As the semester winds down, many students begin to realize how fast time goes by. Outings with friends and late-night study sessions eventually turn into memories. Surrounded by a signature fragrance and paper cranes, students explored this idea of impermanence in the University Teaching Center basement on Wednesday night at the Official Pulse Club’s scent exhibition.
Tracy Min, club president and economics senior, said she became interested in perfumes as a young child and felt surprised UT didn’t offer any clubs focused on perfumes.
“I feel like people don’t really focus on scent … compared to other (visuals) or hearing because people like music, they like art, they like to watch a movie. … I feel like people (focus less) on the smelly part,” Min said. “I thought it’s gonna be really cool (for) people who don’t even care about perfume to join our club and see.”
The club holds general meetings once a month and invites students to experiment with fragrances. Students mix fragrance oils in some meetings while also learning perfume basics, like distinguishing between top and base notes.
“If someone had zero knowledge or even interest in the fragrance (organization), they could still come out and make their own fragrance,” said Austin Le, perfumer team member and biology and nutrition senior. “(They can) be as creative as they want to (and) make whatever they want.”
Official Pulse Club’s biggest event, the semester scent exhibition, utilized an overarching theme conceptualized to create a signature fragrance. This fall, the club chose impermanence.
“I wanted to do storytelling with our perfume. … You can actually connect scents to other senses,” Min said. “You can see it, you can hear it, and I want people to experience the fullness of perfume.”
Over the course of the semester, the perfumer team brainstormed base ideas for the scent. From there, members add and subtract different notes, adjusting the concentrations of oils in order to achieve the perfect scent.
“(We go) through six to 10 essential oils for one fragrance and throughout most of the weeks we tweak it,” Le said. “Most of the time, we don’t really finish until right up until (the exhibition) because we are trying to perfect it.”
This year, the scent of impermanence honed an earthy black tea and honey base, giving way to sweeter notes of clove and bergamot.
“A big part of perfume is that when you first smell it, it smells one way, but that fades and that changes,” said Margaret Johnson, a member and classical languages sophomore. “I thought that was super cool that they wanted to feed into this idea that it might not be permanent. … It’s important to actually experience something because of your memory of how it actually exists.”
Min said Official Pulse Club continues to provide a space for future and current perfume enthusiasts, offering a creative outlet for students to try something new and discover a unique hobby.
“We want to provide a place that’s really comfortable to everyone and also accessible,” Min said. “Because when we think about perfume, … people think it’s something they cannot approach really easily. We just want to make perfumes and scents more accessible to everyone.”
