WHIFF OF POSSIBILITY

People who lose their sense of smell feel like they are behind a glass wall.

By Ben Jhoty

“Close your eyes,” says Jocelyn Fullerton, founder of boutique Sydney perfumery Cult of Scent. I’m in Fullerton’s fragrance studio in her cosy bungalow in Sydney’s Lilyfield. A warm and expressive woman with bright eyes framed by heavy, chic-looking glasses, Fullerton has opened what looks like a two-litre flask containing a scent that’s just beyond my grasp. I close my eyes and breathe in. “What colour is it?” asks Fullerton. “I don’t know, light blue?” I venture. I have an image of a bathroom in a house I used to live in by the sea. “I feel like I might have bathed in it,” I say. I open my eyes. “It’s a lavender extract,” says Fullerton. The moment she says it, the smell clicks into place in my mind. I was so close.

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