Perfume captures the scent of 'Smelbourne' jams with the fragrance Eau D'ometer

A Victorian perfumer has summed up the smell of Melbourne’s traffic after being challenged by ABC Radio Melbourne to stop its rush hour activity.

Perfume Janelle Donnelly was asked to create the scent, named Eau D’ometer, after talking to a radio station about some of the city’s commuter scents.

Donnelly says that he likes to go overboard, but he’s never been asked to limit the essence of traffic.

“I think one of our favorite things as perfumers … is taking really left-handed concepts and turning them into fragrances,” she says.

Janelle Donnelly told an outside broadcast how she created the scent.(ABC Radio Melbourne: Zilla Gordon)

He hopes the finished product encapsulates “tears stuck in Melbourne traffic”.

“We added a little more black pepper to give it that intensity, so it would be sharper and have more of a grating effect,” says Donnelly.

The fragrance is built on geosmin, which gives the product an earthy scent that results after a rain, often referred to as petrichor.

“A different direction for us was to create the smell of heavy rain that you get here in Melbourne, especially after a heatwave,” said Donnelly.

The scent permeates with earthy undertones, like the scent after a rain.(ABC Radio Melbourne: Darcy Hodgson)

“We also included some vetiver, which is grassy.”

Ms Donnelly also managed to catch the smell of gasoline.

“That’s the wood smoke,” he said.

He adds that despite the petroleum notes, wood smoke is highly sought after in perfumes.

“It’s kind of cool to put in perfume now,” said Ms Donnelly.

Smoke from Melbourne’s rush hour traffic adds to the city’s scent.(ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser)

A city full of smells

Heritage Victoria principal archaeologist Jeremy Smith said Melbourne once smelled so bad it could be smelled by sailors at sea.

“[It] actually known as, ‘Smelbourne’,” he said.

“Kilometers out to sea, people know they are finally approaching Melbourne.”

He said Melbourne’s topography and sewage disposal made the city a target for flooding, which could cause a foul odor.

“The Werribee system doesn’t go online until late at night, so Melbourne does have a problem with waste, which was outlawed in the 1860s to try to stop people from using it,” said Smith.

This used waste was discovered in Melbourne during 2017.(Green Heritage Compliance and Research.)

Heritage Victoria curator Annie Muir said Melbourne residents had long used cologne, with perfume bottles dating back to the 1860s found in North Fitzroy homes.

“The shape is very important, as well as what’s in it, because you’re going to put it on the dresser to make it look pretty, and marketers know that too,” she says.

Forming core memory

Philosopher Daniel Teitelbaum says while smell plays a huge role in an individual’s perception of the world, it is one of the more neglected senses.

While smell is linked to memory, other senses also play a role.(Reuters: Darren Staples)

“Smells are very difficult to categorize,” he said.

“There have been lots of attempts over time to try to break down the smells into some kind of map and nothing really works.”

But Mr Teitelbaum says smell often works with other senses to help create and remember core memories.

After all, the neurons in the brain that are connected to smell receptors don’t work independently of the other senses.

“The smell acts in the background to say, ‘This is where you’ll find this memory’,” says Teitelbaum.

“The idea is that we need to understand how smell affects us so that we can better understand how we can see the world.”

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