Paperback Perfumes
Welcome to Paperback Perfumes! The host Clare Presser is a Librarian with a fascination for fragrances and their capacity to evokes memories and experiences through the activation of the olfactory system.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 5
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- Sep 1, 2026
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- Jul 7, 2026
Latest episodes
The Guest Book (opens the original)
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"Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains." -Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses On September 12–13, I'll be at the Geelong Fragrance Fair and to mark it, this special episode gathers voices from everyone I've interviewed on Paperback Perfumes this past year. Sixteen perfumers, founders and scholars, each paired with a book, woven into one conversation about scent, sto
Haunting Love (opens the original)
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"Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can." - Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic Aysha Hansen is an independent Australian perfumer with an uncompromising focus on exceptional quality, detail and sensorial elegance. Born in Geelong and raised in the coastal town of Torquay, Aysha's approach to perfumery is largely inspired by memories, daydreams and adven
Secular (opens the original)
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“In the secular night you wander around alone in your house. It’s Two-Thirty” - Margaret Atwood, In the Secular Night Regina Mamou is a research-based installation artist whose work sits at the crossroads of history, ideology and scent. Raised in a multiethnic household, her mother Polish-American, her father a Christian Chaldean priest who fled Iraq for fear of persecution. Regina's practice blends fact and fiction to interrogate belief systems, particularly communism and totalitarianism. Since
Diaspora (opens the original)
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“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” ― Lois Lowry, The Giver Bawo Ijirigho is the founder and creative force behind Ilé Olomu, a fragrance house rooted in West African heritage and storytelling. A great-grand nephew of 19th-century Nigerian agricultural pioneer Nana Olomu, Bawo draws on his family's legacy and a modern artistic vision to bring the spirit of Nigeria into fine perfumery, co-developing each fragrance in Zür
Mermen (opens the original)
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“There I was, a woman on the rocks by the ocean, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for the return of her lover. Everything I knew about art would say that I was a painting. I was certainly a poem. Sappho was too - her life, perhaps, unknowable, but her feelings were mine. I was mythic.” ― Melissa Broder, The Pisces April Lea is the founder, perfumer and creative force behind LVNEA, a Canadian fragrance house known for its richly layered natural perfumes. Drawing on mythology, folklore, art history a
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