Nicolas V

I was told my message was too long, so here's part 2! Using your sense of smell. Make an effort to smell stuff. When you go shopping open the bottles of shampoo and fab con, even the toilet cleaner! When you go out, smell the flowers and plants. Make a determined effort to be aware of the smells surrounding you. The more you do something the better you become at doing it. Smell is a wonderful sense and improves life's pleasure.

David

Thank you so much for your kind words, and thank you also for some very interesting points. I don't think that there is a simple answer to why fragrances aren't as they were in the "good old days". Seems to me that the attitude towards fragrance has changed; perfume is no longer special, it is rare for someone to have just one signature scent. The whole business has become much more commercial and the perfume producers no longer wish to take risks. It took over two years for Opium to be developed, but I doubt if it would be launched at all today, far too risky. Of course the majority of fragrances will fail, and so the ones that are left and have survived the decades are by definition the greats. Unfortunately we have far fewer materials to use for a variety of reasons, even though there are some wonderful synthetics which were not available in the past; the ones I want to use for the Basenotes fragrance.

Regards,

David