The heat of the summer is over and so is the treat of scented courses. Taking the time to be a student is like sitting on the front bench of a Fragrance ‘House’.

Freshen Up The Weather with Summer Scented Classes.

When the nights are short, the days full of light and the streets filled with heat, the retreat into a quiet ‘House’ feels like a fresh heaven. This is not the typical summer house close to the beach but a space where a special art takes place. Established fragrance schools have perfected the teaching of the art of smelling and making fragrances with specific summer curriculum. Privileged students learn under the supervision of talented perfumers. The success of summer fragrance classes is such that waiting lists are usual occurrences. Actually, summer seems to be a splendid season for a fragrance indulgence; a special treat for the senses, a peaceful instant to relax, an intense moment to smell in the fresh shadow of the scorching sun.

An Indulgence for the Senses. A Fragrance Incandescence.

Attending a summer course is indeed an experience of great consequence. It enacts a radical transformation of the understanding of fragrances. One can look at a scent formulation like a concerto composition where ingredients are musical instruments. The perfumer is the scent writer who composes molecule melodies and note harmonies. A talented creator of new artistic interpretations and an experienced composer of technical formulations. Always smelling, testing, learning, perfecting. His passion is made of endurance and his performance brings together 1’000 notes in unison. The course information is the inspiration of a love declaration to perfumery; to its unique world made of complexity, mixing chemistry, memory, biology, technology, psychology, creativity, history, and artistry.

Without further ado, let’s step inside a selection of perfumery summer schools.

Back to School. Or The End of it. Let's Go Over It.

The summer has ended, and I have picked two well-known and high-end schools. I decided to stick to France as the country has so much fragrance heritage and substance. Naturally, there are other prestigious schools with summer programmes, abroad and within France. So, Grasse and Paris it will be, with Grasse Institute of Perfumery and Cinquième Sens, respectively.

Grasse Institute of Perfumery. The Birthplace of the Fragrance Industry.

As Rome is the cradle of humanity, Grasse is the capital of fragrance artistry. Back in 1724, history tells us the story of 72 craftsmen who united to create the ‘jurande’ of ‘glove makers and perfumers’. The professional corporation protected the interests of its members and pushed for the development of their business. At that time, the glove industry in Grasse was a purveyor of the Royal Courts of Europe and perfumery was an essential piece of the manufacturing process. The stench in the making of the gloves could only be removed by perfumes. This is when the farming and perfume distillation of flowers kicked off in Grasse. Today, the name of the corporation is ‘prodarome’; it counts 74 prestigious members, small producers as well as large corporations. Back in 1972 the trade union decided to create a French perfumery school and in 2002 an international school called ‘GIP’, Grasse Institute of Perfumery, in English only. Barely one year after its foundation, GIP was ready with the introduction of summer courses. There was one session only at the beginning, there are now thirteen sessions with 500 students attending in total. Each class has a two-week duration, and four teaching levels are available for the main perfumery foundation. The number of students is adapted according to the level; from a maximum of 10 for level 1 down to 6 for level 3. The course goes over the history of perfumery, its vocabulary, the study of raw materials and the expert formulation of perfumes with constant access to a class lab.

A pioneer in summer programmes, GIP undoubtedly features three invaluable specialties: first, an abundance of teachers - expert perfumers - in the vicinity; second, the unique opportunity to see surrounding farms and discover the natural fields of jasmine, lavandin (lavender), and tuberose (in the winter, Grasse would have mimosa and in the spring violet, neroli, and rose); finally, the special experience of visiting a fragrance manufacturing plant and interacting with expert scent producers.

Students are all fragrance enthusiasts, and approximately half of them intend to work in the fragrance industry, inside a company or possibly launch their own brand. 85% of the student population is female, a number in line with the industry. The school can be summed up in three ‘P’s’: professional, passion and products. There is a strong emphasis on natural products, raw ingredients grown in Grasse or a little bit further North, in Provence. The school director is intent on explaining that as Grasse is a major international trading place of raw materials, the institute is also a multi-cultural space of knowledge exchange. Students come all over the world, mainly from European countries - Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK – and the US, Australia, and finally Asia. A strong bond develops amongst pupils during the course so that it is not unusual to see tears in their eyes upon departure.

‘The school is determined to place the human experience at the heart of education’ says Alain Ferro, Headmaster of GIP.

Given the school's special partnership with a perfumery teacher in Russia, a school alumni, Russian students also come for a one-week perfume ‘pilgrimage’ to Grasse. Fragrance classes in Russia are booming with currently twelve sessions a year, thereby reconnecting with the strong perfumery tradition that existed in the country in the pre-communist time.

As the school boasts a course satisfaction percentage of 85% minimum, the ambition level reaches a new threshold and a new destination. GIP will open a new centre in Dubai in September…

Cinquième Sens in Paris. The Hot Spot to Be.

Isabelle Ferrand, olfactive evaluator and head of the fragrance school Cinquième Sens, insists on personally welcoming every new student into her house. Her ‘Kingdom of Olfaction’*, as I call it, is in a stunning location next to the Tour Eiffel and has an outstanding interior design. Even before the start of the smelling experience, one feels a good Feng shui energy with all senses in harmony. At Cinquième Sens, the duration of the summer courses varies between one and two weeks; mine lasted one week during which I achieved a top-notch smelling comprehension. The program is intense and packed with learnings, so it requires a high level of mind concentration. The course goes through the precise language of odours, key historical inventions, the various extraction methods, the smell of raw materials, the identification of naturals from synthetics, multiple chemistry formulas and codes, the usage of ingredients in perfume compositions, the different olfactive categories, basic accords and laboratory formulations. There is an important amount of time spent in the lab to formulate, to learn how to weigh and dilute raw ingredients, and to create an Eau de cologne, a rose scent, a fruity fragrance, a Fougère, an Oriental, a Chypre… each composition must be improved with a sequence of three formulations minimum. Back at home, students also can evaluate their perfume vials or ‘trials’ once the maceration has been completed. Two experienced perfumers are generously teaching and patiently providing feedback to each student. The group is small on purpose with a maximum of eight pupils to allow plenty of questions and one-on-one discussions. ‘Blind smelling’ was a particularly interesting exercise as emotions and recollections influence our identification of a scent, into a colour, a fabric, and definition of a scent category and ingredient quality. There were plenty of aha moments during the course, like finding out that age does not alter the sense of smell if the brain is constantly trained; or understanding that all perfume notes are smelled at once, it is their intensity and tenacity that differentiates them and defines them as top, heart or base. Other highlights of the training were for some students to discover alas that they are anosmic to certain molecules, such as the musk Galaxolide or Ambroxan … All in all, the course was a perfect demonstration of Isabelle Ferrand’s intention:

‘I am driven by a high ambition for perfume creation to be right; a precise composition made of coherence, high-quality and beauty’ explains Isabelle Ferrand, Founder of Cinquième Sens.

What a splendid week and awesome treat!

Hot Summers and High Perfumes' Fever Come Together.

When the summer ends and temperatures drop, learning does not stop. The thirst of knowledge is everlasting, this is how bewitching perfumery is. The senses once ignited cannot be switched off. Now that smelling has been turned from an intuitive into a professional experience, there can only be one path. There is so much learning awaiting with the never-ending smelling journey. The end goal of grasping beauty contains a sure certainty of dazzling discoveries along the itinerary.

The Ideal Summer.

https://www.cinquiemesens.com/

*https://www.essencional.com/en/posts/cinquieme-sens-its-kingdom-of-olfaction-grows-slowly-sensibly/