A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to hold a perfumery workshop at the British Museum for some of their Young Friends aged between 8 and 15. We’re big fans of the British Museum and have whiled away many hours wandering amongst their exhibits or just sitting and staring at their beautiful roof.
But for one day only, we were the exhibits! The workshop gave the Young Friends the chance to find out about the history of fragrance, how fragrance is created and the most exciting bit, creating a perfume themselves.
I kicked off the day for the 15 kids (and their parents) by talking through 3000 years of fragrance history, taking them back to ancient Egypt and up to the modern day. I entertained them with stories of civet and ambergris and then took them through the last century of classic fragrances; from Jicky all the way through to One Million! It was brilliant to watch their reactions to smelling some of the older classics, many of which they pronounced to be ‘grandma’ fragrances. Thierry Mugler’s Angel was a big hit (no surprise there) whilst all the parents hated it! We loved seeing some of the mum’s rediscovering the fragrances of their youth, mainly Charlie, Opium and Poison. Poison was also a favourite amongst the Young Friends, they loved the sweetness and the apple shaped bottle.
Our Head of Fragrance, Nathalie Vinciguerra, then took over and explained the science behind scent; from how we smell to how ‘noses’ create the fragrances that we buy! She also introduced them to the fragrance families in preparation for the final part of the day’s workshop; creating their own bespoke fragrance with the help of a lovely lady called Valentine who works at Firmenich and is helping us with our 2011 launch Fitzrovia!
We asked each Young Friend to come up with a name for their fragrance, explain the inspiration behind their scent and choose from a list of ten notes to include in their fragrance. Then in our mini laboratory, wearing protective goggles and lab coats, Valentine and Nathalie helped them to create their scents in our cute mini bottles!
Finally, they moved into the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre to create their fragrance labels and then attached ribbons around the neck of the bottle to complete their bespoke scent! They got to take their creations home with them along with a little goody bag of Penhaligon’s samples (which we suspect may be ‘looked after’ by some of the mums!). You can see more pictures of the event and the Young Friend’s creations on the British Museum’s Flickr page - definately worth a peek!
It was a brilliant day, we really enjoyed teaching them and hope we inspired some future perfumers! Some of their creations were really very good!
Do you think we should run workshops like this for grown-ups? Would you be interested in attending if we did?
Emily.
From a young child I was always able to recognise any perfume/aftershave that I came into contact with and amazed others that I was able to tell them what they were wearing. I would have loved to have been employed in the perfume industry as I feel I have a real flare but never knew where to start. I wonder if anyone could give me any tips.
Kind regards
Suzanne
Hi Suzanne
Thank you for your post. We enjoy hearing from people who sound as passionate about fragrance as we are! Did you have a specific role in the fragrance world that you would want to pursue?
Nicky
I would love to have the opportunity to do something like this.
Hey Emily, would be such a nice day huh? Congratulations!
I think this is brilliant, I would love to have a day like this and I’m 21
Aw what’s really nice about this is I guarantee you one of these kids will grow up with the fondest memories of this day… and the biggest addiction they ever had
Fantastic! As the Director of the Center for Diffusion of Perfume Knowledge in Brazil I am very happy to know that brands such as Penhaligon’s dedicates its time and efforts to educate children, bringing cultural and creative experiences to children, such as this workshop.
I have been lecturing about Perfume History in Brazil, but here somehow parents here are still concern about workshops involving fragrances and little children. (even that they can spend hours with their little ones, in a mall loaded with cheap fragrance spread all over the place!). But leaving Brazil’s misfortunes aside, I just loved to here that the children related scents to their memories, and that you guys gave them the opportunity to create their own fragrance. Who knows…one day maybe we will see a great perfumer telling her/his experience in a fancy magazine by saying that her/his first encounter with fragrances was with Penhaligon’s?? Also happy to know that moms participated and enjoyed too!!
Congratulations!!!!
It would be wonderful to have something like this in London rather than having to go all the way to Grasse!
Hello Emily, this sounds like a fantastic event and it’s great to get children interested in fragrance. Perhaps if I had ever been given a perfume lesson at school I might have been more interested in science!
I would love to attend an event like this for adults
I was such a fun day…some of the kids already had great noses! We’d love to run events like this for adults one day…just working out how we could do it! Watch this space!