One of the greatest strengths a fragrance has is its ability to EXPRESS the INEXPRESSIBLE. Communicating your idea, or fragrance to an other would be more vivid, have more layers of meaning, by tapping into the limbic system of the brain. Since that is where the smell of a fragrance goes directly uninhibited. This link to the brain’s emotional center makes smell a fascinating frontier in behavioral science and marketing. What speaks to the limbic system; are FEELINGS, EMOTIONS, VISIONS, COLORS, MEMORIES and the FIVE SENSES. Communicating in those areas via a story or image will engage the imagination of a person better than adjectives, such as ingredients. The limbic system has no capacity for words, they go to the cortex, the newer part of the brain. Storytelling is what we are hardwired for since the caveman days. fMRI analysis of the brain shows activity in the same region of the brain when a person is told a story and when a person experiences the same story. People relate better to stories than they do to mountains of data. The image “hits us in the gut” quicker than the written word. Kandinsky said; “the true spirit of a creation can never be created through theory, but only inspired by feeling.” One must appreciate the power of the story. Then one can EXPRESS THE INEXPRESSIBLE.

People look upon creativity as a skill or discipline, but If you look at it as a language you will be creative in all disciplines. We copy from one discipline to another through language. A fragrance can be developed from a vision, a painting, or a dress using the common language of creativity. Here the story allows one to EXPRESS THE INEXPRESSIBLE through the language of creativity. The feeling that a perfumer, evaluator, or marketing person experiences when developing a fragrance through a story is outstanding. It is EXPRESSING THE INEXPRESSIBLE.

Categories: PERSPECTIVES Philosophical Perspective

ron winnegrad

Ron Winnegrad has been a Perfumer and teacher for 46 years. As a perfumer, Ron has been able to express the world he sees through a rainbow of olfactive and emotive visions. As a teacher, Ron has helped others to see fragrance through his own multi sensorial lens.