The invisible language

By María Laura Ortiz Chiavetta — Aroma Storyteller, Winelux Scent & Story

There is a question I am asked frequently, and one that never has a simple answer: how do you describe a perfume?

Describing a perfume is not describing an object — it is describing an experience that takes place inside the person who smells it, that changes over time, that changes with temperature, that changes with the skin of the person wearing it, and that also activates memories, emotions, and associations that are deeply personal.

The Vocabulary Problem

Smell is the only one of the five senses that lacks its own vocabulary in almost any language. Hearing has notes, timbres, harmonies. Sight has colours, shapes, perspective. Taste has sweet, sour, bitter, umami. Smell, by contrast, describes its perceptions by borrowing from all the other senses.

We say a perfume is "warm" — the temperature of touch. That it is "bright" — the light of sight. That it has "high and low notes" — musical vocabulary. We do not have words of our own. We have borrowed metaphors.

Synesthesia as a Tool

For years I have worked with a framework I call epidermery — the synesthetic analysis of fragrances. The idea is to describe perfumes not only through their olfactory notes but through what they activate in other senses: colour, vibration, texture, temperature, even sound.

When, at the Niche Show, a perfumer spoke to me about the molecule Tridecanal — present in his fragrance Mondor — and explained that its function is to make the composition feel slightly waxy, slightly velvety in the nose, I understood that he too was using synesthetic language. And when I replied that the sensation evoked a shade of aged gold for me — the matte gold of the frames in Flemish paintings — he nodded. Not because it was the "correct" description, but because it communicated something true.

The Same Molecule, Different Languages

There is a molecule that, in North America, most people associate with the smell of strawberry. The same molecule, in South Korea, is associated by most people with pineapple. The same chemical compound. Radically different perceptions.

This is not explained by differences in the olfactory apparatus. It is explained by differences in the archive of associated memories. What we smell is conditioned by what we have smelled before. This has enormous implications for anyone writing about fragrances for audiences from different cultures.

Texture as a Hidden Dimension

There are perfumes that feel light, almost airy. There are others that feel dense, occupying space in the nasal cavity in an almost solid way. There are fragrances that create a sensation of freshness without containing menthol. And there are fragrances that produce something akin to humidity.

At the show, I was told something I will never forget: in the entire world, there are only two olfactory pigments capable of evoking the physical sensation of humidity. One is petrichor — produced by geosmin, a molecule released by soil bacteria when it rains. The other is turmeric — which contains compounds capable of activating the same response. Two completely different sources. The same sensation. That is pure synesthesia.

The Pearls That Cannot Be Seen

Kajal presented Lamar Cabillon — a system of fragrance-encapsulated pearls, free from ethanol, applied directly onto the skin. When pressure breaks them, they release the scent. The first on the market to use this technology.

What interests me is not only the technical novelty but what it implies experientially. The fragrance is no longer sprayed: it is activated through touch. The body must do something for the aroma to exist. It is inverted synesthesia: first the tactile sensation of breaking something, then the sense of smell.

Describing What Has No Name

My answer, after years of working in this field, is the following: With honesty about one's own limitations. With a willingness to borrow from all the other senses without apology. With an awareness that the description says as much about the person describing as it does about what is being described.

Smell reminds us that experience always precedes language. And that language, when chosen well, can take someone back to where the experience once was.

María Laura Ortiz Chiavetta is the founder of Winelux Scent & Story and the author of Diario de Nariz.

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