The Grand Musée du Parfum opens in Paris
Paris has a new fragrance museum. It explores the history of perfumery and initiates visitors to the complex and fascinating world of scents.
A new fragrance museum in Paris
Paris is getting a new museum: the Grand Musée du Parfum. Its visitors get to find out more about the work of a perfumer and sniff 70 different selected scents in an interactive tour.
A test for the sense of smell
A visitor of the museum tests whether he can recognize the smell of certain fragrances such as musk, which is often used in perfumes, or androstenone. Half of mankind cannot perceive these two scents. The inability to perceive odor or a malfunction of the sense of smell is called anosmia.
Garden of smells
This Garden of Smells in the new Parisian museum allows visitors to sniff different everyday scents. Among them are cinnamon and wheat, as well as nut-nougat cream. This installation aims to make visitors conscious of the different odors they're exposed to daily.
Fragrant balls
Each of these 25 balls sprays a scent. After smelling it, visitors can listen to a description of the fragrance in five different languages. They'll learn, for example, that the grass vetiver is widely used in men's perfumes.
Preserving smells
How can fragrances be captured beyond memory? Headspace is the name of a technique which is the equivalent of taking a "photo" of odors. As shown above, it involves a sphere-like glass which forms an airtight seal. Gases are vacuumed into it; the data of the scents can be saved and later reproduced by a perfumer.
The first perfume of history
Kyphi is history's first recorded perfume recipe. It was invented in 1550 BC in Ancient Egypt. It contains incense, myrrh and honey. The sacred fragrance was burned to honor the gods and prevent misfortunes.
Fighting plague with perfume
This is how doctors were dressed during the plague pandemic in the Middle Ages. People tried to protect themselves against the disease with perfume. A legend said that the recipe for the fragrance was held by four thieves, who had often robbed people who had died from the plague. When they were arrested, their protective formula was found and was made available to everyone, according to the myth.
Light and sound perfume
This light installation in the exhibition symbolizes the different ingredients of a perfume. Lasers stream out prisms. Each of them represents a different scent, and there's a sound for each odor.
The smell of a rose
The scent of a rose is made up of 350 basic odors. Three of them can be smelled in the Paris perfume museum: phenylethanol, citronellol and eugenol. The Grand Musée du Parfum opens on December 16 and expects 300,000 visitors a year.