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Scent and sensibility

If you think you need J-Lo's exposure, or Britney's bank account to create your own signature scent, think again. In the sleepy old English village of Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds lies a small family owned perfumery which runs unique one day courses on the art of perfume making. Travel Editor, Clare Spurrell, went to find out more

I have picked up various maladies on my travels in places like India or Bolivia, so was pretty surprised to leave this small, manicured little village in the Cotswolds with yet another to add to the list - this time 'olfactory exhaustion' - or nasal fatigue - a common complaint amongst perfumers learning the trade, as I was to discover.

I was visiting the Cotswolds Perfumery, which for the last three years has been running one-day courses on how to make your very own scent, run by proprietor John Stephen - in-house perfumer and expert 'nose'.

The day starts at 9.15 and runs until around 4pm, with small groups of no more than ten people maximum. The day begins with a light introduction to your nose - to whom I discovered I was almost a complete stranger.

John taught us to separate our sense of smell from our other senses and previous knowledge. This was done with a short walk around his perfume gardens at the back of the perfumery, where we were asked to smell various herbs and flowers before describing them using words such as 'woody, green, lemony, aniseed'. In doing so we started to improve our 'scent memory'.

In much the same way a connoisseur pinpoints grapes and vintage, an expert perfumer uses his or her scent memory to isolate the various scents, or 'notes', that make up a specific perfume. But beware, saturate your nose with too much smelling and it will easily tire, increasing your risk to olfactory exhaustion - a condition that temporarily effects your smelling abilities, with obvious consequences to the final scent you are hoping to achieve.

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