Free The Diary of a Nose by Jean-Claude Ellena Page A

often stem from differences in diet, which alter body odor and therefore involuntarily create distance. When it comes to changing our own baby’s nappies, we happily delegate the task, although we may then be eager to nuzzle every fold of the warm and duly cleaned little body. Once the mashed baby food phase is over, the child’s smell will match that of the rest of the family whose diet he or she now shares.
    I’m always struck by the immutable tradition in old American films that portrays women taking a long time to prepare in the bathroom before love-making: the man lies on the bed waiting, while his partner emerges showered, smelling of nothing but perfume. Alongside this prudish example from 1950s films, I am reminded of Albert Cohen’s novel
Belle du Seigneur
, in which Ariane and Solal are determined to perpetuate the passion of their first meeting, a permanently insatiable love in which the smell of their bodies has to be mastered to express their purity.
    She said thank you, said she would think about it, that she would give her answer later, after another bath, a bath in pure water, yes, dear friend, an odorless bath, because the perfumed salts of her earlier bath smelled far too strong […] Constantly washing, shaving twice a day, always being handsome, that had been his aim in life for the last three months.
    Another memory comes to mind. Two years ago, in July, I drove some visitors through the Hautes Alpes region to see the fields of lavender and smell the clary sage. When we had reached the austere and beautiful site, some of the guests climbed swiftly back into the bus to get away from the human sweat smell of the sage that the wind was wafting into our nostrils. I myself was quite happy for these flowers to give me the smell of my own bestiality, my non-eternity, the smell of life.
    Yes, I like smells that are not so easy to talk about, the ones it is seen as indecent or even disturbing to mention. As a composerof perfumes, I delight in them and play with them. Birch-tar, castoreum, Atlas cedar, civet, cumin, indole, jasmine, labdanum, oak moss, clary sage, skatole … all are extracts and molecules that mimic or hide smells from our bodies.
    From Van Cleef & Arpels’
First to Voyage d’Hermès
, in every instance I have taken pleasure in using these elements of artifice and revelation to emphasize what is specific to each of us: our own smell.

    Cabris, whenever
    Inheritance
    I ‘met’ Edmond Roudnitska in 1966 on the day my father gave me an enchanting booklet with a cover illustration of a bouquet of flowers against a black background. The German perfumery company Dragoco had devoted its entire review,
Dragoco Report
, to Edmond Roudnitska. The title was: ‘The Young Perfume Composer and Smells.’ That year Roudnistska created
Eau Sauvage
for Christian Dior. At the time I knew his son, and it was thanks to him that, a few months later, Edmond Roudnitska invited me to his house in Cabris. I don’t remember that first meeting, except that he was friendly.
    In the late 1970s I contacted him, buoyed by my experience as a perfumer. I hoped to overcome my shyness and prove my worth during the course of our conversation. I arranged the meeting by telephone, for four o’clock in the afternoon – the time recommended by his wife Thérèse. Our conversation absolutely had to end before a particular television game show called
Des chifres et des lettres
. 4 He liked to shut himself away and join in with the game, which he carried on watching until the end of his life. So I arrived at precisely four o’clock. He opened the door to me and immediately berated me: ‘You reek of washing powder! Go and wash and come back tomorrow in clothes that have been aired.’
    I found this greeting disconcerting, but it did nothing to dampen my determination. I showed up again the next day, in the same clothes. He gave me a friendly welcome. His office was level with the garden and we had to go downstairs to get to