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Friday, August 30, 2013

The Scent Museum: Smeller's Delight Part 1.

Sniffing everything under the sun in a search for something wonderful - and feeling olfactorily frustrated - has culminated in an idea for a museum to delight smellers like me.

Since I'm imagining this - I suppose the idea can be fantastic and out-of-the box - without considering feasibility.  Let's imagine you visit this museum:

The grey, stone exterior of the museum is not flashy, the only hint to the interior being a concrete walkway displaying sunken floral and herbal impressions... shadows or whispers of fragrant components.  There's a tranquil fountain, surrounded by neutrally-scented grasses and trees. 

Upon reception, you receive a necklace-contraption which works like a hummingbird's beak, but fits over your nose - and a map.  Aroma rooms are designated by origin - Floral, Wood, Herb, Spice, Fruit, Animal (or similarly appropriate classifications) and feature numerous smell-sampling stations. 

To obtain a scent, you - the sniffer, don your hummer's-beak and press it against a tiny rubber portal-spot (some conditioner bottles have these rubber seals, which open when squeezed... but in this instance, the fragrance beak penetrates the seal). 

I have also imagined the smell-sampling stations being built like mix-and-match candy bins, outfitted with magnetized lids and with vacuum and release buttons to retract or emit scents.

However you want to envision obtaining the scent... follow that idea from room to room - sniffing away at whatever intrigues you.  The idea here is that The Scent Museum is not affiliated with any certain perfumers and therefore is not promoting specific perfumers, but is instead educating the public nose and stimulating the common and collective imagination.

Even more scientifically - The Scent Museum might equip you with simple and non-invasive monitors that register your response to smells you experience during your visit - and upon journey's completion... you receive a print-out, which you can present at a mixing counter - where it is possible to purchase a completely personalized essential aroma that defines and delights you.

The Scent Museum would - at least, to me - be the fragrance-lover's equivalent of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.