Some smells are so powerful that they have the power to influence our destinies. As they enter our lungs, they leave their mark on our soul, like indelible tattoos. For me, it was the smell of wheat that changed my life. If I hadn’t felt those yellow, ripe ears of grain as a child, I wouldn’t have become who I am today. Moreover, in my profession where everything is all about smell, there isn’t a day when the scents of my childhood don’t resurface as a surprise, taking me back to the farm where I was born, among the fields of wheat and beets of Picardy.
Every year, the start of the long holidays heralded the time of the harvest. The previous days, the hot, dry air filled with dust until it became suffocating, burning my throat and my nostrils. Before I got on my combine harvester, my father patiently waited for the humidity to be at its lowest so that the ears of grain would be thoroughly dry. But from the age of six or seven, I watched the sky with prayerful supplication for rain. As soon as the first drops fell, I rushed into the fields to witness the spectacle: touching the ground, the summer rain soaked with scents and dust, in an olfactory cloud of incredible power. I was enveloped in delight by this warm, dry and humid scent. This ritual always put me in an indescribable state of happiness. Only then could the long holidays begin.
Throughout the summer, life on the farm provided olfactory pleasures that I sought with a feverish impatience. More than the Easter eggs or Christmas presents, I awaited the scent that filled the farmyard when the hopper emptied its grain onto the silo grate, in an explosion of white dust. On the tractor, I soaked myself in the smell of straw, both rough and sweet, which dried my nose like the iris butter I didn’t yet know. In front of the rose bushes my father had given my mother one summer, I played at recognizing the scents of each rose, all different. And when I was tasked with mowing the lawn and cleaning the propeller, I eagerly sprayed myself with the smell of chlorophyll from the lawn clippings… When autumn came, the smells changed just as quickly as the landscape. My childhood memories then smell of wet earth and beet pulp, the humus that clings to my boots, the shotgun, the game and the fireplace fires. Then winter and spring would bring their own share of fragrant emotions, all of which settled in the recesses of my memory forever.
At the age of twelve, when I was finally able to drive the tractor alone, I had a real revelation: I wanted to work in perfume and continue to pursue olfactory emotions every day of my life. A few years later, with my B.Sc. in biochemistry in hand, I took the entrance exam for the Institut Supérieur International du Parfum (ISIPCA) in Versailles, where I was unfortunately rejected. But that was before the smell of wheat! During the final oral exam, I had the opportunity to talk about it with a member of the jury, Monique Schlienger. This extraordinary woman, who had founded the agency Cinquième Sens eight years earlier, had also spent her childhood on a farm and we shared our memories of harvesting, straw boots, hunting and milking. At a time when social media did not yet exist, she then set her mind on finding me and asked her hunter husband to look for my father. Fortunately, that social network worked quickly, and Monique invited me to join her at Cinquième Sens as early as October, where she introduced me to all the facets of olfactory creation. I became her technical assistant, then her partner, before taking over the reins and buying the company back in 2004…
The smells of my childhood, which guided me to the door of the company I run today, manifest themselves every day, as if to constantly remind me that it is thanks to them that I am here, in this office at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, while my brother and sister are each working on a farm in the Aisne region. A few years ago, my «flavour» of wheat even resurfaced in a flash while I was conducting an olfactory analysis for a major whisky brand. Hidden behind the maceration of barley, it emerged in a cloud of white, powdery, precious dust, like the one that marked the beginning of the holidays. A little earlier, I had already felt transported to the courtyard of the family farm while working on roasted coffee beans imported directly from Colombia and Guatemala. Focusing on crossing the black screen lit by the heat of the roasting, I discovered bright white notes, blindingly white like those of early July in the wheat fields. Another time, it was an essential oil of Vetiver that brought back my brother’s return from Canada with incredible precision. In a split second, I was in the kitchen, watching him take out of his suitcase a jar of an unknown mixture: peanut butter with the smell of straw and hazelnut. At other times, it’s smells of talc, oud wood, or iris rhizome that emerge from the past with their torrents of images and memories. I have always loved these trips through time, which helped me throughout my training to memorize an infinite number of smells, like the galbanum that projects my mother pouring fresh peas onto my private screen every time. Often, I think to myself that my profession is merely an emotional continuation of my childhood on the farm. Without this incredible sensory richness and that smell of wheat before the harvest, my life would certainly have taken a completely different direction…
