Back in February 2023, I wrote a post about my donation of a 1960s bottle of Madame Rochas to Mike O'Shaughnessy, a senior lecturer in Graphic Design and Illustration at John Moores University, who is also passionate about fragrance. He added it to his collection of vintage perfume to use in workshops with inmates as an olfactory trigger of memories of their past, encouraging them to write stories or draw pictures evoked by the scents. I am a firm believer that rehabilitation is a necessary component of prison life, and salute Mike for coming up with such a novel and engaging initiative.
Madame Rochas does time...travelling, as the Perfume Stories workshops go "inside"
Out of the blue Mike DM-ed me the other day with a link to a recent article by The Guardian's North of England correspondent, Hannah Al-Othman, about his scent project, which is happily still going strong, and I thought to share it here.
Liverpool academic's scent workshops help prisoners remember their past
It looks like the project has really taken off since I last talked to Mike two years ago: he has trained prison staff to deliver the workshops now, for example, and while they are still part of English lessons in most prisons, they have been rolled out to other courses in HMP Holme House in Stockton-on-Tees, namely hospitality, business studies and barbering. Also, a company called Carvansons has since come on board, creating bespoke scents in response to requests from offenders who wish to capture a particular scent from their childhood, say.
I am not sure whether Madame Rochas has done her time now, and the scent collection is completely different these days, in which case she may be released back into my custody one day...;)
