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About Me 

Max Oppenheim for Wired 

I'm a producer, consultant and author inviting as many people as possible to switch onto their sense of smell.

I love coming up with interesting ways companies and individuals can be creative and strategic by using their noses, whether helping innovation teams to develop scent for a new product, working with brands to offer memorable experiences, or bringing a museum collection to life. I'm always interested in unusual and daring projects, so get in touch if you'd like to discuss an idea.

I’ve hosted hundreds of events and collaborate with varied institutions and companies including Unilever, Somerset House, COS, The Tate, The Body Shop, Aesop, Ruinart Champagne, Britvic, London College of Fashion and The Royal Institution. 

How did I get into this wonderland of scent? In 2010, a longtime perfume fan with too many bottles of fragrance, I was wondering why there were no live events about my favourite subject. Deciding to do it myself, I started hosting a regular evening in London called Scratch+Sniff.

The idea: come along, smell interesting scents and learn more about them in a way that is totally unconventional. There are events that get us looking up at the night sky and breathing in the smells of an interstellar dust cloud. Others invite you to paint a smell, to taste perfumes with wine or chocolate, or to experience lost aromatic rituals from Ancient Greece. 

The more I explore scent the more I realise that a subject often perceived as niche actually has widespread appeal. 

We all use fragranced products all day every day without even noticing -  from humble washing detergent to the latest perfume. Scent is an important part of our sense of self. It is fundamental in our relationships with people, environments and products. Its role is ever-changing, in step with the wider social and cultural context - something I delved into when writing the book Perfume: A Century of Scents

I frequently write about olfaction for the national press, and have a regular perfume column for The Pool. I often speak about smell in broadcast media from an historical and consumer point of view. 
 

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