A FRAGRANCE,’ the British perfumer Roja Dove once said, ‘is like a cat burglar in your brain—it has the key with which to pick the lock and unleash your memories.’ His description is a sharp one. Our sense of smell is laden with our own pasts, to the point where we might catch a scent on the breeze—a note that’s here one second and gone the next—and be thrown back decades. The leather of a new car. Wet earth after a storm. The perfume of an ex-partner. The smoke of a peat fire.
The effects can often be powerful. It’s interesting to consider why. Each of our lives is time-stamped with different fragrances, from the sugared tang of childhood sweets
