Perfect Scents

The French nose is universally esteemed for it's discerning sensibilities. "And usually, the longer the nose, the better the sniffer", says Vetrinarian Dr. Brian Janke, referring to a dogs nose.
From my old wine class notes: When you sniff a wine and savor its aromas, you are in fact sampling from the 'invisible soup' of substances that float around in the headspace of the wineglass...
The human nose can smell about 300 aromas, whereas the tastebuds only taste 4 or 5 flavors...
A dog’s olfactory bulbs are 4 times larger than ours -it’s estimated that dogs can identify smells somewhere between 1,000 to 10,000 times better than humans can, so imagine how refined the French dog's nose must be! But I digress..anticipation of next week's Westminster Kennel Club show is taking over my brain.
Back to perfect scents. If imagining the smell of French bread is enough to get you on an airplane for an uncomfortable 7-8 hours, think of the effect on the French dog?
Bella at Poilâne , original watercolor, 9" x 11"

It must drive them bonkers.
French chocolate...ah the smell of it. No other chocolate comes close in my biased opinion and it drives me bonkers. The Salon du Chocolat is instant immersion in one big soup bowl of it - no need to actually eat the stuff.
The smell of French hot chocolate with all the visual embellishments (here at Carette).

A perfect bouquet of roses from au Nom de la rose...can you smell them?
Certainly the perfume's container should be in harmony with it's contents.

Did you know that wiff of scent you catch as someone walzes by is called the perfume's "sillage" -from Chandler Burr's The Perfect Scent.

When I heard the sad news of the death of Alexander McQueen yesterday, I wondered about his perfume. It was called Kingdom. There is more here. I always loved his twirling girl who gets paint thrown at her...BONJOUR VALENTINES!