- Ordinary air fresheners used to be British firm Dale
Air's staple but nowadays it prefers a stench like Breath of a T-Rex, Roman
Soldier's Armpit, or Football Changing Room.
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- Most of the smells, or "themed aromas", it
creates are designed to enhance museum visits or call up long-lost memories.
Recreating the breath of a T-Rex for a huge model dinosaur in London's
Natural History Museum posed challenges all of their own.
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- "We spoke to palaeontologists, who gave us a description
of the dinosaur. Basically the bigger the creature the smellier they were,"
said company director Frank Knight, who is passionate about accuracy.
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- "The dinosaurs would have had open sores from fighting,
and rotting meat stuck in the gaps between their teeth. "We needed
all these features in the eventual odour," he said. T-Rex breath turned
out so accurate and so revolting, the curators instead opted for a milder
swamp smell to evoke the creature's natural habitat.
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- Requests for nasty smells come in quite a lot, requiring
some unpleasant research.
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- "I've had otter poo on my desk," said Mr Knight,
who created the odour for a zoo's nature trail, alongside the smell of
jaguar urine and rotting flesh.
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- Some jobs are easier on the nose. Dale Air has supplied
branches of British travel agent chain Lunn Poly with the scent of coconut
oil, aimed at increasing the time customers spend in their stores.
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- Roman soldier's armpit
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- Dale Air started life as an air-freshener firm. Then
founder Fred Dale, who died earlier this year, found a lucrative sideline.
He was invited to mix familiar odours from the 1920s for use in old peoples'
homes. These triggered memories and encouraged conversation among elderly
residents.
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- Mr Dale never looked back.
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- Soon museums were commissioning smells such as Dead Roman
Soldier's Armpit and Viking Loo.
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- "My mum used to say that she never knew who she
would be going to bed with - a horse, or a bear ... as the smells used
to linger on my dad's skin," said Fred's son Robert.
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- Fred Dale's favourite project was the Jorvik Centre museum
in York which opened in 1984, boasting Viking smells as its key attraction.
Authentic historical smells have since become a much copied feature.
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- Sarah Maltby, head of visitor attractions at Jorvik,
said: "Competition is such nowadays you have to think how you can
capture the imagination of your visitors, and thinking of how to capture
all the senses is one of the things you have to do."
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- Mixing potions
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- Dale Air's most expensive smell to date is frankincense,
mixed for a Queen of Sheba exhibition at the British museum. A kilo of
the scent lasting for a year cost 150 pounds ($AU392).
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- The firm's team of perfumers identified the chemical
components of the smell and mixed up a replica potion.
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- Most aromas are supplied as liquids and pumped out through
various dispensers. A new model still being tested can fill a 250-seat
theatre. Mr Knight thinks cinemas may also one day waft appropriate scents
through the auditorium, but said they should be cautious.
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- "You've got to give people choice. We don't like
forcing aromas on people - and you don't want people going to the cinema
and not knowing what they'll encounter."
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- However, people can use their sense of smell to their
advantage and there are some interesting applications.
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- The firm is testing an aroma dispenser which plugs into
a computer and is controlled from the keyboard.
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- "Say you've got help desk staff who are getting
tense and frustrated - they can press a button to get an aroma to help
calm them down," Mr Knight said.
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- Most of the firm's smells, such as the "aromas of
football" set, are for pure entertainment.
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- "Footie Pitch" smells of grass, "Trophy
Room" smells of wood polish, "Half Time" smells of pies,
and "Changing Room" smells of liniment, giving the over-zealous
football fan or club shop an authentic whiff of the beautiful game.
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- © 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200406/s1141899.htm
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