Sinclair on life: Making scents of our past and passions

By PETER SINCLAIR

Just for an afternoon, it's pretending to be spring.

I'm prepared to go along with the idea, but every now and then a blade of frozen air slices through the just-open window to remind me that it's not.

Still, the sun has all its flags and pennants flying - why do winter suns always seem more blazing than summer ones, somehow? - and it brings in the smell of new-cut grass tinctured with diesel, so that if I close my eyes I'm back at school watching someone bowl the first ball of the over.

Proust and his madeleine have a way of invading this column for some reason - well, I suppose smell is no less potent than taste, its sister-sense, although it's always been strangely underrated.

For scents, too, are drawn from the past and include those universal odours - cut grass, leather, cinnamon toast - which are the comfort smells of all our lives. Freighted with childhood memory, like comfort foods, they have the power to flash you back to a simpler, brighter, less invidious world.

After all, smell plays a crucial role in the mating game - on the internet you can even buy Pheromone Cologne, which promises to "heighten her sensual responses to a feverish pitch," although a report I read says these products smell like something from the very bottom of the laundry-basket - but hey, if that's what it takes ...

I've just been visiting the latest wildly idiosyncratic releases of perfume from Demeter Fragrances, a runaway hit on the web which boldly confronts the differential, if any, between what is heavenly "perfume" as opposed to merely crass "smell." Their conclusion: there is none.

Each fragrance is hand-blended employing "Headspace Technology," a system which breaks down the scent molecules and extracts a reproducible formula entirely faithful to the original, although sometimes you might want to make it clear you don't have a little problem when people find you reeking of grog at 10 in the morning; just explain you gave yourself one squirt too many of the "Gin & Tonic" cologne.

At Demeter you can garnish your pulse-points with - yes, do sit down by all means - "Dregs," "Paint," "Rancid," "Mildew" and, yes, "Glue": apparently more a fashion statement than a vice in today's downtown Manhattan.

For what we put on our wrists, behind our ears and in our armpits these days may more readily be found at the supermarket than the beauty counter: Ginger Ale ... Popcorn ... Lettuce ... Crème Anglaise.

Before dabbing yourself here and there with "Crust of Bread," it might be as well to recall the difference between the heavenly breath of bakeries and the dullness of buns. And ask yourself, before applying that subtle touch of "Sushi," is your partner really receptive to the clinging aroma of raw squid?

When it comes to fragrance, I suppose, all of us have our own personal favourites list, just as we do on our computers.

My friend Joy lists: the comfort of coffee (real coffee, that is); country air on a very still morning; the unique smell of steam trains; and damp bush - you can tell she's a Coaster, can't you?

What's your favourite?

Mine tend to be New Zealand-flavoured, and include manuka, apple shampoo, the wrack of a tideline after a storm and (don't laugh) the truly totemic smell of sheep manure - is there anything more nostalgic, anything which provides a sharper jolt of memory, to any Kiwi who ever even drove past a shearing shed?

But now it is getting dark and the cold air slices more keenly through the crack at the window.

Time to batten down the hatches and offer up heartfelt thanks to whoever invented the fan-heater.

But one afternoon, quite soon, I'll be able to open the window all the way, rather than just a crack, and another fragrance will come stealing though: an icy sweetness, the fragrance of spring flowers - of freesias, jonquils, violets - which we all carry with us in memory, and which are at the very top of all our lists of favourites.

* pete@ihug.co.nz