A growing field of scent researchers is trying to preserve the world as it appears to the nose, and even recreating odors that once existed in the past.
We tend to view preservation in terms of visual and tactile material. George Washington’s childhood home, the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge — what we can see and touch, we can save. But the building blocks of culture extend to other realms of sense, and without them, our reconstruction of any place or time is limited. Perhaps the most neglected sense is smell.
Bembibre has characterized the scents of everything from furniture wax to snuff boxes, and the optimal technique varies from case to case. At this early stage in the field’s development, she says, “we’re exploring.” But all the different approaches serve one mission: “The question is, ‘How can we experience a scent authentically once the source has disappeared?’ ” she says.
The experiment shows that personal input is crucial, too. Does a scent seem musty, intense, sweet, subtle? Pleasant, or unpleasant? These responses are ranked on a scale, in an effort to quantify subjective experience. “With all that information, we can reconstruct it,” Bembibre says. “We can try to reveal that smell outside the library.”