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Frank
has been providing air freshening for hotels, hospitals and homes
for over 20 years, but after requests from the Jorvic Viking Centre
in York for more unusual aromas, Dale Air has become famous for
the aroma of fishmarket rather than freesia and vomit rather than
violets.
Whatever
whiff you like, Frank and his team of perfumers can make it for
you. We asked Frank to tell us more about making pongs for a living...
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The
stinky Jorvick centre
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How
did you go from producing lovely air fresheners to Viking cesspit
smells?
"The Jorvick contacted Fred Dale, the company founder, and
said 'as you can do nice smells, why can't you do bad smells?' and
from there we have developed more as time and customers have requested.
First to the museum sector and then to display areas of business.
Theatres are also asking us to produce systems and aromas for them,
and we supply the Dorchester Hotel in London with a specially designed
fragrance."
What kind of scents do you make?
"We started with providing air fresheners to the Blackpool
Hotel trade and nursing homes and hospitals up and down the country.
So that uses aromas such as bouquet, lemon, pot pourri, lavender
and so on.
"For museums we have a dungeon aroma which is called Dragon's
Breath, but we also do aromas like flatulence, mustard gas, earthy,
sweaty feet, tropical forest, swamp, machine oil, train smoke and
otter poo."
What's the most popular smell?
"For air freshening it is bouquet or lemon and for museums
flatulence was the best seller last year!"
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It's
not bad smells! Lemon is one of the fresher aromas that can
be made
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How
do you go about creating a scent?
"Sometimes we can do it by the nose knowing what series of
chemicals produce the desired effect but most of the time it is
by finding out the chemical properties of the subject."
What's the strangest smell you've ever been asked to reproduce?
"Eygptian Mummy and dead body aromas I would say. Mummy aroma
is quite eerie."
What about the nastiest/nicest smell you've made for a client?
"Pencil shavings is lovely and beef is the nastiest as I am
a veggie! The other nasty I would say is a sweaty feet aroma we
made for inside a submarine at the Imperial War museum."
What
other projects have you been involved in?
"Many from all over the world! We worked on a full-sensory
guided tour of some of Egypt's best known attractions, including
the Valley of the Kings, the Temples of Karnak and diving in the
Red Sea Rivera. The surround vision, sounds and smells can be experienced
by a special headset.
"A
tricky part of the job is developing new delivery systems; it doesn't
have to be complicated, bits of drainpipe will do! We also came
up with a smell wall to keep kids entertained while they queue to
see Santa at Christmas - they press a button and a different smell
comes out.
And finally, do you automatically get blamed for any dodgy smells
that lurk round your home?
"Yes. It is normally a natural aroma and I am indeed guilty."
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