The Fragrance Foundation invited Dr. Susan Schiffman, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Duke Medical Center, to make an after-luncheon speech at the Plaza Hotel one day last month. Dr. Schiffman was asked by the Fragrance Foundation to try to explain to the guests, about two hundred perfume manufacturers and suppliers, an idea that the Fragrance Foundation had come up with, the idea being “The Five Fragrance Ages and Stages of Woman: Pre-Teen, Teen, Young Adult, Middle Age, Matron.” From where we sat, this is some of what we heard Dr. Schiffman say:
“Thank you for a lovely introduction. Chemical senses are the most evolved … little bumps on your tongue … little oranges … emotional seat of the brain … a rat’s brain … tongue … taste buds … olfactory receptors … turnover every ten days … moth-eaten by the time you get to be fifty-five … for some reason, turnover every thirty days … taste and smell acuity … taste buds … olfactory receptors … olfactory … hormones … taste and smell … depressed … a weight problem … mother and father saying territory to be established … I run a weight-loss unit … area of the brain … developing cigarettes for the Arabs … smell has something to do with territoriality … territoriality … of shame among young women … the first use of fragrance may be to define … very interested in female psychology … in the thirties, more comfortable … sexuality … emotional stimulant … sexual reason … overweight women … ten million receptor cells in the olfactory system … don’t know what it is about musks that makes them, you know, so musky …”
—April 9, 1979