My name is Alessandra, I’m an Italian student at Ecole Supérieure du parfum in Paris and I will end my studies next year.
My passion for scents dated a long time ago, but my path through this magical and fashioned world has been windy.
Before starting my studies in perfumery I did a bachelor in philosophical studies and I worked on my thesis on the aesthetic of perfume, in which I talked about smell perception.
I am passionate about scents and how they can affect our daily life. I'm interested in raw materials and their sourcing, aromatherapy, yoga, meditation and arts.
In the future I would love to become a perfumer because I think that scents can recreate histories, emotions and memories. I think they are the ones that truly move people.
My experience at Mediamatic was enriching and inspiring. I discovered another approach to perfume. In fact, thanks to Mediamatic I realised that smells are very important in everyday life, and it happens that perfumery school focuses more on good scent and perfume rather than smells themselves.
During my experience I had the chance to research on several themes related to the sense of smell. For instance, I figured out that military strategies employ bad smells as war weapons, or that Egyptians exploited kyphi as a way to reach their gods. These works and the experimentations I conducted enriched and changed my way of looking at the perfume world. I was enthusiastic to discover that a different reality does exist outside the perfumery world.
This reality is concerned in promoting an olfactory and artistic culture rather than in the mere marketing-led act of selling products. Working with Frank and Niklaus, two olfactory artists and perfumer designers, have opened me a new perspective.
Mediamatic allows you to experiment and carry on your ideas and projects. During my stay I formulated a lot and I experimented also with the ExOil tech machine.
Furthermore, I assisted every week at the open aroma lab, an event in which I guided and helped the client throughout the blending process. By assisting the client in the formulation process I developed my listening skills, learnt how to meet their demands, and increased my creativity in the formulation process.
Moreover, I assisted the incense workshop and learnt how to produce incense. This new way to make perfume inspired and pushed me to research more on this ancient technique, and I ended up making my own recipe of kyphi(Ancient Egypt and the culture of perfume. ).
Aromalab team and Mediamatic are a very creative, stimulating and friendly environment. There you can express your ideas and experiment different ways to deal with perfume and smells and enrich your olfactory sensibility and culture every step on the way!
Alessandra serves staff lunch - Photo by Elise Chalcraft
