The Language of Scent: About Rachel Myers Moore

I’ve always been bewitched by fragrance. The honeyed sweetness of the lilacs in the way back part of the backyard, the sharp green tang after my dad cut the grass, the tiny drawers at the very top of my mom’s dresser filled with white leather gloves and small square silk scarves – my past is dotted with olfactory memories. Thus,  I’m reminded that loving perfume is not a new passion. 

As I got older, the redbud tree on the corner of N. Chauncey and Smiley Alley was my daily haven, my reading nook, my retreat. Mom would shoo me out of the house to « get some fresh air, » and I’d climb to the place where the smaller branch curved like the back of an armchair above the saddle of the trunk and I’d sit there, protected by the heart shaped leaves, immersed in the world of my book. 

When we moved to Bordeaux, France, 22 years ago, I was startled and delighted to find myself in a place where fragrance is genuinely appreciated. In contrast to the Pacific Northwest, France takes enormous delight in perfume. Perfume is part of the daily habit of choosing an outfit, of putting together the look of the day. 

In the early 2000s, blogs were suddenly everywhere. I started a « My Life in France » blog and began exploring the blogosphere where I discovered the world of perfume blogs. Perfume writers and lovers engaged in long and detailed conversations about different perfumes, perfume notes, perfume creators, perfume houses, and a wide variety of other perfume-related subjects. The blogs gave me a vocabulary for understanding perfume. 

Then I discovered a remarkable opportunity: an extraordinary intensive training program to become a nez de parfum which was offered here in Bordeaux. During this course I learned that one of the foundations for understanding how to create or construct a perfume is first to master the matières premières, the raw materials, and that the most direct way to this mastery is to build a personal vocabulary for every single material. 

My teacher would hand us each a long, narrow strip of heavy paper, one end of which had been dipped into an essence. « Come up with 5 to 10 words to describe this odor, » she would say.  

Zingy. Bright. Zesty. Vert. Pétillant. Piquant. Citrusy. Vibrant. Fresh. 

By the end of the exercise, I had a small list of vocabulary directly linked to this smell. Finally the name of the material would be revealed: yuzu essence. And thus, the next time I encountered this odor, I would naturally incline towards these words – zesty, green, bright, sparkling, tangy, zingy, vibrant – and they would gradually lead my brain towards yuzu. In other words, words themselves are key to unlocking perfume and thus I began to see a way to marry my love of language with my love of fragrance.

I love words and phrases and sentences; I love stories and books. I love poetry and harmonious prose. I love spinning a well told tale and I love constructing a curious and intriguing fragrance. I love yoking vocabulary to raw perfumery materials. I love the way verbal description can suggest fragrance. I love the way fragrance can generate a story and I love the way a story can signify a fragrance. I’m crazy about perfume and all things perfume related.

On y va …