Olfactive

scented christmas

gzupsich — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:22:25 +0000

Two of my favorite perfumers, Ineke and Velvet and Sweet Pea, are offering some Christmas deals on their fragrances that you should check out!

Ineke has gorgeous botanical blends from her Alphabet series and her new Anthropology Floral Curiosity line. Her sample sets are perfect stocking stuffers and great gifts for travelers.

I love Laurie’s rare historical creations. Her oils and body frostings are luxurious, guaranteed to please the hedonist in you.

scent artist Sita Bhaumik in SF

gzupsich — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 02:43:31 +0000

Tomorrow at 2pm, scent artist Sita Bhaumik will be speaking at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s Baat Cheet event. Speakers include: Pixar animator Sanjay Patel, poet and psychiatrist Ravi Chandra, artist Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, LACMA curator Julie Romain, artist Ranu Mukherjee, musician Cory Combs, India West editor Lisa Tsering, contemporary art collector Dipti Mathur, yoga instructor Monica Desai Henderson, and music and dance professor Nalini Ghuma.
http://www.asianart.org/helios/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=2492

6-9pm is Kearny Street Workshop’s Holiday Party. Asian Santa photo opp and live music by John Lum, Brandon Bigelow, Wilson Wong, and artists from RAMA.
http://kearnystreet.org/

Bhaumik’s installations at Acquired Taste show can be viewed and smelled one last time. The show will be closing this Thursday, Dec 8th at CSU Fullerton’s Begovich Gallery. http://acquiredtaste.sixpackprojects.com/wp/
Check out “To Curry Favor,” a curry powder wall (pictured above) and “Hey Sugar, Sugar,” a powdered sugar doormat.

scent art near and far

gzupsich — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:15:49 +0000

Move over Chandler, pop-up scent exhibits, gatherings and museums are proliferating like wildfire. Perfume is, undoubtedly, the most immediate scent experience for your average American. However, now more than ever, scent in general is emerging as a new artistic media.

Sephora has joined the bandwagon by coproducing a pop-up scent museum called Sensorium in NY near its flagship with the Department of the fourth Dimesion.

Sephora Sensorium – Life At First Scent & Lucid Dreams from The D4D on Vimeo.

SF new media artist Sita Bhaumik has a curry wallpaper installation until December 8, 2011 at Begovich Gallery at Cal State Fullerton.

Socal artist Lindsey Pfeiler has integrated visual and olfactive stimuli in her installation at the Merlino Gallery BFA show in Long Beach.

perfume lovers in NYC

gzupsich — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:16:01 +0000

Sniffapalooza is holding its annual Fall Ball October 22 – October 23 at Bergdorf Goodman, 754 Fifth Av, NYC. Tickets are $90 per day.

scent perception and manipulation

gzupsich — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 23:10:08 +0000

Dr. Alan Hirsch of the Smell and Taste Treatment Institute in Chicago has a mission to make the world smell better by curing one patient at a time.

Read the lovely entry on olfaction in the Encyclopedia of Perception by psychologist Dr. Richard J Stevenson, coauthor of Learning to Smell.

Gondry should go smell-o-vision

gzupsich — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 18:46:38 +0000

Michel Gondry’s upcoming film would do well to include scratch n sniff cards à la Polyester. Here’s hoping that his film adaptation of Boris Vian’s classic novel L’Ecume des jours will do justice to the ingenius pianocktail.

scratch n sniff is back

gzupsich — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:02:15 +0000

NYC has inspired a new children’s scratch n sniff adventure by Amber Jones. The title, New York, Phew York, lives little doubt that it will smell more Urine Town than Big Apple.

photo by Jerome Frazer

smell-o-vision is making a comeback

gzupsich — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:27:21 +0000

John Waters would be proud and dismayed to see a new wave of smell-0-vision with the scratch and sniff cards for the theatrical release of Spy Kids’ 4.

scent embodied

gzupsich — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:11:32 +0000

Lithuania has its own perfume. You can now wear your heritage proudly.

Pierre Lubin has concocted a perfume he believes evokes the scents most admired by Marie Antoinette.

perfume news

gzupsich — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:27:25 +0000

In San Francisco, since your food is organic and/or locally sourced, so should be your perfume. Check out the Huffington Post’s list of SF local artisanal perfumes. They did miss two of my favorite Bay Area perfumers, Parfums DelRae and Laurie Stern’s Velvet and Sweet Pea.

SF perfumer Ineke has just released a brand new collection for Anthropologie, Floral Curiosities, inspired by Ineke’s fieldwork in her own garden. My favorite is Poet’s Jasmine.

Two relative new additions that are lovely: the Different Company’s sophisticated arsenal, Bachmakoff le parfum and Comme des Garçons and Hussein Chalayan’s cocreation Airborne, a kind of perfume autobiography for Chalayan.