Basenotes live-tweeting from tonight's Scratch + Sniff

Can anyone remember love? Its like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never the perfume.
- Arthur Miller

Thought scent appreciation was about being able to identify notes and ingredients? Think again. With its ability to immediately trigger memories, places, people and emotions, scent is a so much more than lemon, lavendar and roses. In this Scratch+Sniff, well discover how poets have managed to find the language to describe a smell, before experiencing some of the most interesting and complex perfumes ever created; perfumes that have as much to say and are as subtle as a great painting, and that will bring to life vivid characters and concepts in your mind.


Were delighted to be joined from Cambridge University by poet and academic Dr Ian Patterson and by Dr Rowan Boyson, who is currently writing a book on Smell in the 18th Century.