Still life

Mundane lab work

4:00

Perfumery is not always glamorous. Creativity unfolds in a nexus of mundane work practices.

Perfumery is practiced in a lab. The lab serves several functions. It is a storage space for the ingredients that are alphabetically shelved. More sensitive materials are kept in a designated refrigerator in the lab. Moreover, the lab provides specific tools and equipment (e.g.  scientific scales). As a special workplace the lab is the place for creating solutions of solid materials or weighing formulae. The lab also serves as the perfumer’s archive where modifications of completed projects are stored. All in all, the lab provides access to the world of the volatile molecules. While observing Christophe’s creative process we were surprised how often he went to the lab to reconnect to his material base. 

Leading Perfumery schools often expect a formal education in chemistry. For example, Christophe Laudamiel studied chemistry in France and eventually earned a Masters degree from MIT. Nevertheless there are other eminent perfumers who never studied chemistry: Francois Coty, Ernest Beaux, and Jean Carles, to name three titans of perfumery. Thus, the relevance of a formal education is certainly debatable. But there is no doubt that a profound understanding of chemical compounds, how they behave or react with each other is essential. At the end of the day the scent development process must follow scientific practices and comply with technical standards and procedures. Hence, this clip zooms into the mundane, less spectacular aspects of lab work. The current discussion of design thinking often reduces design practice to an immaterial, intellectual problem solving technique. In this one-sided context, a closer look at mundane lab work put renewed emphasis back into material practice.