The Diary of a Nose Quotes

“The very essence of Hermès is earthiness, sensuality and complexity.”
― Jean-Claude Ellena, The Diary of a Nose: A Year in the Life of a Parfumeur

“I like pleasures when they are shared, that is my definition of luxury.

Appetizing but not edible. Edible smells are lazy, something appetizing is exciting. "Appetizing" is a word sufficiently evocative to be turned into a smell.

Tocqueville anticipated the fact that, in a democracy, society would tend towards unified tastes. trend may be the price we have to pay for democracy.

For Kant, beauty could exist only outside usefulness.

A people that listens to jazz is a people that favors human exchange.

Green is the only color that makes sense as a smell.

Learning a language or any other thing, means opening yourself up to the world once more; it is also a return to humility.

I envy the emotion an enthusiast experiences when he smells a perfume for the first time, using words of love that I wish I could come up with again.

In Chinese or Japanese culture, perfection exists, it is also a goal to aim for, but the aspiration isn't unattainable and isn't tainted by a sense of guilt.

I believe that the best way to develop creativity is to work alone and without evaluation, which does not mean without any dialogue. The majority of ideas are the fruit of assiduous, day-to-day work, sometimes the result of meeting people, country walks, idle strolls, things I have read, moments when my mind is free to roam. My moleskine notebook, in which I jot down ideas, words and the beginning of formulae, is always close at hand.

I experience solitude as a freedom I have chosen.”
― Jean-Claude Ellena, The Diary of a Nose: A Year in the Life of a Parfumeur

“Perfumery companies were becoming international and shifting from perfumery that had something to offer, to one that responded to demand; this globalized tastes. The rare few innovations likely to give the French market leaders something to think about came from the United States. They included the introduction of the smell of cleanliness, as well as the smell of prudishness, thanks to the widespread use of vaporizers, which were in some senses a natural consequence of prudery (a gesture made far away from the body, gadgetry substituted for the erotic).”
― Jean-Claude Ellena, The Diary of a Nose: A Year in the Life of a Parfumeur

“Pleasures, small pleasures: I like the pleasures we pilfer from everyday life, they brighten the day. They are mundane, they feel repetitive, they reassure. If we overlook them we deprive ourselves of the joys that make life bearable.”
― Jean-Claude Ellena, The Diary of a Nose: A Year in the Life of a Parfumeur