Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance

Dates

April 11 – November 21, 2010

Tickets

Admission to Making Scents is free with Longwood Gardens admission. To pre-purchase tickets, click here.

The Experience

Longwood Gardens presents its first major exhibition, Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance, on view from April 10 through November 21, 2010. An intersection of flora, fashion and science, the exhibition transforms the Gardens’ gem-like Conservatory into a museum for the senses.

Experience the actual plants and flowers behind iconic perfumes, explore the mysterious power of the sense of smell, discover the unique combination of creative artistry and intricate science behind perfume composition, and have the opportunity to compose a basic fragrance at the “Make Your Own Fragrance” stations located in the Music Room.

The exhibition is divided into four major sections: “Into a Fragrant World;” “The Art of Perfume & Fragrant Gardens;” “The Science of Fragrance;” and “Your Fragrant Garden.” Longwood’s conservatory and gardens will overflow with nature’s fragrant plants and flowers and, as a focal point, an 18-foot tall sculptural trellis in the shape of a perfume bottle has been specially crafted. The exhibition will continue to engage the senses throughout the grounds of Longwood Gardens with outdoor plantings for visitors to see, touch and smell.

Plants and Flowers

More than 260 different Genera of aromatic plants and flowers have been added specifically for the exhibition, joining more than 5,500 types of plants from around the world already housed in the historic conservatory.

Throughout the exhibition, the changing seasons will offer you diverse garden scents and visual delights. In spring, you’ll experience lilacs, lilies, and narcissus. Summertime brings the delicate scent of roses, scented geraniums, lavender, and Brugmansias to the fore. During fall you’ll celebrate sage, mint, lemon, rosemary and Senna didymobotrya, or “Popcorn Cassia,” known for its popcorn-like smell. In early winter as the exhibition nears its end, you’ll take in the scents of the sweet, pungent aroma of paperwhites, contrasted with the woodsy scent of pine, juniper and fir.

Creating Perfume

Perfumes are crafted from floral and other natural ingredients by artists, whose disciplined sense of smell guides their vibrant imaginations. The perfumer begins with an idea and calls upon a mental inventory of thousands of distinct aromatic notes, mentally mixing plant, animal and synthetic ingredients.

Making Scents: The Art and Passion of Fragrance will showcase the technical processes behind perfume creation, from traditional harvest and extraction methods to chemical combinations of synthetic fragrances.

The exhibition will also trace key moments in the history of perfume, beginning with the earliest recorded Egyptian scent around 1800 B.C.E. and culminating with Coco Chanel’s release of No. 5 in 1921, the first perfume for the modern woman.