Preserving Olfactory Memory

Perfumes can be preserved for long periods of time when kept from light and oxygen, and ambient odors can often be analyzed and distilled into a chemical formula, which can be re-created synthetically by a skilled perfumer.

A pioneer of this approach is Roman Kaiser, a Swiss fragrance chemist who developed a technology called “headspace” in the 1970s that made it possible to capture and analyze the scent given off by flowers and other objects. Using a glass container, a pump, and a sampling trap that gathers molecules using a solvent or coated surface, the system allows a chemist or perfumer to gather the volatile scent molecules exuded by an object without harming it. In 1995, Kaiser read a book called “Vanishing Flora” that contained beautiful, detailed illustrations of rare and endangered plants, and had an idea: He convinced his employer, Givaudan, the world’s largest flavor and fragrance company, to let him embark on an olfactory version of the project.

Over the past 10 years, Kaiser has traveled the globe to capture the scents of hundreds of rare and endangered plants. His recently published book, “Scent of the Vanishing Flora,” contains lists of chemicals representing the formula for each plant’s scent, and he has also reconstituted many of these fragrances synthetically. His main purpose was to show people the olfactory beauty in nature, but it also has scientific value: A plant’s scent is an important component of its evolution and ecology. “These are documents,” Kaiser says, “so you would be able in 200 years to re-create these scents when all these plants do not exist any more.”

- via Q3D. May be someday, odor from Max's wet nose can be "recreated" as well...