Thomas Dunckley

of Making Sense Make Sense is sponsored by Carium. Did you know that smell is the only one of our senses that doesn't have a specific language? To talk about the smells we experience, we must borrow from our other senses, relying on the language of texture, color, sound, taste, and emotion to describe what our noses experience.

Carium's innovative AI technology puts language at the center of the user experience. Using a large language model built with vast amounts of textual data, it maps how scents are described in language, coupling this with the customer's own word associations to guide them to unexpected fragrance matches.

It's not just about AI, it's about immersive storytelling through Scent, allowing customers to see, smell and feel fragrances in a way that connects to their memories and emotions. The Scent Sommelier uses language to deliver a precise personal recommendation that feels both scientific and emotional in three easy steps. One, customers select the type of fragrance they're searching for from a choice of up to 16 fragrances from a single brand or multiple brands. Two, they tap through a series of scent and word cues and with each tap,

AI adapts. And three, the Scent Sommelier identifies their signature fragrance, all whilst the customer smells along in an interactive experience. Carium's The Scent Sommelier launched in the UK last summer and can be found in Selfridges on Oxford Street as part of the Famine counter, and also at the Richmond Fragrance Boutique, Puff on the Dance. So why not pop in and see how the language of scent and Carium's innovative AI solution can guide you to discover a new fragrant love.

Olivia, it's such a joy to have you on the podcast properly. I know that you came and you did a flyby when I was at Barnes last year and came and chatted for a minute or two. But it's really lovely to have you on the podcast to talk long form about everything olfactory though. So thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. I'm very honoured to be on your podcast.

It's an absolute pleasure to have you. Now, I know that fragrance and smell is a huge part of your life. But what I'm really curious to know is, do you remember when you first consciously thought about smell? Yes, I do, because I still think about it quite a lot. I guess as a creating scent, you always think, where did it start? And it's my grandma's bathroom.

Yeah, and there's a really kind of beautiful and distinct smells as well, aren't they? Badadas and Imperial Leather. So nice ones to carry with you. When did you first start getting into perfume? So from graduating from sort of an appreciation of smell to, oh, I like fragrances. And can you remember what the first fragrance was that you bought for yourself?

That's amazing. A 10 year old in poison. That's that's quite the tour de force. I love that. But also, I like how, you know, you were dealing with something so negative. And, you know, you would think that, you know, one sort of reaction to that is to shrink inwards. But you didn't. You almost like put that fragrance on like an armor to kind of kind of I don't know whether to repel people or just say, I don't care. You know, I'm here. Totally. I think also it was an age where.

Yeah, it's a bit of self-expression that you can own for yourself. And what I'd quite like you to do is if you could give me a list of the names of all your childhood bullies and I will track them down because how dare they do that to my good friend Olivia. I'm very angry at that. If it's any consolation, me and my brother, we also suffered the 90s bowl cut, mushroom haircut thing. And we, on the school bus, we got the nicknames. He was Bobby Bowler and I was Baby Bowler. So, I feel your pain. The

Please. Okay, fine. I will dig out some bowl cut pictures for you. Mine are worse. It was like Hiroshima on my head. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, dear. Yeah. Okay. I do empathize with you though. That's not good. So you have this love of perfume, this love of these big heavy hitting fragrances, but actually the career you start working out in is quite different from fragrance. You've worked as a buyer for brands like John Lewis and The White Company and

So you do this, you work in buying, you start doing fragrance buying, you get to understand the creative side and then also what works, what doesn't work, the attention to detail that seems to be really kind of instilled there. So when does the idea for the fragrance brand come into it? You know, you've created Olfactive O, it's such a unique brand. Where did that come from and what inspired you to do it yourself?

to explore whether it was possible. And so the idea then comes, then you create Olfactive O and it's really this partnership between you, you are the O, and then you have the Olfactive, which is your top secret perfumer, which is not really, it's not a gimmick. It's just more that he's someone who likes to be outside of the limelight, right? It's just his preference. So how did you meet and how did that partnership come together?

I was going to say, it just seems like you've met this lovely equilibrium because, you know, a lot of these things quite rightly and quite normally start as a financial transaction. It's you want a product, you need someone to make it. That's how it works. But what it sounds like is you've both seen in each other something that is kind of this like beautiful companionship in a way that helps you create beautiful things and

I suppose that allows you to be sort of a little bit more front and centre, coming up with the ideas and then setting those creative challenges for him. Do you feel that the way that you work together has changed or developed over time? Yeah, hugely. I think because at the beginning it wasn't.

Yeah. And it's that trusting your instinct as well, isn't it? Because you've got to get to a point where you feel like, do you know what? No, I know exactly what it is I want and this isn't quite hitting it or I think we've gone past it now. Let's go back. You're feeling that confidence much more now and you're that inner voice, inner nose, I suppose, in a way is kind of more forefront for you now.

Yeah, that's really interesting. I suppose maybe your brain is prioritizing other senses because you're feeling a threat, aren't you? I suppose. Yeah. And I think that's interesting. The commodity or the, I suppose, the hidden ingredient of all this is time and space, isn't it? You have to take the time to do it and the space to sit with things. So do you feel that that's something that you're more comfortable with doing now that you're feeling less like the pressure of, oh, I just want to get it done and ready? Actually, that sometimes you have to take that time.

I put so much into each fragrance. It has to be right. If you're going to do it, you have to love, you know, you have to believe this is the one. And I want to come back to this idea about making niche accessible, because I think this is something that Olfactive O does really well. And actually, the first time I ever experienced Olfactive O, I don't know if I've told you this, was back when I wasn't writing about perfume. Just very randomly, I'd left perfume completely and I got a gift hamper completely out of the blue from Harvey Nichols that I wasn't expecting.

with a load of launches in it. And it had this little bottle of olfactive O floral. And I was like, I've never heard of this brand. What is this brand? You know, I don't know this brand. And then what I liked about it was the, this, the, the clarity and simplicity of it, like this bottle that said floral on it. So I was like, okay, this is a floral. I know what that means. And then it had this little personality on it. And I can't remember specifically what the one for, for floral is, but you know, we've got gourmand here, which it just says I'm sensual, nostalgic and indulgent. I was like,

Okay, that speaks to me. That makes sense in a way that if you could give me a full list of notes or materials and I would just wouldn't get. I suppose I've got two questions. Question number one is how central to the core idea of the brand was that? Was the personality side of things? And does each fragrance start with the personality? Does it start with the name or do you just start with an idea? So those are your questions. Please answer them. Thank you. Okay.

Is that all your questions? You asked a few. Yeah, you did. You did great. 10 out of 10. Well done you. I think that's really, really interesting because you take it further beyond what's on the label on the bottle. Like you just started to describe there. You actually have a picture of a person, you know, what kind of books they read, what they're doing in the weekends. You know, you're kind of building this whole vision of them.

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