The Fragrance Foundation UK

I always loved driving into Edinburgh and entering the city’s smellspace. It’s a grand, a rich and a swaggering smell, as distinctive as bagpipes. I would like to be a dog and roll in it. The smell comes from the city’s distilleries and breweries. At one time it was so strong that breathing as you came in from the west was like inhaling a malted liqueur through your nostrils. The aroma has lessened as distilleries have shut down decade by decade. Worse was the news that the last of them, the North British Grain Distillery, was planning anti-emissions towers to kill off the smell. The distilling of whisky is to Edinburgh what the distilling of rose de mai is to Grasse: an olfactory heritage to be treasured. Lang may it reek!

I am a fragrance designer and the Founder of a fragrance line called Stories by Eliza Grace. It all started because of my grandmother. She was an extraordinary business woman and broke a lot of glass ceilings for women in her time. Sadly, I never met her but I was told she always wore Chanel NO.5 and that smell is still what connects me to her today. Fragrance has always been a way for me to connect with who I am and what matters to me, it has always evoked memories for me. So that’s the reason I wanted to create fragrance, to give people the space to stop and connect with either their past, their present or even dream for their future.

My earliest scent memories are the most powerful and visceral.  My mother’s skin in the sunshine, burying my nose in large heady blooms of rose in my Grandmother’s garden while running about barefoot.  My grandfather’s wax jacket coming in from the rain and damp, be-dewed forest floors. Also, the steamy, leather, lemony hay scent when a saddle is lifted off a horse and the sea – always the sea; briny, salt, seaweed, rich, earthy and full of mystery.

As a teenager growing up my best friend’s mum was an Avon representative, she always used to give us samples and one of them was Sweet Honesty perfume.Last year I tried to source some of this perfume alas the only place I could find it was on eBay & then only in a 10ml bottle …However when I opened the tiny box it arrived in and sprayed some on my wrist I closed my eyes & I was a teenager once again. Every now & then I take out the little bottle , spray & the memories come flooding back. I am  one of a team of  Admiral Nurses offering emotional & psychological support to Carers looking after a loved one with Dementia  so I am very aware of the powerful memories that our sense of smell can evoke. We take for granted our sense of smell but when our memories fade our sense of smell can be the trigger to re-ignite those memories.

I love the smell of old smokey pipe tobacco and peaty scotch Whisky. It transports me back to my childhood where I would spend weekends in the Scottish countryside with my dear old Grandpa.

I have a number of favourite scent memories. The smell of a fresh pot of Play-doh opening. Instant comfort! I had many happy moments making things out of Play-Doh – and that’s what led me on to making my own models. Have you ever seen those packets of model railway grass? And the bags with lichen and bark in? Those instantly take me back to long hours spent making things in our shed. One whiff and I’m there! It may be a cliché, but I can’t pass a rose bush without checking whether it has a scent. Early evening walks with the dog have us both stopping regularly! And finally – steam trains. I wouldn’t recommend inhaling too much, but I do love the smell of an old-school locomotive.

My scent memory is the woody, vanilla, sweet smell as you’re walking through the perfume markets of Saudi.

My husband and I have been married for 56 years. When we were courting we used to go camping in Cornwall. We slept in a little tent and every morning Gordon would fry eggs and bacon on a mini-stove.So my favourite scent is the smell of eggs and bacon frying – delicious! When I smell eggs and bacon cooking now it brings back so many happy memories.