivery technologies that aerosolize high impact molecules into public space, is not only unethical (we can’t choose not to breathe) but a potential source of long term contamination thanks to the tenacious molecules used in these kinds of devices that make use of inexpensive aroma chemicals designed for industrial applications intended to embed into upholstery, clothing, and other places (these ‘sticky’ molecules do not belong). Accordingly, it doesn’t follow that a gallery would accompany priceless artifacts with the same novelty scents used in theme parks or make use of or the fragrances we’re already over-exposed to when we visit a department store or get into a crowded elevator or subway train. But it is not simply the use of scent machines (and generic scents) that can be a problem in the context of exhibit scents. Another problem is the use of impractical, unhygienic, and potentially dangerous display formats, such as the pseudo-scientific appeal of giant erlenmeyer flasks or interactions with loose parts (such as jar lids), or ‘dripping hazard’ formats whereby the nose hovers above the scent source (creating a literal biohazard and source of viral exposure), that do not reflect research-informed scent design principles but hastily conceived and stagey gimmicks that call more attention to the display than the quality of the materials we are smelling – and that is, actually, often by-design (calling attention away from the cheap or poorly conceived scent that the format contains).

Accordingly, the notion that simply installing an attractive scent display, however ill-conceived or poorly formulated, will magically trigger’ a pre-determined wish-list of desired responses (i.e., scent x will be ‘calming’) in the absence of relevant and research-informed design and skillfully developed scent applications (that behave in specific ways over time), along with relevant mediation strategies, ultimately reflects the same cynical marketing conceits used to sell fabric softener or cologne. As I argue in doctoral thesis, scholarly articles, and, more specifically, in my chapter in the book Design With Scent, I believe that our understanding of aroma is better mediated as a literacy that gives context and meaning than a source of novelty or amusement that appeals to the popular claims of device manufacturers and marketers. 

An emphasis on high quality materials

It is this more materially grounded understanding of scent as a tangible (although invisible) form of information and a communicative modality that can contribute to context and literacy that inspires my own approach to scent creation and its use for cultural mediation. To this end, I have developed original mixed media scents for scholarly knowledge mobilization, conference workshops, prototypes, training, and exhibits. My scents contain rare, hard to find, and unusual ingredients that are as original and truly one-of-a-kind as the artifacts or artworks they accompany. Given the high volume of natural materials in my compositions, my scent compositions require extensive stability testing of varied diluents and ratios, and attention to safe limits specific to the intended application, and careful sourcing and budgeting (particularly in the case of a very long exhibit run). Indeed, many of the materials I use do not scale for a commercial product and is thus an opportunity for an entirely unique experience that is very different than that of consumer fragrance. In the case of natural materials, these are drawn real environments (such as seaweed from the North Atlantic or fine pine absolute from Canadian trees) that bring us closer to a sense of a particular environment, person, temporal period, or object that we might not otherwise have access to. At the same time, I also make use of fine man-made molecules and bases that are sometimes more ‘realistic’ than some of their all-natural counterparts. 

Recent collaborations

In 2024, I collaborated with the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) to design, formulate, and compound four unique and historically-themed scents for the AGO’s epic Making Her Mark Exhibit, which you can read about in my interview with Foyer Magazine. I also re-developed five custom scents for the AGO’s multi-modal Art Cart scent feature, including a whiff of Elvis inspired by the gallery’s iconic Andy Warhol painting ‘Elvis I & II,’ and other custom scents I designed that were inspired by the works of Mark Rothko, James Tissot, Tom Thomson, and Gustave Caillebotte. Most recently, I collaborated with the AGO on two custom scents to accompany the exhibit David Blackwood: Myth & Legend.  Please use my Contact form to get in touch for inquiries related to my scent design practice.