Macdonald Hastings is in South Ruislip to see some “career noses” at work. They belong to the prodigiously gifted staff at the Smells Factory.
These savants of scents offer a sharper analysis and nuance than chemical testing of odours. They can synthesise any smell you should desire – from cheap knock-off perfumes to making plastic car seats smell of leather.
To help them, they have 1,200 bottles, each containing a different basic smell, and then 12,909 further bottles of various mixtures of the basic smells.
But can a human really have such a refined nose? Macdonald puts a couple of staff through their paces identifying his own crafty concoction.
Clip taken from Tonight: Smells, originally broadcast on BBC Television, Thursday 12 September, 1963.
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I sometimes wish I could switch on and off my ability to smell: Seven o clock in the morning, on the number 72 bus, packed with people who've never heard of soap and toothpaste.
Good heavens. He had to use his nose for a living and he smoked!
Ah, madam with her perfumed candles 😆
This wouldn't look out of place as a Harry Enfield sketch.
That explains why all the copies of French Perfume smell like Tobacco then.
Producing televisual entertainment out of middle-aged gentlemen discussing various scents, using their technical language..?
Oh, who nose, it might catch on.
There’s another smell known to mankind, usually after eating beans and Indian cuisine, etc. Doesn’t require a factory but an air freshener.
I think I was born upside down.
My nose runs and my feet smell.
Can you guys upload the full episodes instead of just clips
Plastic that smells like leather😂😂😂
Is that alcohol? – Don't look, Ethyl!".
i wonder if any of them ever got to smell bromine
Manmade climate change ruined all this.
This is a hoot! And it is so refreshing to see someone smoking in it, too. I do believe, however, that the man's cigarette smoke might well have interfered with his ability to smell delicate perfumes. 🙂