Into Thin Air.(tracking down perfumes)(Travel narrative)

Byline: editor: Sarah Brown

When a perfume is discontinued, is it lost forever? Erika Kawalek goes on a journey to replace her favorite scents.

The Osmotheque perfume conservatory in Versailles, as you might expect, is a delightful place. Delightful because it is the only place in the world where the public can sniff 1,800 perfumes, including 400 parfums disparus --"disappeareds." These are nineteenth- and twentieth-century fragrances that have been discontinued because they dropped out of style, because their ingredients were banned (like real musk, from deer glands) or too costly (like real vanilla, from pods), or because a company went bust. Since ...