«Good and evil, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, nice and naughty, truth and lies, the virtuous and the diabolical… In a society plagued by polarization and growing Manichaeism, neutrality and nuance struggle to find their place. Smells are no exception: Something either smells good or bad, the two categories often being the only alternatives when it comes to describing what we smell. Strangely, in this register, aversion seems to yield a much broader lexical field than inclination.A glance at the thesaurus teaches us that, compared to the few expressions for smelling good – fragrancy, redolence, bouquet – a multitude of words such as stink, stench, pong, reek, funky, skanky, fetid, malodorous, rank, foul, smelly, ripe, noxious, noisome, nauseating, pestilential or mephitic allow us to be much more expressive when it comes to articulating our olfactory disapproval.
In the vocabulary of smell, is expressing beauty, goodness and pleasantness less useful to our survival? Or are we simply insufficiently trained to explore this range of intimate feelings with subtlety, more readily allowing a visceral rejection to burst forth, because it is instinctive and uncontrolled?
When we benefit from an olfactory education, on the other hand, our nose gradually emerges from the usual dichotomy to take on a more benevolent, analytical and less impulsive role as an observer. We thus bypass the primitive functioning of our brain to better understand this invisible, seemingly inaccessible universe. What if learning to listen more closely to smells in order to discern their facets, their reasons for being, the information they convey, was already a way of fighting, on our own scale, against the bipolarization of the world?» - Jeanne Doré (Editor in Chief of Nez)
EDITORIAL
by Jeanne Doré
THE NOSE OF WOOD
by Éléonore de Bonneval, illustrated by Morgane Fadanelli
ICONS
People with a keen sense of smell
ODORAMA
Everything you always wanted to know about smells but were afraid to ask.
MOLECULES
Trimeginal molecules
HERBARIUM
The mock orange wreath
DISSECTION
The flea market
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Biotechnology
CORRESPONDENCES
Invisible yet unavoidable, scents accompany all fields of creation.
THE WRITER
Gabriel García Márquez
OLFACTORY PORTFOLIO
Fragrances in Cinemascope
THE CHILLI PRODUCER
Pierre Gayet
THE ARTIST
Jónsi
THE WORK
Portrait of Marjorie Ferry
OLFACTORY CHRONICLE
Opposites
MAGAZINE
REPORT
A white gold called incense
INTERVIEW
Bertrand Duchaufour
WORLD PERFUMERY
German perfumery
DOSSIER
GOOD AND EVIL
PERFUME NOTEBOOK
SURVEY
TikTok: a tsunami in perfumery
GENEALOGY
Flower by Kenzo
BRAND PORTRAIT
Anatole Lebreton
SELECTION
Favourites & new releases
MAINSTREAM
What's new on my doorstep?
1+1
Ansongo, behind the scenes of a creation
OPINION PIECE
Skin theft
